10 replies to this topic

[mohit]

I have been reading content on Article Syndication. They say it is more meaningful than simply procuring links (of course relevant). I have some basic questions which I thought are worth sharing with you. Please let me know how are the below mentioned questions answered:

Q.) What should I expect from Article Syndication? When I have different services like SEO, Link Building, PPC then why should I think about employing Article Syndication? Is there something extra that this service does for me? They say, content based links have more value (like in Article Syndication) than just procuring relevant links. Is that true?

Q) If I still go with Article Syndication and deploy my article at many relevant sites(say 100) and others do the same in high numbers, then how would you address content duplication of which Google or all Search Engines are critical?

Q) Why cant I do just with Link Building which is cost-effective? Ultimately, I am getting links. I agree that links wont last long. But could you tell me the shelf-life for an article, how long will it last? The old one being removed from the list owing to the growth in competition.

Q) One basic question, which one of these Google prefers most:(both being relevant)

**** Old Content
**** Fresh Content
Although content is relevant but I perceive that to the user the fresh content ranks higher than the old content on the relevency scale. Is this perception correct?

If Google prefers to have fresh information then I donot see that Article Syndication would be a good idea as depending on the industry it may or may not be advisable to write articles which may entail maintainence (may be costlier than just building relevant links). Also, if somebody suggests the articles can be general for this kind of industry, then why take the pains of investing so much as it will be analogous to building links for a keyword which is generic. Please advise.

Thanks.

[Jill]

Welcome mohit!

Have you checked out our other threads on  article syndication[/hr]? They pretty much answer your questions.

[tabithanaylor]

Jill,

I hope that this doesnt sound toooo kingergarten-ish.......... but can you please explain article syndication to me? I truly am lost with the concept. I have read a lot of information, but it has confused me more than helped me. Thanks!

[Michael Martinez]

Try this thread. It's fairly recent and has a variety of opinion and discussion in it. It's not long.

There is no kindergarten version that I know of.

The basics are: free article distribution sites exist, people use them to achieve visibility, people use them to build links, the results vary.

I have distributed a few articles. One or more of those articles recently brought me an invitation (two, actually, but I was too sick to write the second one) to submit a custom article to a nationally marketed book for business people.

The better written your articles are, the more likely they will draw the kind of attention you may want. I personally don't believe articles should be syndicated for the sake of getting links, but I have on occasion suggested that as a possible source of links with a limited lifespan.

I believe those types of links will eventually be filtered. I look at article distribution as a means of increasing my personal visibility. I learned that lesson the hard way, when one of my popular essays was stolen (used without my permission) by so many Web sites that I gave up trying to police it. The whole thing was beyond my control.

But I woke up one morning and realized that all those Webmasters who used my essay, at least where they included my name (and many did), had made me just a little bit more famous. So I learned to live with the burden of being better known than the next opinionated know-it-all.

It's a hard life, but someone has to live it.

[Jill]

I hope that this doesnt sound toooo kingergarten-ish.......... but can you please explain article syndication to me?

Well I'm glad Michael did it, because never having done anything related to article syndication, I couldn't answer you!

All my articles get syndicated because people email me and ask if they can republish them on their own site. I would never personally allow them to be mass syndicated as I just don't believe in it, and I'm a control freak who wants to know exactly where my articles will be posted.

[Michael Martinez]

I get a lot of email requests for republication, too. Occasionally, I find myself surfing a 'new' site only to find my content on it. "What are they doing?" I think angrily. I get all huffy and puffy and start to fire off a nasty email and then I notice, "Special thanks to Michael Martinez for permission to use this article/essay".

Usually, when I check my email archive, I find the request.

I just cannot keep them all straight.

The real magic behind article syndication is just that people will want to reuse something that you put some thought and effort into. Sure, I've been writing for a long time, and Jill has been writing for a long time. But it's never too late to start. All great writers start out at the same place as the rest of us: they just start writing.

Practice makes perfect.

[tabithanaylor]

Thanks guys! This clears a lot of things up for me. Sometimes I just really need things broken down for me to understand that basics. The whole concept of "syndication" was something I just couldnt grasp... til now.

[Chris Boggs]

Michael and Jill...at least most often people ASK to republish your articles, or place a "thanks" as M has seen. Have you done a search on snippets of your content recently...you may be surprised how many people haven't.

[Michael Martinez]

I still try to protect my intellectual property rights and I search on my text all the time. But the scraper sites make it really difficult to find the classic "I like this article and will reuse it because I found it on the Web therefore I feel it must be free for anyone to use" kind of pages.

Unfortunately, scraper sites don't infringe upon intellectual property rights.

[tabithanaylor]

If someone uses an article sumibssion service, where your article is submitted to lots of different directories, etc....... will that hurt more than help in the long run, when dealing with google and the duplicate content filters?

I am assuming that if your article is mass distributed all over the internet, the search engines would eventually pick up on that, right?

[Jill]

will that hurt more than help in the long run, when dealing with google and the duplicate content filters?

Only if the sites the articles appear on are way more popular than yours. But even then, if it links to your site, people can still get to yours that way.

Getting your message out there, and your articles published on other sites (real sites) is a good thing because it establishes credibility. If you're just doing it for the links, then it's probably not all that worthwhile to use submission services.