It's not a question of importance but rather one of how effective. Complete waste of time and not effective.

The backlink value is low and not worth it. It is time wasted.

No, but there are better ways to get backlinks and traffic. I don't think article directories should be a part of your marketing or backlinking campaigns. Article directories took a dive in 2011 with the first Panda update. Been in the toilet ever since.

Enterprisemend,

I would not spend any time submitting low quality content. It is also unwise to submit any kind of content to a low PR website. You would do far better writing a handful of good articles and submitting them to high PR web 2.0 properties than you would submitting dozens of spun article to low quality sites.

Also, reputable web 2.0s will not allow you to submit duplicate articles.

Here are some off-page best practices that may give you some good ideas,

SEO Off Page Best Practices | TechJaws.com

Hope that helps,

Shawn

Honestly, I cant see the purpose of spinning articles, even for SEO purposes. Especially if your submitting the same article to several directories. Any mass submission of an article will just go straight to Google’s supplemental index. I highly doubt that links in the supplemental index help in SEO. Spun articles that don’t go to the supplemental index will never be linked to. I see it as being totally pointless. Article spinning should be considered a thing of the past.

If you want to get traffic from article directories - you write articles then submit manually them to 5 - 10 article directories that have high traffic. It is better than than spin existing hundreds of articles and submitting them to hundreds article directories.

If you want backlinks only, not traffic - submitting hundreds of spinned articles to hundreds of article directories.

Spinning doesn't really help you in your SEO or marketing effots. As what others have said, it really is ineffective simply because the spun article or description doesn't provide a genuine and remarkable content. More often than not, the spun article or description has grammatical errors and appears to be of spammy nature. Thus, when submitted to various sites, it would result to suspension of accounts or you will end up being banned. So, I would rather submit a genuine article to only one site, not to multiple sites.

At best you're wasting your time, and at worst you could be damaging your site and reputation. The backlink value will be zero and anyone that does somehow get to the articles and starts reading spun content is not going to find any value, read very much or want to even click on any links directing them back to your money site.

Low quality work can come back to haunt you. I've caught a lot of people copying my content. Indian writers are the worst for this - be wary if you're outsourcing for $1 an article or something. DMCA is proving very effective at taking it down, but I think suing the thieves could be a nice new business for me.

So what's about high quality spinning of your own texts?

Speaking from personal experience, the articles don't convert into $$$...THAT'a the main problem...aren't you into IM to make money? Why crank out articles that can't do it for you?

Focus on the reader...great copy is what makes the sale.

It is probably best to create content that people can use. If you want good links, create guides! People love guides.
I have even had a few of mine mentioned in large online publications and news services. These types of backlinks are awesome!

There's no potential benefit from this.

These days, it'll probably get your site heavily penalized for "overoptimization" by Google's "Penguin update". This has already happened to large numbers of Warriors, and they've been told expressly and openly by Google that this is the reason.

This is an activity for people who don't quite appreciate how article directories work, I'm afraid. Multiple article directory submission is pointless, and without benefits. It's all explained, in great detail, in this thread: How do Article Directories work?

Don't even think about it.

"Spinning" is also completely without value. It can damage your business, but it can't help you. Everyone who actually makes a living from article marketing (rather than from supplying spinning software or services) says the same things about spinning. And there are reasons for that.

For people open-minded enough to read them, these six items explain much more, at greater length and in greater detail.

• this post explains the benefits of spinning
• the first half (or so) of this thread contains a good discussion of what you can gain from spinning articles
• the advice on this subject given by so many people throughout most of this thread has been really helpful to many people here
• on the meaning and significance of "duplicate content", in this context, this little post from expert article marketer Anne Pottinger includes direct quotations from Google's WebMaster Central Blog on the subject (not easy to find a more authoritative source than that!)
• this little article is also a very useful and accurate explanation of the subject
• this post, and its links, explain in detail the closely related subject of how article directories really work and why they exist

No - it would typically have a much better, much safer, much more productive and profitable effect.

Though I must say, for me, 5 is still "too many directories". It's about 3 - 4 "too many", for me.

I use college interns, who need college credits, to write original copy to submit to content sites such as BlogHer, Ezines, etc. This has proven to be a great way for them to get writing experience, college credit, and learn a bit about IM. Oh, and getting the articles doesn't hurt our team either.

Great thread!

Thanks to all who are contributing. I now have a more clear outlook on the 'effectiveness' of spinning and mass distributing articles. I will continue to just submit to my handful of high ranking article directories and contemplate using some Web2.0's.