After the Farmer Update: Will you use Article Marketing?

[jkgourmet]

Now that Google has performed it's Farmer Update (aka the Panda Update), are you still using Article Marketing as part of your overall strategy?

If so, how valuable do you think it still is?

If so, what Article Directories do you think still have a value?

Thanks for the suggestions.

[pamb10]

I just noticed this morning that my article that took a big hit after the update, was number 1 for a while....and was a few pages down after the update, is now sitting in position 6 for they keyword.

I definately think that article marketing is still a viable way to market and should still be used as part of your strategy. I plan to continue using it. I think that you just have to have a targeted article with good content and you will be fine.

[angienewton]

I'm not currently doing article marketing but I think it's going to be much easier now that they are clearing out the junk. I'm not worried about it because like Pam said as long as you have good relevant content you shouldn't have to worry.

[Kayla Fay]

I agree. I have one article that I use as sort of the marker for the others. It's been in the top five for a particular keyphrase for quite some time. It's wobbling a bit, but it's still there. Clearing the chaff from the wheat, I think.

[jgant]

I still submit articles straight from my blog to EzineArticles. I still get decent traffic and excellent syndication. Article marketing is still one of my central traffic and linking strategies. I put the odd article on ArticleBase, but focus on EZA.

[pamb10]

Here is an article on this topic posted by Jeff Herring today:

http://jeffherring.com/more-on-the-death-of-article-marketing/

[Infinity]

Hi Jeanette,

Article marketing is still a vary viable way of driving traffic to your site. :)

As they say, life and death is a cycle, just like how there are constantly people dying, and new people being born. If article marketing dies, a new form of article marketing comes in.

However, in this case, article marketing is still doing very well, and bringing in thousands of visitors every day for many people, so don't listen to the naysayers who are saying that this or that is dead...

How do you say... most of them have a vested interest in killing off certain methods of marketing because they are usually promoting their own methods or affiliate products.

Article marketing still works, and it works very well. :) Even with EZA...

And I don't see how it could possibly die out, because the internet is merely an aggregation of information after all. Without information like articles, the internet would cease to exist.

I also use a special form of article marketing based on the probability of syndications. If you're interested, you can find out more by opting in for the free report on my site :)

http://www.themysteriousmarketer.com/

Cheers,
Allen

[gailjrichardson]

How have you been doing? I just wanted to say that I can't really tell that my articles took much of a hit with the "Farmer Update" event. They are still bringing me in sales. I will continue to use article marketing daily. I agree with the others that as long as it's quality content you should be good.:)

http://www.dimedecorating.com
http://www.newgrandparentrights.com

[tbritton]

This is my first post, so I may as well impress at least one person.

I think use of "article spinning software" is a mark of low character; is cheating; and is attempting to "game" the system in a way it was not intended to be used, and diminishes your relationships not only with your customer base but with yourself as well to use such tactics. Besides the fact that the results from article spinners are so typically god-awful, it is simply lazy and adds nothing of real worth to the community of Internet users.

It is alright to have the same article submitted to multiple locations ("meet your people where they are") - the myth of "duplicate content" penalties only applies to use of replicated content in a particular manner. We submit videos to many locations without penalty -- why would one think there is a penalty for good article content being disseminated to a number of locations? (The whole point of article syndication sites like EzineArticles and others is to have your article published in multiple venues.)

And if you are asked for an original article, what is stopping you from customizing your approach to sharing information through a re-write that puts a truly different viewpoint into the mix - all of my re-writes result in BETTER articles!

That is the key there -- are you producing good article content, or only "fluff" that is a regurgitation of lightweight information bordering upon being a mere spewing of platitudes (http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aplatitudes)?

That is my pet peeve. Everything about article spinning and flooding the 'net with articles just for backlinks smells of unethical practices, and "virtual" lying and cheating.

I hope plenty of people agree with me on this, but I'm open to hear why people do not agree.

Terry

[Phil Tanny]

Hey Terry, welcome.


That is the key there -- are you producing good article content, or only "fluff" that is a regurgitation of lightweight information bordering upon being a mere spewing of platitudes (http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aplatitudes)?

This is of course a key question. The article directories are stuffed to overflowing with tons of truly mediocre or worse writing.

I've noticed the following about webmaster culture.

Almost all of us agree, in theory at least, that quality content is important. There's a kind of group consensus chant that is repeated whenever the subject comes up, quality content is key, quality content is key, quality content is key etc etc.

While these statements of principle are very common, if we examine webmaster communities with a clear objective eye what we find is....

There is very little serious discussion of the art of writing. Almost none.

An exception of sorts is the sales copy community, but their focus is "how do I get the reader to do what I want" instead of "how do I give the reader what they want".

The discussion in webmaster communities tends to focus pretty overwhelmingly on all kinds of things our readers could care less about.

You know what I mean, Wordpress themes and plugins, keyword research software, traffic building techniques, clever business strategies and so on.

Most of us are building our careers primarily with the written word. But most of us really aren't students of the written word.

We might imagine that the net didn't exist yet, and there was no web technology for us to hide behind as writers. Imagine that there's only your mind, your keyboard, and a blank white page of paper. Imagine those are the only tools you have to connect. It's not that crazy an imagination, given this has been the life of writers for thousands of years.

In such a circumstance, we'd have to focus on learning to write the same way a musician spends decades focusing on mastering their instrument. In such a circumstance, we'd have no choice but to focus on what our readers really do care about, their reading experience.

If we really were interested in quality content, webmaster forums would be dominated by conversations like the following.

Are you a chicken writer, or a brave adventurer?

Do you color carefully within the lines, and say what people expect you to say, in the way they expect you to say it? Are you a card carrying member of the group consensus? Are your articles sanitized, politically correct, and a candidate for the Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval?

If yes, phew, you're safe. Nobody is going to yell at you or run screaming from the room.

You're probably also invisible, a fatal condition for a writer, especially in today's media saturated environment.

You know those shows on TV where you can predict the entire plot after seeing the first 5 minutes? You know how your eyes glaze over, you start feeling sleepy, and reach for the remote? That's safe chicken writing, having it's predictable effect upon you.

Imho, the net is primarily show business, expressing itself in a wide variety of forms. Are you willing to put on a show? If not, why are we sitting in your audience?

What does putting on a show involve?

How do we create the kind of suspenseful drama that keeps readers glued to the page?

What are the emotional and business obstacles to being an exciting online personality that readers talk about?

All of this is clearly debatable.

What I'm trying to say is that if we were truly serious about quality content, if we were real writers, we'd be endlessly debating issues like this in webmaster communities.

[tbritton]

Bookkeeper-For-You,

I suppose that even a SHORT course on writing well would be helpful generally to the Internet Marketing community. But my peeve hasn't been so much the quality of the writing as much as the cheesiness of using article spinning software to cause lots of even MORE poorly written items become proliferated all over the place just because it is espoused as a way to "make money fast."

"Build a million backlinks and be rewarded with cash, cash cash! Fast and Easy!"

Ugh...

Google will find reverse-spinning software that detects patterns in connecting words (the, a, and) and grammatical structure sequences to overcome the spinning software junk output (eventually - it is just a matter of time now), and all those backlinks will come crashing down, if this is going to become a world where honest players win and dishonest players lose.

[Phil Tanny]

I hear ya Terry. The great thing about the net is that it connects us to everybody. The awful thing about the net is that it connects us to everybody. There's a lot of cheeseball going on out there for sure, and it can get really annoying being connected to it sometimes.

So the challenge for us I guess is to write authentic really compelling edge of your seat articles about the Cheeseball Industry. :) I dunno though, that sounds pretty darn hard. Maybe I'll automate it!

Oh wait, sorry, I gotta go. An email about how Britney Spears photos can enhance my love life and make me a billionaire in only 3 weeks just came in. That sounds important, I'd better attend to that right away. See ya! :)

[tbritton]

Yes, that 'cheeseball' article is in me waiting to be written, for sure.

Just comment spam spinners to start with:

"This is good different reason why I similar your website. I one your trend of authorship you assure your histories without out sending us to 5 previous sites to accomplished the story."

(...actual comment spam received at one of my client's sites just today - thank goodness I moderate that site! All the comments there are spam ones! It is a native plants site (http://ncwildflower.org) that receives very few real comments.)

Then move on to some of the more amazing examples of badly done article spinning...

Wait...! I'm making myself feel rather sick just thinking about it!

But mainly, simply using article or comment spinning as a method to create back-links shows how simple greed can affect a person's character so that they do things on the Internet they would be ashamed of being caught doing in the real world.

Or would they?

Maybe not! 8-)

Of course, some people do not even attempt to work that hard - they simply steal content and try to get credit as the original poster. A way around this proposed by Google themselves is to use pubsubhubbub (http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/) (a code technique that has a Wordpress plugin - I've Googled it for you in this link (http://www.google.com/search?q=pubsubhubbub).) Google also recommends shooting out a Twitter post right after posting your article to help them see that your content came up first, so you get the link credit.

What a world!