Backlinking / article marketing question

by cbm
6 replies
In studying what the best backlink strategy for a new site is I've been experimenting with article marketing and the quality of the links from different directories.

Most people agree that Ezine is one of, if not the best to use, however I've noticed that while almost all the links I make with Ezine show up in Yahoo Site Explorer (YSE), only one or two appear in Google Webmaster tools (GWT) even two plus weeks after posting. The same is true for links from TheFreeLibrary and SelfGrowth, except those don't appear in GWT at all. By contrast, GWT registers most of my Goarticle links while YSE shows none. The sites rank better in Google SERPs than they do in Yahoo.

I'm not really obsessing over this (I don't think it's truly all that important and I still plan on using Ezine for the moment) but I am curious. Any thoughts on how relevant all this is to ranking?

More importantly, I'm also looking for another directory to focus my article submissions on for the next few days while my ezine account is pending an upgrade to platinum. Suggestions are appreciated! =)

Cheers!
cbm
#article #backlinking #marketing #question
  • Profile picture of the author Rufus Steele
    Hi CBM,

    I get some very good mileage from Buzzle.

    You can only submit two articles at a time to them and they won't accept copies available elsewhere but - they show up well on my referrer stats and I "Believe" that Google likes them more than quite a few others!

    Also - have you tried finding blogs or other sites in your Niche that accept articles and contributions, not just article directories? Get into one or two of them per niche and you WILL see a boost from them.

    HTH

    Regards

    Rufus
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  • Profile picture of the author Vishal Mahadik
    If you are submitting the same versions to multiple article directories then you can not take much leverage out of your article marketing efforts.

    You need to put out unique versions of your articles on different web platforms.

    As far as backlinks are concerned , you just have to focus on the most prominent and popular article directories along with some press release sites.

    These are some of the best sites for backlinking and indexing these backlinks fast by Google:

    1) Ezinearticles.com

    2) Goarticles.com

    3) Buzzle.com

    4) Gather.com

    5) Hubpages.com

    6) Squidoo.com

    7) Free Press Release Sites

    8) Top Web 2.0 Sites like Wetpaint.com, Weebly.com

    9) Niche Forum Signatures

    10) Forum Profile Links

    11) Blog Commenting, etc.


    Don't think much about your backlinks getting indexed. They will get eventually accounted by Google and other search engines over the time. Your only task now is to focus on getting legitimate and long term backlinks which you can earn through above websites.
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  • cbm, I do believe you are obsessing about the little details of backlinks. Just keep one thing in mind, Yahoo, Google and Bing(now joined with Yahoo or vice versa) are totally different search engines, completely different algorithms and bots. This means that, unless you optimize for each individually, you will get varying results.

    Keep one thing in mind, no one knows for sure what are the ranking or placement factors. If we did, wouldn't we all be number one? What is certain though, is that Google stresses a lot on quality, informative and fresh content, in addition to links. Whereas the other two search engines rely quite a bit on the number of backlinks, in addition to site age and the quality of the site you are linking to. This said, that is why you will see such different results, regardless of how much you work.

    Now, I want to scold you for only using articles as a way of building backlinks. I am afraid to say you are looking at article marketing the wrong way. In my opinion, article marketing, should be mainly used to get you exposed to other marketers and people within your niche. Articles help you establish credibility and help you become an authority among your target audience. This not only develops trust in your prospective customers, but it gives them the confidence to believe in your word and your product. That in itself should be more important than just building a backlink. Sure, creating a quality link IS important, but the other things that come with article marketing should be priority. That is just my two cents, I hope you can analyze it that way!
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    • Profile picture of the author mkpoway
      Hey, I'm new to this topic. I've written several articles for my website and posted them on ezinearticles. My understanding is that I should not post these same articles on different article directories.

      However, can I modify the articles slightly and post them elsewhere? How much of the content do I need to change?

      Is there an automated tool for doing this?
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by mkpoway View Post

        Hey, I'm new to this topic. I've written several articles for my website and posted them on ezinearticles. My understanding is that I should not post these same articles on different article directories.
        Your understanding is mistaken.

        The theory that you need to change a proportion of the content has grown up and become widespread because many people mistakenly believe (a) that having multiple copies of same article in different places is "duplicate content" (it isn't - it's syndicated content), and (b) that as a result it will somehow incur some sort of SEO "penalty" against your own site which is linked to in the articles and/or in their resource-boxes (this one's just too ludicrous for me to "go there").

        Most of the time, most of those subsequent identical copies of your articles will be indexed only in Google's "supplemental index" rather than in their main index, but their backlink-value won't suffer at all from that.

        Personally, I sometimes change those articles a little bit (just the titles, keywords and resource-boxes) but that's for SEO reasons of my own and nothing to do with any fear of "duplicate content", "penalties" or any other nonsense. They're still "backlink only" articles by the time I've done that: nobody (to all intents and purposes) is actually likely to read them.

        Originally Posted by mkpoway View Post

        However, can I modify the articles slightly and post them elsewhere?
        Yes, you can - but you don't need to modify them.

        Originally Posted by mkpoway View Post

        How much of the content do I need to change?
        None. Unless you want them all to be indexed in Google's main index rather than the supplemental one. But if you want that, you need to change a lot (maybe 70% for each copy?), and make sure it's still a high quality article which people will read and will attract traffic just like the EZA copy does, and so on. But that necessitates making your article fit for human consumption rather than just search-engine-spider consumption ... and that's a whole different proposition. For myself, I'd rather write a new article than do that (it won't take any longer). There's no real point in changing it "slightly" apart from what I've mentioned above.

        Originally Posted by mkpoway View Post

        Is there an automated tool for doing this?
        There are hundreds. It's a huge industry. Whether they're of any real benefit/value is for each of us to decide for ourselves.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Thompson
    What I do is have one of my outsourcers submit articles to EZA, Buzzle, and the other "usual" sites. BUT ... then we submit the articles to Unique Article Wizard. There is a lot of power in that system.

    Here's two separate case studies and information-rich posts I wrote on it.

    First:
    Replace Myself + Unique Article Wizard = Amazing | Replace Myself Bonus

    Second:
    Making Money with Article Marketing and Product Reviews | Replace Myself Bonus
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