I have read and been told many things about article directories and I was always cautious about using this as a form of marketing. However in the past 3 months, I have learnt some interesting stuff that I would like to share with DP members although I may stand to be corrected on certain points. 1. Articles submitted to articles directories should be unique. Many article submission software use the same article to submit to 300 or 400 article directories. Apparently this is frowned upon. Google indexes the first article it picks up and does not index the same article on other directories as it sees it as duplicate content. 2. Anchor text within the content is essential. The anchor text should be relevant to the article content and the website content that it is linking to. 3. An interesting article that is written for the purpose of readers with relevant keyword density has a better chance of promoting traffic and backlinks than a boring article that is solely written for keywords and links. It also provides different articles and teasers all pointing to the same URL for further reading. There are more points to this topic but these are the points I wanted to mention . Apparently a unique article, that is reader friendly yet keyword rich with relevant anchor text should be submitted to each directory. It is a long and time consuming process but it has its rewards at the end of the day. Article submission software that submits the same article to many directories does not work due to duplicate content being detected by Google. Lastly the article resource box (sometimes called author bio box) at the bottom of each article is crucial for placing an additional link. So if I am writing for a client I should write that "this article was written by Greg on the behalf of the client's website and client's URL." I was taught this by a proficient SEO consultant who I recently worked with and I have found that following these guidelines really did make a difference. I Googled 'article directory duplicate content PR' and read up on it. But many people also believe that the same article can be submitted to many other directories. This has never worked for me. I hope this information proves useful to others and if there is any additional points, we all would be interested in reading about it.
Guys, no need to PM me about this thread. Rather post your thoughts, opinions or questions on this thread. DP is great because we are all learning and never judging each other. I think you guys may find this interesting on an illustrated guide to duplicate content from SEOMoz.org. It's an illustration of how Googlebot handles duplicate content. The scary part of reading this guide is that Googlebot may throw out all duplicates altogether or select the duplicate content on the lowest PR site at its discretion. So you may submit one article to 10 directories from PR2 to PR6 and Googlebot may only select the content on PR2. Waste of time but highlights the need for unique content in everything from your website to your article directory submissions. I have heard that at least 30% of the article should be changed for it to be considered unique but I think this is a guess and nobody knows for sure. Google is still a mystery.
Here's a couple of interesting words on this subject from one of my favorite IM bloggers, Josh Spaulding. This guy makes a VERY good living with article marketing and really knows what he's talking about. "A while back I was looking to add content to my Germany Travel website, but I just wasn’t in the mood to write and didn’t want to outsource it to someone for mediocre quality. Believe it or not I made that website to honestly help tourists in Germany, so I wanted good info. So I turned to Wikipedia. Although there is no guarantee the info is 100% accurate, it’s typically relatively good stuff. So I created a new page about Mountains in Germany, copied a bunch of content entirely from Wikipedia onto the new page and published it. A few months later, not only is the page ranking, it’s OUTRANKING Wikipedia, from which it was copied for “mountains in Germany†and “German mountains†(without quotes) and holding a top 10 ranking for “Germany mountains†along with several other phrases. Many of these phrases are also holding a top 10 ranking in Yahoo as well. Granted, these phrases aren’t extremely competitive, but most people would take 592 unique visitors each and every month from a page they just copied and pasted I believe duplicate content filter Why is this Duplicate Content Ranking so Well? Simple - Optimization! If you type the phrase “mountains in Germany†or “German mountains†into Wikipedia, you’ll get a page saying “No page with that title exists.†But if you type in the names of each of the different German mountains, you’ll find a page with content that is the same as the content for that particular mountain on my page… I created a page full of duplicate content that was targeting keywords that Wikipedia wasn’t, and still isn’t, targeting. In other words, I filled a gap in the market and it worked to my advantage. The Bottom Line Google cares about 1 thing, user experience! They want to give searchers what they’re looking for, whether it’s duplicate content or not. If you need to use some content from Wikipedia on your site(s) use it! But, don’t go overboard! If your entire site is full of duplicate content Google probably isn’t going to reward you with top 10 rankings, but if you have a page or two of duplicate content from an authoritative source, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!" Here's another quick blurb from Josh: "As you may know, I recommend splitting up your article submissions, but submitting half to the top 5 or so article directories and the other half to the top 30 or so. This gives you the best of both worlds, as your limited submissions will typically rank a bit higher and your “mass†submission will bring in more links to your site/pages." Hope this sheds some light. Good Luck, Raycer
Does anyone else have any experience adding wikipedia content into their site? I want to try it but still worried. Is there a risk of google dumping my site from their index?
Very useful information Raycer. I would agree with what you are saying but the point is that it is not exactly the same content. It was optimized which means that there are differences from the original content in that Google sees it differently. By posting the Wikipedia information on his blog, Josh altered the fundamental structure of that content. This level of flexibility is not always allowed by all article databases. If we look at Wordpress, optimization plugins like All-in-one-SEO, will determine the manner of indexing. On my blog, the posts that I published "skipping" the optimization plugin and the posts that I published utilizing the plugin, display differently on Google's SERP. Nevertheless thanks for the info Raycer. My query is pertaining to duplicate content on article databases. You have provided some valuable insight on the topic of duplicate content on your blog or website. I still feel that duplicate content on article directories is a mystery in how it can affect your PR.