Article Directories that allow "duplicate" content..

I think Bills best placed to answer that one but when I hear what some people do and some of the things I see people get away with, I'd say - no.

Actually Bill, I tried to use them some time ago and I never got accepted.

It was the only place I couldn't get into, so I left it.

It was only since I've been here and heard Alexa saying it needs unique content that I thought maybe that was why.

So, don't take my word for it either, I really ever only submit my work to a few directories anyway.

Well it's quite possible I'm wrong, it is second hand info I'm giving you on Buzzle, I don't use them. Have a read of their TOS. TOS change and it's up to us to keep up to date with them.

Either way, what you have done, putting it on EZA then on other directories, is fine and nothing to worry about.

Sorry if I've confused you.

That's interesting. I tried doing that a couple times and the articles were deleted.

To be honest though, just for the heck of it the other day, I wrote an article in one of my niches thay is super competitive. Just wanted to give Buzzle a quick test FWIW. It's bringing a pretty nice flow of traffic through from that one article, so I may give it a whirl again to see what else it can bring. Besides, it took me less than 10 minutes to write, since I write content for this niche day in and day out, so time factor wasn't an issue.

The other thing I don't like about Buzzle though? The fact they only allow 5 articles pending approval at a time and their approval rates are 3 to 4 days. This wouldn't be bad if they allowed more submissions to be pending, and that's why I don't submit to them much.

With all due respect chap, I think Bill knows why he's doing article marketing.

Just a quick question, what's the end goal of backlinks?

Traffic maybe? Or have I missed something?

If you're going to watch people watch Alexa and Bill.

A lot of what I know, I learned off them on this matter and I can categorically tell you, they are very, very good at what they do.

Yes and No.

The question was much simpler to ask than it will be to answer...

I am going to give you the answer, and hopefully it makes sense...

PageRank is just an slider value of the actual Link Popularity for a page on the Internet.

I will not use the word PageRank in this discussion, as it is only updated about 3 times per year.

But Google does update a page's Link Popularity internally every day or two.

PageRank / Link Popularity is measured by page, rather than by website.

Regardless of whether you utilize Article Syndication or Article Spinning, all new pages begin life with no Link Popularity.

This is the very last time your article on any page will have a value equal to other copies of your article on other websites.

Let me explain.

Every page on the web derives its Link Popularity based on the pages linking to it.

Some article directories like EzineArticles have a ton of Link Popularity distributed through their website.

Instead of just having Link Popularity on their home pages, they also have Link Popularity dispersed to internal pages on their website, including individual category pages and sometimes individual article pages.

Once an article is placed on a new directory, the article will adopt links from certain pages within the website.

On an article directory like EzineArticles, the article can adopt substantial Link Popularity when it is added to the directory. But this is a fleeting reality, because new articles are being added to the directory daily, so your newly placed article will eventually drop off of those pages that have real Link Popularity.

With sites link EZA, you also have an additional boost if your article hits one of the top ten lists shown at the bottom of the page for each article.

That is the huge key to getting great ranking on your article at EZA. Those top ten lists distribute a lot of Link Popularity to the article pages linked from them, because they show on all pages of the category. In some cases, that will translate into tens of thousands of links pointing to your article in EZA, and you will capture a portion of all of the Link Popularity available in that category.

Within EZA, an article can remain in one or more of the top ten lists for up to 60 days after the article was submitted to EZA.

In the initial stages, EZA's copy of your article will climb in the Google SERPs because it will have a lot of internal Link Popularity from EZA itself.

But unless you are building links to the article on EZA, that internal Link Popularity will generally have a lifespan of up to 60 days.

Other article directories have the same potential of EZA as far as internal distribution of Link Popularity. When people talk about this variable, generally only EZA and ArticlesBase are mentioned, keeping in mind that ArticlesBase is rel=nofollow. Other article directories do it, but not on the grand scale that these two do it.

One of the greatest benefits to Article Syndication above Article Spinning is that well-written articles tend to be syndicated more frequently than spun articles ever will. The reason why this is the case is because too many spun articles look like they were written by third-graders.

Not all spun articles will meet this fate, but the vast majority of spun articles are not the kind of content that other publishers -- who care about their readers -- will want to publish on their own websites.

More well-written articles get syndicated than poorly-written articles.

But check this...

Articles that get published on sites that have a real human audience, usually have a lot of people visit them. And those people who visit the website regularly will share links of articles they like, with like-minded friends and visitors.

The more the reader connects with an article, they more likely that reader will be to link to that article.

So, once an article is syndicated, the website that took the article will have its own internal Link Popularity and its audience will be more inclined to link to the article, thereby giving more external Link Popularity to a specific copy of your article.

This type of back linking requires no additional work on your part, once you have written and distributed the article.

Your article on an authority website can in fact attract a bunch of Link Popularity from the people who found the article worthy of sharing with others.

And herein resides the greatest benefit of taking the time to create a great article or using a higher-priced writer to create your content for you.

Spun articles can deliver some SEO Link Popularity to your articles, and therefore back to your own website.

But the potential of well-written articles to deliver SEO Link Popularity to your articles and website is far greater than it ever could be with spun articles.

I understand - it can be tough to see a longer article and think you want to get through it. That's why I'm emphasizing the visual aspect quite a bit - boldface headings, well-placed white space, strong headlines that let them know I'm really answering the question and it's worth following.

I feel these "landmarks", if you will, can guide a person through the longer article so they can get the answer they want. If I'm creating a fleshed-out example to go with my bullet points, I may need to lay out each part of the example.

But that's the difference between what I might have done to make that just 400-500 words long and what I did in a longer article. I don't think it actually takes much longer to read, but it seems like the extra time would be a lot (to the reader). With the landmarks, I'm hoping to overcome that and lead them to the deeper answer they were looking for in the first place.

As I said, I'm just starting out and haven't yet monetized it. Of course, that is my plan, but I need to get something built up for people to visit first.