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Are article directories good for SEO?

February 18, 2008

One of the main tenets of search engine optimisation (SEO) is to get other sites to link to your site. But I cannot stress highly enough that those links must come from reputable sites and be relevant. Acquiring links from any old source just to build up quantity simply won’t do; they may actually harm your ranking. But getting good quality links is easier said than done.

Submitting articles to sites such as E-zine Articles has long been touted as a fairly easy and safe way to build links. You include a link back to your site in the author bio and, once published, your article can get syndicated out all over the place, thereby spreading the link far and wide. But that avenue is beginning to look a little tarnished. The search engines are wising up to it and perceived wisdom has it that these links are not going add much value.

But what about all those third party sites that will republish the article? Many of them will remove the backlink, so no SEO value there. Others will be of low or dubious quality, thus passing no value to the backlink. Some, of course, may be reputable but reputable sites will only want articles of the highest quality and interest.

In short, your article will end up as fodder for the blogs that have no real content of their own and just regurgitate the writings of other people. You become embroiled in the murky process of offering easy content for easy links. How long before this is deemed to be just another form of spam?

And to cap it all, the article may incur a duplicate content penalty and only be indexed by the search engine once.

Having said all that, there are many website owners who have enjoyed a good deal of success with article submission and will swear by it.

So is it worth it? Maybe it used to be, but probably not any more.

A few words of advice. Never, ever pay for a submission service or software that claims to do it for you. If you do submit articles to directories or other third parties, don’t publish the same article on your own site. You don’t want your site to be the one that incurs a duplicate content penalty. Make a few changes to the wording.

Now, consider this. The search engines may lot be too enamoured with the article directories, but they are very partial to blogs. So if you’ve got something interesting to say why not blog it? Sure, it’s harder to acquire quick links, but in the long term blogging is a more credible way to build your reputation and get your message out there. The links that you do acquire will be from other bloggers and carry weight.

And finally, yes I have submitted a few articles in the past, but I think I’ve just talked myself out of doing any more.