Article Directories - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Article Directories are websites that plays host to hundreds of 500+ word articles written by the ‘experts’ (most self proclaimed) of various fields. Within these directories, you can find articles on nearly any niche you can possibly think of. The articles are free for republishing by fellow bloggers or webmasters with only one stipulation for their use, keep the original author’s byline intact.
As more bloggers come on the scene, these article directories are growing to become more abused by individuals who are looking for the easy way, that effortless copy-and-paste your way to blogging riches mindset.
With free services like blogger and free content from article directories, you can see how easy it is for people to set up Splogs or Spam Blogs. Sploggers thrive off article directories and content that’s being scrapped by other bloggers. Thus the reason for monitoring your inbound links and trackbacks - report splogs when you find them, report stolen content when you find it and don’t allow hotlinking EVER! You’ll be the one to end up paying the price.
If you find yourself in a pinch for content and you feel you have no alternative but to use an article directory, try shaking things up a bit to make it not so much ‘duplicate content’ that will eventually get you penalized by search engines.
There are a number of things you can do to customize the article so that it doesn’t seem quite so lazy on your part.
* Add a picture or two to the article - everyone loves to see images in blog posts. This is no exception.
* Create a discussion around the article - encourage your readers to comment on the article. But you should always take the lead by sharing a few of your comments first.
* Review the article - doing a start to finish review of the article gives it a nice new twist.
* Spread a little link love to fellow bloggers who might be discussing similar topics.
As a more seasoned blogger, it’s easy for me to become disenchanted with bloggers who copy and paste rather than share their own unique content. I’m sure there are many others just like me. So in the end, all that effort, albeit minimal, CP Bloggers are putting into filling up their blog with other people’s stuff, is a true waste of time.
Occasional filler content is one thing when combined with one of the tips from above, but to copy-and-paste every single post, it’s going to soil your good name before you even leave the starting gate. You’ll be branded the unoriginal blogger.
I believe wholeheartedly that it’s better to say nothing at all then to copy and paste recycled material.
I’m interested in hearing the thoughts of others on this topic.
What do you do when you’re in a pinch for time, hit a complete locked tight writers block or are otherwise detained to where you can’t provide unique content?
Have you ever used article directories for content? Did you do anything to the articles to make them not so “duplicated?â€
Tags: blogging, weblog, free articles, writing, free content, article directories
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I like PLR content when I’m stuck and in a bind and don’t know what to write. I can change it, rewrite it, make it original, and add lots of good stuff to it. It really gets the gears in your head spinning and moving again. Article directories are okay when you’re giving a review of the article or adding pictures to it etc, but then you have to copy and paste the whole thing word for word.
this is interesting since I just a few weeks ago copy/pasted one and did so again last week I think…
I was under the impression that you were ONLY to copy and paste… you can add or comment to the work but NOT in any way change it or the link. I also thought it looked like someone else contributed to your blog but I now see I am not right on that…
After reading this I am going to go back and add some commentary and/or a pic - thanks for the tip on this. I wasn’t planning on making it a habit and can see the abuse potential for abuse.
-Delphine