I really hope that Google gets some significant competition (Bing, Yahoo etc) within the coming years, to capture a healthy percentage of its market share. It is not healthy in my opinion for one company to have such a strong "police" presence on the internet, and influence the decisions of the majority of webmasters, SEO firms, etc.

Eventually the term "SEO" will be replaced with the word "Google." Scary.

The fact is, Google did a favor to actual article marketers. I say actual article marketers because most people submitting to those sites were doing it for the SEO benefits, with keyword addled posts that used 500 words to say absolutely nothing. In my book, those aren't article marketers, those are article DIRECTORY marketers, as the term goes.

An ARTICLE marketer writes articles in hopes that an ezine publisher will read and like what they have to say. This provides an opportunity for later syndication. If you approach an ezine editor with "Hey, you published one of my articles. Would you like some more?" They're likely to say "Uh....yeah." Because they already know who you are and that you know at least SOMETHING about the work.

That's a complete 180 from the traditional "article marketing" model, but it works like gangbusters if you choose to write well. It takes something most marketers don't have, though. It means the writer must be trying to HELP the reader, not just SELL the reader.

Like I said, Google did us a favor.

The directories still work, as long as you submit quality work. The trouble is, many would rather skip the part about creating content which is worthwhile, so a lot of the people who once used article marketing via the directories are now looking for other ways to peddle their junk.

This is fine with me, as I would rather not look at one more spun article for the rest of my life.

As long as our clients are still seeing favorable results from the directories, we will keep using them. However, I'm assuming that the reason it still works for us is because we don't distribute anything that is of poor quality.

I'm in no way saying that anyone who chooses not to use directories doesn't produce quality work- a lot of quality writers have just found other effective methods that work for them.

Isn't it possible that both ways are effective? I don't see why it has to be one way or the other. From what I can tell, nothing is ever black and white when it comes to IM anyway.

There's my two cents, for what it's worth.:p

If you think carefully about what he's saying, he's actually referring to "article directory marketing", and barely otherwise to "article marketing" at all.

And not many people are still enthusiasts of "article directory marketing" anyway.

Post your articles on your own site, end of story.

If your going to take the time to write an article, "why" would anyone want to post that article on someone elses site?

The only way to establish your site as an authority, is to post content. If your posting content on other sites, you have less time to post content on your own site.

It seems matt cutts doesn't have much knowledge about article marketing

I don't think that anybody here have suggested that submitting their articles to random low quality sites is a good idea.

Kev,

Sorry I was directly, perhaps too literally, responding to this statement...

I was just explaining "why" I do that.

All the best.

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I don't get why noone mentions titles. Are these mass submitting softwares submitting hundreds of articles with the same title, or are they different titles? If you had hundreds of articles indexed and on the first pages of very specific searches, then that would add up to a lot of extra traffic, but if they were all the same titles, there would only be one copy getting any traffic from Google.

Hey Guys,

I'm just new around here and still feeling my way around, however when I saw this thread about Matt Cutts, I could not resist having a reading and adding a comment.

G has been using young Master Cutts as their 'mouthpiece' for years and there is not a word that comes out of his mouth that should be believed. He was put there to deliberately spread disinformation, and it amazes me that more people have woken up to what he is all about.

Google has long had a fetish about maintaining complete secrecy surrounding how their ranking are performed. And the reason is pretty self-explanatory...... if the truth was revealed we'd be back in the days of 2000-2001 again where manipulating them was easier than falling off a log.

So you have to ask yourself, why with such a need for secrecy have they set this guy to tell you how to get the best ranking that you can.

As far as Article Marketing goes, good strong original content will always be of great value. However taking somebody else's article and spinning the words and all the other tricks has a very limited life. After all, if you stop and think about it for a moment, what else can a search engine really rate you on if they promise quality search results.

This was partially hashed out here:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...g-extinct.html

You know what I would rather listen to than Matt Cutts? My decade's worth of experience using articles to drive targeted traffic to my websites as well as the advice of others who don't have a vested interest in steering you the wrong way like Matt Cutts. To those in the know, meaning people who actually drive profitable targeted traffic using articles, it's plainly obvious that he's talking about how one aspect of article marketing done several years ago which is clearly not as effective as it once was. So I'd agree with him on the one very specific point; however, he does not make that distinction. Some of us had to do it for him, viz, here.

He refers this as "article marketing". Which it clearly isn't. It's just one very small aspect of it. That's like me saying that Pay Per Click is no longer effective or it's dying out and then going on to describe how my Adwords campaigns shot up to $5 per click because I did not optimize my websites correctly. Well, for those that actually do PPC and actually optimize their sites know that it's still a very effective way to get traffic, IF you've kept up with the changes. People are still getting 5 cents a click or less in many markets, but you have to know how to do it.

The same thing here. Some experts state that Google changes their aglo anywhere from 150 to over 800 times a year. Who in the heck do you believe? I'm leery of anyone trying to guess that figure or even claiming to know it because only a select few know it. And with that many changes the only thing I'm going to pay attention is my own testing and from people that I respect and know who actually do the same testing that I do and get results.

Don't let that myopic article fool you, article marketing may be changing, but it's going to be around for years to come. However, you cannot limit your efforts to just submitting to article directories. Market how the internet works. Think about where your audience is going to seek out your content and then use those distribution channels.

I've have been writing this since 2001 and I still hold to it: quality, original content spread around effective channels of distribution will always work in getting a targeted audience. This is the direction the online world has been going to and will continue to gravitate to. I strongly recommend getting Seth Godin's updated version of All Marketers Are Liers (Tell Stories) because it gives some great insight into this timeless marketing principle.

RoD

Take ezinearticles for example. They seem to have realised that a min word count of 250 is just attracting articles full of keywords and absolutely nothing unique, interesting or new.

Their new min word count of 400 might help - but IMO an 800+ word article (if well researched) will be fascinating to read, will attract article syndication and will stand a good chance of going viral.

Sites like ehow seem to almost understand this principle. But is it just me or is the ehow.com site starting to get crammed with too many ads, getting slow and looking a bit spammy (even though most of the articles are getting better)?

Matt Cutts :rolleyes:

I have never been an article marketer as most consider it. I am at best a content marketer who has written a boat load of articles.

When writing content for the reader as well as the search engines, you can never forget either, but if I were to go against that rule I would forget the search engines.

If you are keeping every piece of content in a campaign relative, the search engines can be somewhat forgiving .. rarely will the reader be.

In most niches I find myself gravitating to a blog landing with original content pointing to the blog. Learning to take content B and relate it to content A is a must if one wants to target their traffic.

The internet is built on quality content .. if your content is of great quality .. from point A to point Z, Readers and search engines alike will find it. Only shortcuts, inferior content, and a misunderstanding of relating keywords from piece to piece, will result in a failed content marketing campaign.

The same basics that were working ten years ago are live and well today.

Troy

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I agree, I think that the link building process would be more useful if blogs are being used rater than the articles.. Excluding the case of good and authority article site like ezine..

Usually... when I hear Matt Cutts giving advice, it is a little off. Article marketing works. But the last thing I heard Matt Cutts say about it didn't make sense. He was calling "article marketing" submitting the same version of the same article to different sites. In my business, submitting articles for SEO and article marketing are two completely different tasks. Article marketing works and always will. Articles for SEO works, but...

You can't just submit that same version of the same article and expect great results. The best results are when you have the resources to get unique articles written for each submission to different sites. A step down from there is writing a good article, hand spinning it, and submitting it to a number of sites.

Matt Cutts is to Internet marketers what Tokyo Rose was to US Servicemen. Straight misinformation campaign meant to disguise just how easy G's algorithm is to break.

he is right, article marketing was something nice in the past but it has been abused but a lot of online marketing tactics have been abused.

Google does have a point. There is a great deal of pure junk out there. The content may either be poorly written or based on a decent article and then spun hundreds of times. It gets ridiculous. It would be nice if there were a way to exercise and minimal degree of standards but I know that would be very hard to enforce. In any case I agree with trying to limit the pure junk out there. It just dilutes the good content which is posted.

tektime...
Google is doing our good only.....
If u don't ike Google then dont use it yourself ad don't optimize Ur site 4 seo also.
Since u r a IMer or webmaster it doesn't mean normal people have to digest every BS u do.

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Google has always been about unique content, and a professional presence, eventually article marketing would be targetted, but is still a viable option as long as you don't overdo it