Mass Article Submission and Article Syndication. Any Difference?

in an ideal world, you wouldn't need to submit to directories because your site would be good enough for people to "scrape" content from and then reference. if they're doing this off their own backbecause your content rocks, this is syndication in it's purest form.

mass article submission is a little scummy though, and it effectively tries to replicate the aforemented system. personally i submit to 2/3 leading directories and that's it. any more and i'd consider myself spamming which is no good.

Most of those article submitters brag about "blasting" your articles to dozens or hundreds of different article directories. However, that's not as helpful as it sounds. There are tons of article directories that have little or no traffic, so having your article published on them doesn't do you much good. Sure, you'll get a link, but it will be from a PR0 page - and there's a good chance that no one will ever actually read your article

With syndication, you're not just putting your stuff out there to get any links you can find. Instead, you're getting people who are *genuinely* interested enough to re-publish it - so you know they're reading it. It gives you better exposure to your target audience than mass-submitting does. Plus, when your articles get syndicated, you're likely going to get higher-quality links than the PR0's you'd get on the bottom-of-the-barrel article directories.

If I were you, I would take the time spent mass-submitting and put it towards looking for genuine syndication opportunities - like looking for guest posting opportunities or online magazines and newsletters that accept submitted content (very different from article directories!)

It depends. "Mass article submission" and "article syndication" are very broad terms so be prepared to get some broad answers with a wide variety of variations. Such is the beast known as article marketing, there are dozens upon dozens of ways to do it. I've yet to meet two marketers who do it exactly the same (and I'm throwing myself in that mix).

There isn't just one way to do either and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive, though they can be (just to confuse you more). Your question also leaves out other aspects of article marketing. People use article submitters to submit to 1 or 2 directories while others use them to submit to hundreds and everything else in between, all for very different reasons.

Article syndication can be done in a lot of ways. It can be a somewhat passive activity or it can be a proactive one. Submitting to directories is 1/2 of 1% on how to do it. Some people use article syndication services. Some use press releases, The Writer's Market 2011 edition, radio databases such as can be found at RadioPublicity.com, building relationships with webmasters that need your content, actively promoting your blog / website that provides value and making it easier to go "viral" (friend scripts are one example of this) and the list goes on and on.

Richard gave a good explanation on the topic.

<Bangs head against computer desk followed up by a one-two combination to my punching bag.>

RoD