As we prepared to move our 12,000 article database from one server to another and make a serious business of it, instead of the formerly free service, hosted on free servers and delivered by free email accounts, we took a serious look around at the article marketing business as well as the paid web content business to see what others were doing and test theories about the value of web content.
What we discovered, to our dismay, was that everyone now recognizes that content is king in search engine ranking. The trouble with everyone knowing how important web content is to search engines - is that it gets perverted the same way linking and Pagerank got perverted. Everyone realized how important links were to good search engine ranking in 1998 and 1999 when FFA (Free-For-All) link directories were launched.
The FFA insanity was finally recognized by late 2000 and early 2001 by the search engines as a perverted system and they first discounted those links in their algorithm, then began to penalize those links because they were dominated by sleazy players in the porn and pills industry. Although those FFA pages still exist and some otherwise reasonable people are taken in by them because they "heard somewhere" that they help your search engine ranking, most of us now know that posting links to FFA pages is a counterproductive waste of time for search engine ranking.
Along came links directories, linking directory software, and link building services to pollute the waters of linking even further. Webmasters hear that links are important for search engine rank and they dive into one or all of these linking schemes to increase their link popularity. Finally the search engines noted that millions of unrelated sites were linking to each other and that those links were nearly always reciprocal. So the search engines downgraded those links, reduced the value of directories full of reciprocal links to unrelated sites. It's been rumored that this too is a possible area of penalization by search engines.
I'm a long-time advocate for the value of web content in the form of free articles as a search engine strategy. I started an emailed article distribution service in 1999 to encourage site owners to write and distribute articles for free use on other sites to increase topical relevancy and coincidentally as a method of gaining one-way inbound links to their site from the resource box at the end of their articles. I have long used them to ghostwrite and submit articles for clients on a regular basis as a linking campaign resource for their site in place of the more common reciprocal link-begging done by so many webmasters.
Now article marketing is becoming polluted by overzealous marketers producing software and services to "Blast Your Articles to 50,000 Ezine Editors" with little regard to much more than selling a few thousand copies of their software. Ezine editors see articles blasted in shotgun fashion without regard to topic or industry as spam when they receive those random article submissions. It is only one of the perversions of the web content game now perverted by "blasts" of emailed articles to tens of thousands of ezine editors.
A further perversion is "SEO writers" who use this Shotgun Software to blast ghost-written articles (done for clients) to thousands of ezine editors and article distrbution sites, not just once, but over and over again. These maniacal jackals join article distribution lists under multiple pen names and use their software to submit those "blasts" to dozens of article distribution lists under multiple names, multiple times in the hopes of getting the articles published multiple times on the same sites. It has required us to write filtering software to keep multiple submissions out of the archives and ban the authors doing the multiple submissions from further submissions.
The worst perversion of the web content game is those harvesting articles from the multitude of free content sites and reproducing entire archives from multiple article databases and hosting those thousands of articles on dynamic sites without regard to topic or category. This watering down of the article relevance by random inclusion on hundreds of websites is destroying the value of the article marketing and diluting the value of the link to the author sites. Why? Because those articles are now appearing on thousands of sites that have no focus or relevance and link back to the authors from sites that have no apparent subject or topic.
Web content is critical to establish a topical relevance for all website owners, not simply for creating larger sites with more Adsense ads on them. Publishers need to focus on relevant topics and avoid reproducing random web content. The content at any cost mentality is killing the value of article marketing and diluting the reasons for distribution. Unless the article spammers stop "Blasting to 50,000 Ezine Publishers" we will see the value of article marketing blown to bits and reduced to the value of FFA links directories.
Copyright ? August 11, 2005 by Mike Banks Valentine
Mike Banks Valentine operates http://publish101.com Free Web Content Distribution for Article Marketers and Provides content aggregation, press release optimization and custom web content for Search Engine Positioning http://publish101.com RSS: http://publish101.com
disinfecting cleaning services Winnetka ..If you have an entertainment website then you're always looking... Read More
Content is an important component of your web site. Learning... Read More
The ezine article is of major importance to the world... Read More
Anxiety, apprehension, cold feet, consternation, dismay, distress, dread, fear, fright,... Read More
Who remembers the 1979 movie, The Jerk with Steve Martin?... Read More
By now most entrepreneurs realize that the most cost effective... Read More
Do you wonder what easy, cheap, and fast way you... Read More
Have you ever wondered why Ezine Articles have become one... Read More
If you are using articles to promote your business then... Read More
Writing an article is not an easy task. You have... Read More
You say, I can't write an article, I have no... Read More
There are many ancient writings, which dive into the importance... Read More
MS: John, you must be one of the most prolific... Read More
Search Engines are constantly on the "look out" for freshly... Read More
Online publishers, ezine subscribers, and Web visitors want short, useful... Read More
To be successful at any affiliate marketing program, you not... Read More
Queries are not written like business letters or emails; they... Read More
Congratulations! You've written your first article (or possibly your 10th... Read More
Ever read one of those web articles written by an... Read More
The name of the game as far as Internet marketing... Read More
SEO writing is very different from content writing, article writing,... Read More
A great way for self employed professionals to enhance their... Read More
Finding something to write about can be frustrating for all... Read More
Many online marketers have crowed about the value of writing... Read More
Last time on "Because your articles suck" ? we discussed... Read More
last minute cleaning help Highland Park ..Often all the Web Surfer will see is your title,... Read More
As of July 1st, the year was half over! July... Read More
The sources of inspiration are all around us, in the... Read More
Overture reports over 1 million queries for article keyword related... Read More
Article Marketing Builds Momentum and TrafficWhen I started submitting articles... Read More
If you're writer, I am sure sometimes you may have... Read More
Jim was working hard to grow his business. Long hours... Read More
Writers talk about rejection all the time ? just part... Read More
Marketing on a budget is tough. This is a universal... Read More
We all know that article writing is a great way... Read More
MS: Shelley, you're an excellent person to talk to about... Read More
When you have to share what you've created, where do... Read More
If you are an article writer, you may have been... Read More
Recycling your work is a lot like doing your part... Read More
Not every web designer has the time ? or skills... Read More
I've been able to distinguish 3 main categories that people... Read More
If you haven't considered the power of articles as part... Read More
Write articles, be recognized as an expert, drive a surge... Read More
As you write the outline for your next article, there... Read More
By default, Microsoft Word automatically changes straight quotation marks (... Read More
You are running out of ideas, you sit down in... Read More
Are you short of ideas? There are times when we... Read More
This author started with a clean website and wrote 5... Read More
Is Putting your Articles in the Public Domain really a... Read More
Most business owners are overwhelmed with the day to day... Read More
Article Writing |