Huy guys and gals - can you all tell me your opinion. Is writing and submitting articles to hundreds of article directories a waste of time? I have been writng a few travel articles and submitting them to try to boost my visitors and backlinks but now seem to have got into problems with Google supplemental results even some new original content I have written for my site (and not published elsewhere) has been dumped into the supplementals. I have studied some of the people who submit hundreds of articles (top authors on the article sites) to hundreds of sites (they must use some submission software as they have tens of thousands of articles published)and I have checked the backlinks to their websites and they don't seem to have any (or at least very few), so what are all those articles achieving? I am now writing separate articles for submitting and considering only posting them on one top site so at least I get one decent link, but then of course others use the article and it becomes duplicate content once again.

No, it helps, gives you bulk amount of backlinks by that

No, it helps, gives you bulk amount of backlinks by that

Not to put too fine a point on this, but Quantity of links is irrelevant today. It's the QUALITY of each link that matters.

When will folks realize this?

As for submitting articles, well, I've never put any value in it. I write stuff for my own websites and grow my own presence in that manner.

I do write some freelance stuff for a couple of magazines, but that's different, and when I post the article on my own website it's still unique content online.

If the article sites are getting crawled before your own site they might be getting attributed as the originator of the content you posted and you're getting labeled as dupe.

It's something you need to be very careful of when sharing content around.

Another thing to watch is that many of the big article websites are starting to be seen as link farms. There are so many people submitting and so many outgoing links that the engines devalue any link from that domain - and if that's all you have pointing at your own website, well, bad link neighbors can hurt you sometimes. (not because they're linking to you, but because they're the only links you might have...)

I saw avoid the article submission route and concentrate on building your own website and it's readership. Though this approach assumes you WANT to grow your website, and that it's not about soemthing else, like gaining exposure as an author.

If that's the case, well, having articles posted online only carries any weight if the website is a brand name - USA Today, NY Times, etc. If you approach a magazine about submitting an article and try to back it up by saying you've had loads of articles published at www.whateverdomain.com, the Editor won't take you seriously.

Some good points there SportsGuy - words of wisdom as always. I have lately been submitting unique articles to each directory (and only page rank 4 or above) and this seems to be working better. Have just managed to get my home page on Google page one for my main keyword. None of the current articles are showing as supplemental yet. Are links from supplementals worthless?

Hi!
Article submission is one of the useful or helpful technique.

If you can do it fast (less than 4 hours) or get someone else to do it for cheap ($50 or less for 300+ submissions) then it is worth doing. But don't expect amazing results, but it will definately help your site a little bit.

Article submission will get good quality backlinks, but the quality depends upon the article content and where the article is submitted

Article submission is helpful for quality backlinks,but all depends on the content of article and where you are submitting this article. so submit article to good Article directory so that you can get backlinks.

Article submission can help to get visitors for site and also count as a back links so i would suggest you to submit good quality article to different article directories.

My question is:

as a web site owner is it OK for me to publish articles on my site that other writers submit to me? Of course giving their web site credit ( link back ) and staying within the writers guidelines etc.

Also if the writer posts a link back to my site ( which is not required ) is that OK as long as it is content related?

Much Appreciated,
Beth

Hi,

Article submission still works but the technique has changed. Submit only to article newsgroups and the top ten directories. Then write original articles for e-zines that have a large subscriber base of your target audience.

Bonnie

It helps in increase of back links.

no not at all, just submit good article and your article will be i every search engine

Advice to post articles on article farming sites works on the shakey premise that the farm has a good standing with the search engines. That is very rarely the case.

In fact, Very few article farms figure in the search engine results, and even if yours does, it's unlikely to help your article much, and even less likely to help your link to your site.

Additionally, few article directories get many human visitors, so the number of direct referrals will be small.

Your article will help the article farmer of course.

Remember Quadrille's Oft-Quoted 18th Law:

Article Farming Helps the Farmer More Than the Turkey

These laws just get better and better. That one is just so true.

Many people have abused the use of Article Submission as a means of linkbuilding. If you want to continue with Article Submission, choose a quality article submission site like Amazines, EzineArticles, etc.

If one analyses the replies in this post, it is simple to see that the majority of posters think that article submission is a good way of manipulating PR.

Google's employees read these posts (and many hundreds of other forums)and report back accordingly.

Attempting to manipulate PR is frowned upon by Google and the algorithm will be modified to counteract the increase in back links from the vast majority of the article farms.

No it's Very helpful and it gets more back links and more traffic to your site.

[ Message was edited by: g1smd 07/30/2008 01:16 pm ... Reason: Lame Link Drop Removed as per Terms of Service. ]

It's old hat I'm afraid, unless you can get a link credit from a highly respected site.

If it gets traffic to the site, then it has great merit, but if it is used purely to increase link count it can easily end in tears.

This whole scheme was pounced on as an answer to Google devaluing reciprocal links. Article farms have rapidly gone the same way as FFA sites did before them.

Great care needs to be exercised when trying to accrue inbound links.