The future of publishing articles to get links

[James Bull]

Let's suppose I write an article which includes a link to my website, submit it some free article directories and it ends up being reproduced on five other websites.

That's five links back to my site from the people who use the article, in addition to links from the directories.

However, it's still only one article. The fact that five people decide to copy it might indicate that it has some merit, but my point is that it is duplicated content. The article has not become five times more useful or relevant by being copied five times.

The "publish free articles to build links" strategy is why we have a new industry based purely on creating content for its sake. I'm part of it too.

I'm just wondering how long this "content creation industry" can remain viable. There is a huge irony in the fact that the more we create content to get links to improve our search engine visibility, the more we add to the clutter on the web.

Is it only a matter of time before Google and the others figure out a way to discount links that are in duplicated content?

[greeneagle]

IMO - It has already become somewhat non-viable as unique content, unless enough accompanying editorial commentary is added to bypass the dupe content filters.

It may very well be that auto generated content is on it's deathbed.

Ken

[JuniorOnline]

or maybe, thats why blogging is becoming more and more popular :)

[T2DMan]

Whether having copies of your articles around the web helps you is very dependant on the seo abilities of each website publisher.

Personally, I have worked with another developer to create a product that creates unique pages/websites for each "copy" of the same article. Something is only duplicate if the keyphrase searched for has the same 150 snippet or words around it. So you can generally make the title of the article unique, but the content of the article if searched for specifically would be duplicate. See the following as an example of the seo that is possible - http://www.marketitonline.co.nz/articles/

How many people would go to that bother of getting such uniqueness?

How many people would give the site sufficient inbound links to get it the PR needed for the outbound links to be any value to the publisher?

How many people would add rel=nofollow to all links on the article?

There are lots of unknowns out there.

[espectations]

I have been wondering about this too....

Does anybody know if there are guidelines or a clear definition of duplicate content?

In other threads on this forum it was once mentioned that if 60% of the content is the same it is considered to be duplicate.

Maybe it will help all of us to define duplicate content before we discard the idea.

I agree with the editorial comments - especially on sites where the visitor could add their own ideas or comments

[greeneagle]

JuniorOnline:

"or maybe, thats why blogging is becoming more and more popular :)"

I certainly hope you can be more explicit there!

There seem to be quite a few new rules in the blog game too.

Ken

[greeneagle]

Let's fully comprehend what happened here:

Relevancy, Relevancy, Relevancy..

It started with Non-Relevant OBLs in the "Bourbon" mastication of Gray and Black faux directories and has propogated to include IBLs, OBLs, Blogs, articles, press releases, Sites and everything else in Sight!

It's all about relevancy and dupe across the board!

Let's just go ahead and pronounce most garbage DOA!:

faux directories
auto generated garbage sites
dupe content from hell, including multiple iterations of press releases and articles

We are all tired of it, after all aren't we?

Make sure and visit this thread for more info:
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=60329

Ken

[JuniorOnline]

Hi greeneagle,

I think with Blogs, you can't really copy the content and paste it on your site and include the link back and auther details like you do with articles.. or can you? if you can, then i am 100% out of date in that area..because I thought Blogging, is like a daily/weekly diary with news and updates written by the same people day in and day out.

thanks,
T

[freetraff]

Article is just another form of link exchange, but a very smart form. Until link exchange is useful, article submission will be useful too.

[Atlantean]

Look, greeneagle is right. Articles as an IBL stategy is dead-on-arrival.

You know, there is one full-proof way to avoid penalties incurred by Google (after all, are we ever really talking about any other search engine?) with respect to article duplication.

WRITE YOUR OWN STUFF and do not allow it to be copied! Everybody always wants to take the easy way out and benefit as if they had done something wonderful. If you duplicate an article, then you lose.

Unless there is an allowance in the algos that is able to identify the date of first publication of an article (Do we know this yet?), then you should not allow your work to be re-published for the sake of gaining an inbound link.

I foresee the day when dupe content will not be indexed and if someone truly wants to run a website, they will have to produce relevant high-quality content.

It comes down to this: Get up off your lazy butt and write your own RELEVANT copyrighted content! You will get referrals from sites in your field that reference and link to your article without having to outright copy it.

[kgun]

What if you got ibl's from some of the strongest links on the web?

Yes, I know your answer.

My

SEO rule 1:

Write dynamic quality content with simple, clean code and good headings.

SEO rule 2:

Write dynamic quality content with simple, clean code and good headings. Repeat important words in the (title), meta tags, headings and text on the page. Think and rethink the words you use.

In theory, theory and practice is the same, but that is in theory.

Rule one will survive in a meaningful search world.

[marcel]

Free articles do bring in traffic... but your site will suffer in SEO rankings. The free content will dilute the quality of your unique content in the eyes of the SE.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by marcel

Free articles do bring in traffic... but your site will suffer in SEO rankings. The free content will dilute the quality of your unique content in the eyes of the SE.

You write it as a fact? What are your sources?

[davidof]

Originally Posted by kgun

You write it as a fact? What are your sources?

The problem with this thread and the other Ken started is that they are extremely short on facts just informed speculation.

Yes the Internet in general has an enormous problem with spam sites - as specifics my site(s) get bombarded with log and comment spam and people find spam sites in search results.

Is this a problem for Google? Well just as PageRank had an enormous and not altogether positive on the structure of the Web AdSense has had a huge effect on the content of the Web. Most of the spam sites are in it for AdSense clicks. AdSense clicks are good for Google so spam is good for Google in this sense. However too much spam (MFA, directories etc), assuming the average user can tell the difference, may force searchers elsewhere. This is bad for Google as sponsored results are part of their revenue strategy. Too much spam in results may discourage content creators too which would be bad for Google.

I think spam, duplicate and stolen content included is one of the major problems for legitimate sites as it means less revenue. I think Google has a higher tolerance of spam than us though and would suggest that click fraud is higher priority.

[williamc]

Originally Posted by davidof

The problem with this thread and the other Ken started is that they are extremely short on facts just informed speculation.

Often not even informed. Just speculation, stated as fact. That is really the only problem I have with that poster.

However I agree, that too many people here seem to enjoy doing exactly that to make themselves look big and knowledgeable. When they should be doing more listening, like when Matt Cutts suggested on webmasterradio that intelligent people shouldn't dig around the recent patents very much. Some here could take a rather huge lesson from that.

[davidof]

Originally Posted by williamc

like when Matt Cutts suggested on webmasterradio that intelligent people shouldn't dig around the recent patents very much.

That's an interesting quote from Matt, the patent application on Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data was so broad that you could read almost anything you liked about Google's results into it but to me it always appeared to be largely an IP land grab.... but that is just speculation.

[aaron2005]

Here is an example of someone copying and duplicating everything I write in my f*cking blog: http://www.seobuzzbox.com/news-aggregators.html

Pisses me off and Google just ignores it and me bitching about it.

If there is no timestamp on who is the originator everything you write that is copied by a news aggregater is duplicate, this means everything you do until your site gets trust and rank higher then those stealing your sh*t is duplicate and you lose!

BIG question and I will do everthing I can to get an answer on this...tired really freakin' tired.

BTW: Why doesn't anyone call out the "auto-content" spammers in here? What a bunch of a*holes! Hey, freetraff, I hope you fail at everything you do in life...you I blame for the tightening of the algorithm and collateral damage, what's your IP?

[IIxxVADERxxII]

I think the future depends on your efforts.