Google Penguin & Article Directories

[austtr]

Do we know if Google treats links placed in articles that appear in article directories (eg EZine Articles) as being self awarded (ie manipulative) and therefore subject to a Penguin penalty?

Back in 2008 I wrote 13 unique, 500 word plus articles with keyword links in the Resources block pointing back to either home pages or money pages of sites that were subsequently hit by Penguin algo updates (no manual penalties).

I've recently de-optimised the anchor text of those links but I'm wondering if I should just delete the articles altogether? I'd like to keep them as they are genuine sources of well researched information, but if Penguin is engaging in a slash and burn exercise involving the links appearing in article directories, then surely the articles have become a self-inflicted wound.

Comments/experiences to share?

[Planet13]

From what you describe to me, they sound like Penguin Chow.

I am fairly convinced that ANYTHING on ezine articles is most likely a candidate for Penguin.

In a BEST CASE scenario, google simply ignores those links.

In a worse case scenario, you are affected by Penguin.

If the articles are good, maybe it is time to put them on your own site?

[goodroi]

If the articles are good, maybe it is time to put them on your own site?

Agreed.

Another option is to look around for a relevant trade association website and give them the articles but I would only give content to relevant websites that have a good chance of sending me real converting traffic.

[netmeg]

Do they send you any useful traffic? If not, then I'd just publish them on your own site and delete them on the article site.

[Planet13]

One more thing...

"Back in 2008 I wrote 13 unique, 500 word plus articles with keyword links in the Resources block pointing back to either home pages or money pages of sites that were subsequently hit by Penguin algo updates (no manual penalties). "

So it sounds like the links point to your client's sites instead of your own sites. Is that correct?

If I were one of those clients, I would DEMAND that the links be removed.

[austtr]

So it sounds like the links point to your client's sites instead of your own sites. Is that correct?

Not correct.... links are to my sites only.

I'd been considering moving the articles to my own sites as you have all recommended, but I was concerned about the issue of duplicate content.

Over the years my article content has made its way onto blogs and assorted other sites. If I delete the original articles, won't I lose my "proof of originator status", thereby allowing that to pass to one of the sites that picked up the article?

If that is what happens, won't the regurgitated articles on my site become the "duplicate content" purely because of the chronological order of events.

[Planet13]

Hmm... could be. hadn't thought of that.

[Shepherd]

pick·le
noun (informal)
1. This situation.
"austtr is in a pickle."

Sounds like a no-win situation. My first thought is: Are you getting any traffic from ezine? My guess is NO. If not, I think I would:
1. remove the articles from ezine
2. re-write the articles
3. post the re-written articles on my site
4. do a fetch as gbot of the re-written articles on my site
5. search for text from the old articles to find sites that used them from ezine to get a list of all those sites
6. dissavow those sites.

[vandelayweb]

Yes I'm thinking duplicate content would be an issue here with you posting them to your site. If they've been thrown to the wind, you basically become another hoster of that content even if you were the original author.

My suggestion would be to write a new article updated for 2014. You can outline some of the themes of the original, but do additional research and flesh them out to be even better articles.

As far as the links go, disavow them as mentioned or try for link removal. 404ing or noindexing the landing page on your site is an option as well.

[linkbuildr]

How in this day and age have you not look at Google's link schemes?

[support.google.com...]

[aristotle]

I've recently de-optimised the anchor text of those links

If you have the freedom to edit these articles, why not just change the links to point at one of your competitors sites? Then Google might transfer the penalty to that site :)

[MarieHaynes]

We don't know for sure that Penguin specifically looks at exact match anchor text. I see a lot of people who want to clean up their backlink profile by going over all of their external links and changing their exact match anchors to urls or random phrases. But, I really can't imagine that the Penguin algorithm would look at that link and say, "Ah, we used to think that was a link that was made in order to manipulate the search results and now it looks like a naturally earned one."

Links from article directories are self made and are not natural votes. I would doubt very highly if these links could help you in any way, but there's a very good chance that they could hurt you.

I'd remove them.