ArticleRanks published articles on blogs with same server IP / hostname?

Hi,

So I started utilizing ArticleRanks recently with a few articles I'd already written and spun to quite a high standard.

They've been published many times in the days since they were submitted, but I've noticed something:

Most of the pingbacks I get from sites where my articles were published are situated on the same IPs - on servers with the same hostnames.

Evidentally, many of the sites in the system (at least in my experience) are on the same servers and thus the amount of link diversity across different IPs that I'm receiving is small to nil.

Either one user in the system has registered hundreds of domains and set up hundreds of sites on the same servers or else these are sites owned and run by the guys/company behind ArticleRanks? Most of the sites have adsense installed on them, and yes, a lookup of the Adsense publisher ID on SpyOnWeb.com Research Tool — You Can Disclose Websites With The Same Google Adsense Code, Google Analytics Code, Ip Address etc. also reveals a lot of the other sites in the network and on the same server/IP.

I love these services but if the only sites my articles are going to be published on are on the same servers, the benefit of the service to me and everyone else is going to be pretty small.

What is the *real* experience of other users of ArticleRanks, in terms of its contributing to raising your search rankings?

Sure, a lot of people rave about how cool the system is because their articles have been published so many times, but it's all meaningless if the blogs are all identical (just with a different theme), with the same (zero) PageRank on the same server. There's simply no diversity.

I'm almost tempted to pull my PR4 blog out of the system because what's the point in having it there when all I get in exchange is free credits which ultimately translate into worthless backlinks on worthless blogs?