If I write 1 article and I submit it to more than one directory, do I have to rewrite the same article for each directory I submit to, just to avoid being penalized by search engines for duplicate content?
Publish the article on your own site first. This way your won't be penalized. Once it's indexed submit the article to the article sites. You could rewrite the article so the one on your site is unique.
The more the copy varies in each description the better the chance search engines will see it as unique content. Try spinning your articles and descriptions with a program like JetSpinner. It lets you put in synonyms for chosen words or phrases and then randomly creates "unique" versions.
it is good to rewrite your article into different version and submit it to article directories, so that search engines will no see as duplicate content of the article.
That's duplicate content i guess. And surely it is against Google's Guidelines. Would it be fine if you post your article at Webwiki then provide your link. Thanks.
Basically you can use one article 10 times. But It would be good if you use one article in only one directory.
You should remember that the article for your site and the article for the article directories are written for different purposes. The one for your site should be keyword rich, as its purpose is to drive people to your site by having them input your keyword phrase into a search engine and seeing your site somewhere on the forst page. The purpose of your article for the article directories is to get backlinks from your bio box.The one for the article directories therefore should have all the keywords taken out. You don't want to drive traffic to Ezinearticles.
There is no penalty for duplicate content when you submit the same article to multiple article directories. I have seen it done before.
You can use jetsubmitter to spin your article. Thus u may get about 100 unique articles from a single article.