No doubt about it - ArticleRanks works. http://theaveragegenius.net/articleranks-or-unique-article-wizard/ That's an almost 3k word review I have on AR vs. UAW, but I don't have any complaints with either. I honestly think AR is superior to UAW at this point, but will have to conduct other tests. In testing on my own sites, I saw direct linking (with spun URLs going to deep links and other web properties) show upward movement in Google in days. That's not a sales pitch - if you want to email me or talk more on the subject, feel free. james [at] theaveragegenius.net Or visit my blog. There is no "penalty" of dupe content with spun articles - I have about 15 all over Google right now from a recent Magic Submitter blast, one of which took spot #1 in Bing the next day. When I did the same thing with ArticleRanks, you don't see the articles so much since they are on private blogs. BUT the upward climb in the SERPs more than makes up for it.
Posting to this site should not be your only off site SEO technique. Although it may be valuable if the site is credible in the eyes of search engines. Search engines also pay attention to how many domains link to you, not just how many links. So if all of your links are from this one article directory, their ability to help your site is limited. In addition to this strategy, find links elsewhere.
ArticleRanks is a collection of BLOGS owned by the members - so you add your website, or in my case websites, and then other members will have their unique content posted to it, with links to their site. You don't understand what it is - just like w/UAW, there IS unique IP and domain diversity - and in DAYS my sites have climbed the SERPs. As to link diversity - of course. That's the beauty and point of UAW and AR, and other such services, but AR is the one I'd highly recommend because of their quality control of the network. The cool thing is, there are THREE ways to pay: FREE $2 a submission $39 a month for unlimited If you'd like to try it, please see my review at http://theaveragegenius.net
ArticleRanks has been a very consistent performer for me... and it's very user friendly. It's not the only article marketing system I use but it is among the best in my experience. And as TheAverageGenius said - this is not an articles directory. It's a system for submitting (unique) articles to relevant websites (blogs that are in the system.) This is a great way of building backlinks from many different domains.