I was just now reading a article at Article City by Janice Byar. I have seen site's whose content mostly consist of articles from ARA & Article City who have good PR. I've often wondered how a site with no original content could score so high with the SE's. I see many sites that use these articles for content.
Here's what Janice Byar had to say.
"Search engines take a dim view of content that is used in numerous websites. They can consider this as spamming so they tend to drop the placement of such websites or completely eliminate them from the search engine".
With so many people using these articles, how could they be beneficial to your website and wouldn't you fall into the category of the quote above? Also if you submit content from your site as a article for publication, wouldn't the wide use of the article put you into competition for your keyword ranking?
I have not pursued the idea of writing articles for site content. When I do write something for submission, it will be irrelevent to our site. Of those of you who have written articles, would you say that it has been very beneficial for your site's ranking? Actually, I started working on something this morning, now if someone will only accept it.
sarge299 posted this at 15:33 — 27th March 2004.
He has: 28 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
As far as search engines taking a dim view. I dont know how true that is. Most will say that creating articles and getting them published on other sites and newsletters only helps your ranking. Having an article on your site written by someone else will usually require you to have that persons signature at the bottom which usually includes a link to their site.
So I think all it really does is give a link to their site without having them to put a back link on theirs to you. So the SE's spiders may only see the link to them and not necessarily the entire article.
As far as content, I suppose if everyone was displaying the same info on their sites it may create competition. But the competition is going to be there anyway. The key is to find "unique" content or if you use common content then try and display it or present it in a way that is unique so your visitors wont feel that they are just seeing the same ole same ole.
Some message boards and forums will allow people to submit articles for use by other members. This is a great way to get fresh content or to display your articles and get the word out.
Also, if the article you read was on article city. Isnt it possible that same article is being published on several websites itself?
I have used articles by numerous sources and it has helped with the ranking. But having unique, valuable and related content to the site is the best way.
That along with
Quality Links
Good Meta Tags
Proper Keywords
Image use etc.
Jim Hoffman
The 11th Hour SEO