Is Article Writing Dead in the Water?

Google changes/updates it's search algorithm many times a year....the Panda/Farmer update just happened to be a pretty big update that effected the rank and traffic of many top sites (Ezine Articles, HubPages, Suite101, Associated content, etc)

Hello James,

You play Fender guitar? Nice choice...

If you don't mind, you're really opening your self up to something you
don't know - in this forum, at least.

There are two opposing forces in this forum. lol

Article marketing, in all its different approaches, can be effective depending
on a number of things I'm sure others may/can/will mention.

It's really much more than writing compelling resource boxes. For example,
if they don't make it to the compelling resource box, then it's all for naught
sort of.

There are tons of threads here about article marketing, article directory
marketing, article website marketing, article syndication marketing and
there must be others. There has to be.

Others do quite well with it...

Article writing is not dead in the water. Not at all.

Then there's article writing for $$$. Certainly will never be dead.


Ken

Also put a unique tracking code in your resource box at the end of your url ie /?xxxxx corresponding to where your article was submitted. It will show up in your cpanel stats. All of my syndicated sites are uniquely coded, then each new article submission is automated through autoresponders and RSS feeds.

Simple enough to track through analytics (eg: Wordpress Google analytics plugin). Aside from that, all I do use is content development on and for several sites, and nothing more.

Hi John. Article directory backlinks could have been possibly devalued/lowered in weight by Google with their Panda I and Panda II updates, though backlink building via article directories aren't the actual purpose of article marketing.....

The purpose of online article marketing is to have your articles picked up and published by other webmasters on their websites where a lot of your target readers will be able to see your content. This means you need to show your articles to other webmasters with websites catering to groups of people interested in your unique, high quality articles that offer useful content in the form of info, advice, tips, strategies and techniques beneficial for their relevant needs and problems...

John, being successful at article marketing has little to do with this. As long as you focus on writing high-quality articles that deliver true value, you won't need to rely on some software or service to somehow "trick" Google and the search engines into giving your article exposure.

Paul

i chuckled at that too haha

People still buy magazines and newspapers daily in huge numbers globally for the articles contained within them.

The market may fluctuate like any other market but dead in the water? No. Far from it.

High quality articles will always be in demand. This world is not stagnant. Everything is evolving at an enormous rate and people need words to stay informed.

Spun crappy content and articles of no use to anyone, now that's a different matter. Their days are going to probably be numbered sooner or later. Thank goodness.

High quality information on the other hand will always be in fashion.

Exactly, a lot of these "proclamations" are triggered by jealousy and frustration. Since they cannot seem to make it work at all, they don't want others even trying it - if they can't succeed at it, they don't want any others succeeding!

This sort of spiteful attitude is not very constructive or helpful, and by choosing to do this they ultimately end up hurting themselves the most.

I don't think so ! You know the quality article can gain more attention and Google likes it at the same!

I'm not an article marketer but I have noticed while searching Google, I don't see many article directories ranking in the 1st page nearly as much as I used to.

Seems Google is focusing more on established websites with their own content over article directories anymore.

There is no intrinsic link between article writing (or article marketing) and SEO / Google, etc.

And as satirical as Ian's post (above) was intended to be, I'm sure, he does make a very good point.

From an article marketing perspective (one of the popular reasons behind someone's wanting to write - or have written - high-quality articles): since there is no intrinsic overlap between SEO and article marketing, no matter what happens on the SEO landscape (with exception, perhaps, to Google beginning to penalise sites that syndicate content - which I cannot see happening any time soon), it has no bearing on the viability of article marketing, and therefore article writing if that is the purpose for which you're doing it.

If your purpose for writing articles is to submit them to article directories in order that you can leverage their authority to rank highly in Google's SERPs, then you may be somewhat disappointed. The recent "Panda" algorithm update directly impacted many article directories in a negative way, and not just to some small degree, either.

So, to summarise ... is article writing dead for:-

(1) article directory marketing?

If you're willing to spend your time helping to build someone else's website/business by building lots of backlinks to your articles, from which they are the main beneficiary, then it is not a waste of time. However, it is not time spent most optimally, in my opinion, and could be better spent building backlinks to your own website. This applies even more so in light of the recent algorithm update. If you're not prepared to backlink the hell out of your articles once you've submitted them, then writing for this purpose probably is a waste of time.

(2) article marketing / syndication?

If you can write (or have written) very good, informative, interesting and entertaining articles, then writing for syndication will usually always be a fruitful endeavour, providing there are a sufficient number of relevant outlets willing to republish your articles in front of their audiences. If you cannot do the former and/or there is a shortage or absence of the latter, then writing for this purpose is also likely to be a waste of time.

You're right about this.

And about this. :p

But, if I may say so, you're only partially right about this.

The effects of Google's update have very little or nothing to do with "duplicate content" (though I've a feeling you're talking about syndicated content, anyway - even though it has nothing to do with that, neither).

Google already has a very capable and effective filter in place to detect and remove most subsequent instances of identical content from their SERPs. They do not need to penalise for this, in addition.

What it is about is lessening the authority (and thus "easy rankings" potential) of sites which are notorious for publishing thin, low-quality, spam-like content that is of no use to anyone, but were able to dominate the SERPs for a whole load of different keywords because they'd amassed so much (yet mostly artificial) authority.

Article directories - and indeed many sites that accept user-submitted content with very little to no quality standards - are included among these sites. And that is why they have endured the negative effects of this latest algorithm update, while so many other sites have simultaneously gained from it.

I've no doubt that Google cares about their advertising income, but I'm not sure that they care about it so much as to be completely ignorant/dismissive of the longer-term implications of allowing more and more crap to dominate their SERPs on low-quality sites. In business, one sometimes has to make tough decisions that could, on the surface, be classified as "shooting oneself in the foot" if is such action is necessary to remain relevant, strong, competitive and profitable in the longer-term.

I agree with those who have said Google targeted all the spun articles. Some of my articles that were previously on page 1 of Google seem to have been sandboxed. And I didn't spin them either but just wrote a lot of articles on the same topic and posted them in ezinearticles and other article directories.

On the other hand, some older articles that were written when I first started in IM have suddenly risen to page 1 in Google. Go figure. Google seems to place value on the age of a website; maybe that goes for articles, too.

Article writing could never be dead guys. The google updates are designed to make articles even more relevant, beleive or not. Google is removing as much of the poorly written content they can from the equation to allow the great cotent to be discovered. Articles and content writing are the backbone of the iternet. How many articles do you read a day? Google is just cleaning house.