Be careful who you listen to when it comes to directories and Google. That bit of link bait article on some website directories being removed was not backed up by factual information. There's a thread here on the topic that you might want to check out.
Yes, Of course Article directory submissions are good. But matter is that your article matter is relevant or good in quality wise.
Article Directory is good for that author's which are posting original and spurn articles. bukisa.com is one of good articles directory. i use it very long time.
IMHO I think they are still good, not as good as they were if we are talking soley SEO purposes. I think they still carry some merit though in that arena, however, think they are good to learn more about your niche, learn more about your competition, etc....
A lot of directories were hit by penguin. It's not that all directories are bad now, but it's a good idea to check the website out first. Do a search for site: directoryname.com to see if it comes up first, for starters. Check the pr. Anything with automated acceptance or that boasts that the site is great for seo is one you should cross off your list. Hopefully, someone will create a list here of the directories that are still good.
Article Marketing is one of the best way to get quality back link but yes always prefer those sites which are having Good PR and Alexa Rank .
Most search engines people have stated that they care most for readership and a good user experience. It is not logical for them as information retrievers to block a source simply because it is an article directory, a hub, a lens or anything else. After all, those are just descriptions and the technical term for them all as well as others is that they are SITES. Every page must be treated seperately and compared with others in their database to decide on the best result to return. A good article will be linked more (steadily and over a certain period of time), liked more, and time spent reading it will be more, its external links are checked and enjoyed by staying on them more...Search engines now have evolved and can tell a spun article. Plus, even if it's linked fairly well, the other factors wil fail it (average time spent reading it, quality of external links, quality of context relevance,etc.).I see articles on page 1 with a fairly decent quality from a nofollow directory. Therefore, it is recommended to just craft the best article and forget about the rest.
After Google Latest update "Google Penguin" Article Submission will harm your ranking if you just simply create one unique article and posted in 100 websites with one single Anchor then you might be come in Google eyes. But Still Article Marketing is useful if you do work smartly. just do article marketing by following below steps. 1. Create Unique Content 2. Post Article to your blog 3. Then Submit same article in 50-60 Article Submission website by using source as your Blog Post... 4. Use the different different Anchoring for each website.