11 replies to this topic

[MainelySEO]

How many sites do you think is too many when it comes to article syndication? I have over 100 articles on my own site, all original content. 30 days after they have been posted on my site, I submit them to specific article directory sites with a backlink to the original article as well as multiple links to the site I am trying to promote. Do you think this is a valid SEO strategy? I do not want the sites I submitted the article to, to out rank the original article. Do you think that by adding a backlink to the original article this will tell Google who had the article on the web first and who should be ranked for the article? Does it help to wait 30 days to re-publish the article? Also would you syndicate all of the articles to various sites or maybe 10-20 articles to 5 different sites?

I would like to hear your opinions and what has worked for you in the past and what has not.

Thanks,
-Nate

PS- I will be attending the Oct training class.

[copywriter]

Hi Nate! Welcome

Do you think this is a valid SEO strategy?

Yes


I do not want the sites I submitted the article to, to out rank the original article.

Why not? As long as the reader still has access to the link back to your site, what difference does it make? If they are interested in what you offer, they'll click to your site.

Do you think that by adding a backlink to the original article this will tell Google who had the article on the web first and who should be ranked for the article?

Doesn't work that way Google will know you're the original source for the article because it was published on your site/blog/forum/whatever first. Once it's spidered and included in the index, you're good. They know you were the first. Being first to publish doesn't mean you automatically get ranked higher than others. There are LOTs of elements that go into deciding which pages get ranked where for what.

Does it help to wait 30 days to re-publish the article?

No. Once Google picks it up, you're good. Just type the title of your article into the Google search field (using quotes). When it shows up, go for it!

Also would you syndicate all of the articles to various sites or maybe 10-20 articles to 5 different sites?

It's not the quantity. It's the quality. There are a bazillion article directory sites online and most of them are fly-by-night pieces of trash. They have no visitors (thus, no people to read your article and click to your site), they have lousy PageRank, etc. Be selective. Don't worry about quantity. It's not the article directory link that will do you a lot of good anyway.

You get the power of article distribution when other sites pick up your article from the article directory and republish it on their high-quality site

[MainelySEO]

Karon,

Thanks for the quick reply!

For a while I was submitting the articles to the syndication sites like ezinearticles, minti, and a few others but I noticed that our content was being outranked by the same article on these other sites. Which I believe must have something to do with Google's trust or authority they gives to these sites. My client was not happy with the fact that their own content wasn't showing up first on Google and was being out ranked by the same articles on these sites. They want the search traffic going to their site first even if a customer ended up clicking through one of the links in the article on another site. So I guess the answer would be to build quality backlinks to the article on our site to build the PR? and in turn hopefully outrank the other sites?

Thanks for your help.

[copywriter]

Links should help.

[Randy]

Just type the title of your article into the Google search field (using quotes)

Or if you're publishing a lot of articles and don't want to keep track manually one little trick I use is to set up a Google Alert with the article title, preferably prior to uploading it to your site. You'll then get an email notification every time Google has picked it up from somewhere as a newly indexed page. Both when it shows up on your site and every time it shows up somewhere else.

I find this much easier to manage since I'm typically publishing a lot of different stuff for a number of different sites pretty much constantly. If a site is new, or I simply want to track it more closely, I then set up a little Excel spread sheet where I track what date each one shows up in Google Reader.

Or if you're only concerned about when your own site's content gets picked up, if the site happens to provide an RSS feed like most CMS/Blog systems do, you can subscribe to the feed in Google Reader and see when it hits there. Though if you have an RSS feed that's getting pinged out to various places I'll tell you you're probably going to see it get spidered and picked up almost immediately. Or at least all of mine seem to show up literally within an hour or two of me making a post and pinging it out.

[caneman]

Alot of people claim to have a lot of success using [removed spammy program]. This service will take your original, plus two rewrites, and claims to send it to 1,000 plus article directories. The results seem minimal, though, as one reliable source I like, to remain unnamed, says he gets 25-30 backlinks per article this way. Seems hardly worth it, but knows? From my limited experience, submitted to the top 5 or 10 PR directories will give you maximum benefit then it is just diminishing returns after that.

[Randy]

In my experience it's not so much the tool as it is the quality of the original article. Though using a worthy tool is essential if you want to end up with less work instead of more work.

There are lots of article content distribution services out there, and yes I do use one fairly religiously. Not daily or anything along those lines. But every 2-3 months for each of my sites. Assuming I have something new an wonderful to say. If I don't, I don't put out an article just to do it. Like anything else, in only gets you out.

I know for my own articles put out through the tool I use, I generally see anywhere between 50 and 150 individual sites picking them up. But I probably put more time and effort into making sure it's worthy of being republished and actually offers something of value than many do.

What can I say, it's one way to help get the word out. It's not the only way, nor is it the only method you should be using.

[And no I'm not going to hype the tool I use. It's good, maybe the best of its kind for how I use it. But it's not the only one. Just the one I choose to use for my own reasons.]

[OldWelshGuy]

I am getting google alerts for articles i wrote years ago. Some site someplace has decided it is a decent article, and have added it.

[Randy]

Yeah, I get those all the time too OWG. Even old stuff is always new to someone who hasn't seen it before.

One thing about the Alerts and the sites that get listed there. Be a bit careful just clicking through, especially if you have IE set up as your default browser. What I say this is that I've also had more than one occasion recently where someone has basically copied all of or a lot of some pages of my site --presumably because my pages rank well-- and then embed some sort of automatic virus download in the page.

As a general rule I only get these nasty ones for the more general stuff I track, but I am seeing more of it over the last several months than had been the case a year or two ago. So just be careful to make sure your own computer doesn't end up getting infected because you're trying to see who's linking to you.

FWIW, the reason I pick up on these is that I have Chrome set up as my default browser. And it has the stopbadware warning stuff built right into it so throws up a warning for me.

[Michael Martinez]

FYI:

From what I understand, **** doesn't exactly function in accordance with the principles that Jill and her team have advocated through the years.

[MrOzzy]

Can anyone give me advice on good quality places to submit articles?
I've tried to look around but there's so much spam everywhere it's hard to work out the useful ones.

The article I'm writing is (internet) gaming related if that makes a difference.

Is there any risk in submitting an article to too many places?
(if it has links pointing back to my site)

[BryanWoodUrns]

How many sites do you think is too many when it comes to article syndication?

I don't think you can have too many to be honest.. As long as the articles provide genuine new content and aren't just rubbish to take up space, have a field day and try to get them out as far and in as many places as you can.

One caveat I would add is to make sure you are submitting to article sites that actually get traffic.. Not ones that solely exist for SEO purposes.. (yes they exist!)