Articles are not worth the trouble IMO. Here is why, the content gets picked up and replicated who knows where, then the pages with the data go supplimental in most cases and then gets dumped from the index. C'mon, you need to be smarter than that these days - this little gimmick worked for a couple of years but it's way past it's used by date. I would take a recip PR5 or 6 over from the trusted site any day of the week over an article link on the back end of some site that is using article directories to gather content. All of the SE's are on to it - Keep your content and setup an RSS and do some 2.0 stuff and get people to link into your site.

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Not so fast... fast. I'm certain that you have some data to back up your assertions. I'm not a big fan of article submissions and figured that their value would be dumped almost immediately, but from what I've seen that simply isn't the case... at least not yet.

Regarding the recips... unless you have pr5/6 pages to exchange from I find it highly unlikely that you're going to get those types of links in return. All of the arguments that you made relative to articles can be seen with recip pages... supplemental, de-indexed, etc. Of coarse, I'm of the mindset that both are more a function of the links to the site and then to the pages than the actual content or purpose of the pages (whether they be articles or recips).

Lastly, I can pay some smuck (no offense intended (Smuck)), a few bucks to write an article and submit it to a ton of article sites hoping to get a few decent links back without having to link from my site, find the partners, confirm the existence of the link, etc.

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OverSite.US | A Unique Web Directory
Real Estate Directory | A regional listing of quality real estate related web sites.
Tampa Bay Charter Fishing | Seeks references from the area resource pages of quality local sites.

Hey I think recip "pages" are a joke but recip pages are very different to recip links. I won't entertain a link trade from a resource or links page - ever. But a good sitewide recip from a PR5 blog with good relative content I am going to jump at. It's all in the execution and it works. I will stand by my comments because quality links are what you need from trusted sites and trusted sites don't use recycled garbage from article directories. If your going to pay someone then pay them to write some quaility content and use it yourself.

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So you're advocating trading site wides for site wides?

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OverSite.US | A Unique Web Directory
Real Estate Directory | A regional listing of quality real estate related web sites.
Tampa Bay Charter Fishing | Seeks references from the area resource pages of quality local sites.

No.

I am saying you need to consider what each and every link brings to the table for your site, what you are linking into, how you are linking to them and how they are linking to you and where that link comes from. We run a blog but it's not site wide - the other thing is I've done link trades with sites where by they have written a short article about their site / services / industry in just few lines with a link & relative anchor text then added it as a blog post. It's just an exchange of content and might just be the best way to manage a recip right now. If for example I get a link from a blog in a post it has it's own URL that can be bookmarked from all over the place - If you think about it you can actaully take a hand in boosting the PR of your inbound links..

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What you suggest is nothing new but a couple of points of reference as you brought them up:
1. "a good sitewide recip from a PR5 blog with good relative content I am going to jump at" site wide links were devalued appx a year ago
2. this seems to be more about promoting reciprocal linking than anything to do with articles
3. reciprocal linking has been going on for quite awhile, as with the content exchanges, exchanging blog posts etc. "I won't entertain a link trade from a resource or links page - ever" very well, but they still work too.
4. article submissions are effective in gaining a few one way links per article and are more cost/time effective for many than reciprocal linking.

It's of no consequence to me, I just think that it's inappropriate to say that article submissions are a waste of time or "Articles are not worth the trouble" unless you've been doing a truckload and have some data to back up your assertions.

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OverSite.US | A Unique Web Directory
Real Estate Directory | A regional listing of quality real estate related web sites.
Tampa Bay Charter Fishing | Seeks references from the area resource pages of quality local sites.

I don't have a vested interest one way or the other but it sounds like you don't like my signature so I will change it, I think I am just stating the obvious as far as article submissions go, there are better ways to spend your time I think. Sitewide links devalued a year ago? That all depends on where they are coming from, to say all site wide links have been devalued is just as misleading - I would take a link on a blog roll over a link on second or third level page with a bunch of outgoing links and no other content.

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Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I only know about site wides personally because I tested it, and it held up well long after it was panned in forums. I'm talking about the site wide links having the ranking strength (or close) of the individual pages if they were on different sites (any assumption on pr would be only a guess). They still do count well in Yahoo though.

I'm not here to pan anything for the sake of doing so, but the thread was about article submissions. I don't do it so I really don't know either. (smiley here)

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OverSite.US | A Unique Web Directory
Real Estate Directory | A regional listing of quality real estate related web sites.
Tampa Bay Charter Fishing | Seeks references from the area resource pages of quality local sites.

I've done article submissions in the past and they seemed to float around for a while but now they are all gone and not one has ever given me a quality backlink - (might have been the quality of my articles)

Scrapers also like to work over the article sites from what I've heard although I don't play with the dark side so I can't say how true that one is.

To me it just stands to reason you should keep your content at home, why give it away when you can use it to draw people to your site - Syndicate teasers and draw people and links in. Get a blog & RSS, this very site is doing it. Speaking of Yahoo they seem to be driving us more traffic then ever of late - their results look like Google results should look

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Free Real Estate Ads

Fast;

The end result that I am after is NOT to draw people to my site, but to draw them to me. I want to raise my sites credibility because of MY credibility. Keeping ALL content at home limits my options for doing this.

I am HAPPY to do an REW blog--why? I can build MORE authority for myself because those posts will rank well when authored properly.

I am HAPPY to write articles IF I can get them posted on equally strong sites. I am NOt in favor of writing crap articles to get posted on crap sites. It doesn't build me reputation AND it doesn't help my authority with G! and it isn't Defensible-hell anyone can do that--or worse get a script to do it.

With every quality piece of content written comes a decision--Does it fit BEST on MY site? If not, whose site does it belong on? Articles randomly chucked out there to see where they land often are better suited to being placed more carefully rather than submitting to an article submission machine.

Other other hand, IMO there are times and types of content that will do REALLY well and get mass appeal in a syndication type format.

Bottomline is I agree with VRI that articles can be valuable and that all content should not be hoarded...I do agree with you in the sense that oftentimes articles can be a waste of time if you are JUST looking for SEO benefit in the SHORT run...(Crap in--Crap out IMO).

Best;

Eric

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Eric Blackwell
Technologist, SEO Specialist and Consultant

Louisville Real Estate

Southern Indiana Search Engine Marketing Blog

Real Estate Industry Watch - Real Estate Industry News Blog