According to the experts, the answer is no:
http://www.seobook.com/archives/002322.shtml
Quote: If you are really struggling for links then you might want to submit to the top few article sites on this list but otherwise I would really recommend steering clear of article sites. They are full of low quality duplicate content that never attracts natural links and are joining directories in the webs spam filled wasteland.
http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/blog/article-marketing-the-right-way/
Also:
http://www.wolf-howl.com/grayhat-seo/article-syndications-sites/
http://www.seo-blog.com/publishing-articles.php
Megan
My web design blog
hsc-online posted this at 14:43 — 2nd July 2007.
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yes , correct. If you submit same articals 50 or 250 artical sites, No point. Just wast your time and money. select 3 or 4 best artical sites.specially try google ,yahoo, msn trusted sites. That's should be enought.
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Freedom posted this at 09:24 — 3rd July 2007.
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Agree. I have heard a lot of possitive reviews of that, but no one couldn't show real results. It is a pitty. Because this branch of SEO is empty enough to get good results there.
Megan posted this at 13:33 — 10th July 2007.
She has: 11,007 posts
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What do you mean by that last bit?
I think what people are missing here is that with article directories you're trying to hit your target in a round-about way (quality sites to link to you and quality visitors to read them). If you're going to write articles for other sites, why not go directly to the source? I know in web design there are lots of quality sites that accept direct article submissions. One article on a site like this would be worth hundreds on low quality distributed sites. You just have to write something that suits their topic and their audience.
I'm sure even with other topics there are lots of decent quality sites that would be happy to accept articles written by others. They want to keep serving quality content to their readers and all they need to give you is a linkback (anyone want to write about webmaster related topics for A Padded Cell?). They also want unique content - not something pulled from an article directory that is just going to get them banned for duplicate content.
You could also volunteer to be a guest blogger on sites that accpet them, or contribute to group blogs.
What I'm thinking is that instead of doing old fashioned link exchanges and posting articles to article sites, we should be doing direct article exchanges. I'll write for you, you write for me. We both get a good linkback
It better be good though, because I don't publish crap 
(there's the benefit of article directories - they publish crap!)
Megan
My web design blog
princess23 posted this at 06:44 — 6th July 2007.
They have: 40 posts
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yes, articles work for me. it can give a lot of back links. just make sure that your article is worth reading
sheena24 posted this at 10:35 — 10th July 2007.
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article marketing plays an important role in seo.it bring backward links for your site.
we can write the same article in various article sites.sometimes dupicacy exits butwe need backlinks,so submit in different sites
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Megan posted this at 15:51 — 17th July 2007.
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Here's an interesting article with another strategy for content marketing:
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/search-engine-optimisation/link-building.shtml
This is basically doing what I described above - writing good content and submitting it directly to quality sites on your topic. The article above does talk about paying for the opportunity - I don't think that would be necessary in all cases. It would depend on the quality of the site involved and the spamminess of your content. i.e. if you have a lot of obvious linkbacks to your site in the content (it reads like an advertisment), you'd probably have to pay another site to post it, if they would post it at all. On the other hand, if you had something really high quality and authoritative, that would attract a lot of natural links, a site owner might pay you for exclusive use of your article. In most cases you'd probably do an equal exchange - content for link back.
Just the other day I reported a search to Google because the first result was basically an advertisement in article form. They could find a way to catch on to that. And besides, a lot of good quality sites would outright refuse really spammy content even if you offered to pay for it. I would.
Megan
My web design blog
princess23 posted this at 05:27 — 18th July 2007.
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yes it does. just make sure that your articles are of good quality
seomaster007 posted this at 10:23 — 19th July 2007.
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Submitting your 2/3 artical's on best websites and see the result
elena29 posted this at 09:07 — 31st July 2007.
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It is recommended to keep content as unique as possible because Google gives penalties against duplicate content. Ofcourse you will not be dropped into the Google sandbox for inbound links as you cannot control who and why is linking to your website but on the other hand those inbound links will have low value and you will be faced to a waste of time, not to mention financial resources.
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cooluks posted this at 17:37 — 2nd August 2007.
He has: 16 posts
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I agree with Megan, because it is being duplicated some writers just copy other's work... They don't create unique articles....
It will lead to duplicate contents...For Penalization... If articles are made unique... It will be a good one... But as of today I think many are constructing articles.... Which they just get ideas from other writers? What do you think?
victorsmith posted this at 10:57 — 24th June 2009.
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Megan, thanks for sharing nice and helpful info and links,
by my opine, article submission only give rewards when you have nice and fresh article and article site is also good otherwise its only waste of time and money
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jansky posted this at 03:09 — 26th June 2009.
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Article submissions is one of the strategies that help promote your site and generate more traffic.. Just make sure that your making an article that interests people and submit it to tons of free article directories..
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kim robin posted this at 06:51 — 26th June 2009.
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I have to agree. Articles should be submitted only to highly reputable sites like ezinearticles and Goarticles. There you can get a quality backlinks. Submitting to lots of article directories is just a waste of time.
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Johnantony posted this at 12:21 — 1st July 2009.
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According to me article posting is one of the good technique of seo.it generates more traffic and also useful for getting backlinks.
Hafsoh posted this at 17:28 — 3rd July 2009.
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I maintain that it is a better practice for gaining incoming links than that of buying or reciprocal building.
The real power of article submission services is not in the links that come directly from the submission sites themselves but from the other sites the syndicate/republish the content.
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Himsagar posted this at 13:27 — 4th July 2009.
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If the articls have a particular niche with great content, then there will be readers for the articles everywhere.
Just need to submit your articles to the top directories which may be 20 or 25 in total.
This iwll bring lot of fresh links to you always.
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prettywoman posted this at 16:09 — 7th July 2009.
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Article submission will useful for you if you place a link on the unique article. If the content is duplicate from others, they will useless for seo. However still useful for getting traffic. That's all.
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sortinstechnologies posted this at 12:25 — 13th July 2009.
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Submitting articles to top article directories is the best way to get traffic to a website and also for back link.
Don't use duplicate content in your article.
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devidmark posted this at 09:30 — 16th July 2009.
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Hello All
Good Quality content article submit in all top article directory is best way to increase traffic and Quality back link.
davidjhonston posted this at 11:36 — 16th July 2009.
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offcourse article submission work for seo.....write a good article of your site and submit it on many article directories on the web
webmania posted this at 09:37 — 27th July 2009.
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Yes, good content article are always helpful for SEO
NickD posted this at 01:33 — 28th July 2009.
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Articles can provide great quality backlinks, if you can find blogs to submit them to rather than article directories they tend to have more juice.
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Vishenda posted this at 08:01 — 29th July 2009.
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I like the article exchange idea and the quality of the link is good too since the site is promoting/has original content too.
bryansmith posted this at 10:56 — 29th October 2009.
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Good and unique content will always help for seo.
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Dreamer posted this at 15:18 — 29th October 2009.
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yes ofcorse, quality article are very good for making back links and must submitted to high pr directories.
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Robomanis posted this at 17:03 — 2nd November 2009.
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well so show me 2 quality backlinks please, because never see it.
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luckygal posted this at 06:41 — 4th November 2009.
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Article marketing is a very cheap way that helps you to gain a number of inbound links to your website. I think successful article submission play an important role in SEO.To make article submission work for you, you must be sure to submit your articles only to reputed sites. It is important to choose the relevant categories during the article submission.
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bryansmith posted this at 10:25 — 18th January 2010.
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off course,it plays an important role in seo.submit your articles in best article sites,it can give lot of back links.make sure that your article is unique and good.
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AswinMetha posted this at 18:10 — 19th January 2010.
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Yes, I do agree with you guys. Submitting articles to about 100-200(or more) article dirctories are really time waste as well as money too. It is better to select quality articles directories with good domain PR and use those.
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tsweez posted this at 03:58 — 9th February 2010.
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Food for thought... I use free article services and it's been great, but here's a couple of tips that you might want to consider...
1) Your priority should be to write content for your own site. I write about three versions of each article. One for my site, another for our affiliates to use, and yet another for free article directories. They each have to be very different.
2) If you want people to pick up your articles and run them on their site, it's more of a long tail benefit, so don't expect any mass coverage in a short period of time.
3) Some of these free services check for duplicate content so you'll want to make sure that you credit the articles consistently if you plan on using multiple services or they may get rejected. If they find an article (ezinearticles) that is a duplicate, but you can prove you are the author, you should be good to go
4) Keep in mind that the links that underly your anchor text are often obsfucated, so you might not get credit for the link. Google may also depreciate the value of the link. But... You can leverage the free article submission sites Page Rank so your article appears prominently as a result in keyword searches. So, know your keywords, and use them wisely. You may actually get non-SEO related traffic just by organic searches where your article will appear. I have articles that show up on page one of Google searches for keywords where I'd otherwise have no chance.
Finally, yeah, technically I see little SEO benefit unless your article gets coverage. As people re-purpose your article, they often use the correct links, so in theory, you could get a bump. Don't expect your PR to gain much ground, if any. With that said, it's still a valuable resource, perhaps just non-SEO related.
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kennyjewels posted this at 10:36 — 20th February 2010.
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Yes article submission works for seo, it is one of the best powerful tool to increase backlinks and ranking in SERP. Submits articles in article distribution sites like isnare and article marketer build massive backlinks..
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talkseo posted this at 12:27 — 20th February 2010.
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Article submission is one of the very important process of SEO and thus helpful in getting quality and relevant backlinks, traffic once your articles get approved.
There are many high PR article directories that are very good for article submissions, it is helpful for getting quality traffic to your site and thus results in top position in SERPS.
Now a days, there are different article submission tools available like article submitter which submitts your articles in different hight pr directories in some moment.
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jj1 posted this at 15:15 — 22nd February 2010.
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I spent the last 2 months writing unique articles in my spare time to promote a site - probably just 20 or so in all for about 7-10 directories and time was limited. To start with my site climbed from poistion 29 to 23 and then - overnight - it dropped to position 29 again and has stuck there.
I guess I must have tripped some sort of filter/flag - too many articles in too short a space of time on a site where I hadn't previously done much link building or anchor text a bit too similar - I varied it but mayboe not enough.
So yes I think articles can help but beware!
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Safia Kim posted this at 08:00 — 4th March 2010.
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In SEO article has its own importance.If we publish an article a week on few sites. Most of these articles get picked up by many other sites which can provide us with valuable link backs.So i think it works.
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