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Where Are Your Articles Being Published?
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By Bill Platt
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There are a few software directory software programs in themarketplace. Some are great, some are good, and some stink tohigh heaven, for the writer and for the website owners.
In an ideal world, all article management software would beeasy-to-use for the webmaster. Also in an ideal world, thesubmission process would be fast and easy for the writer. But,this is not an ideal world.
In today's article hungry marketplace, there are literallyhundreds of websites where you can submit your articles.
Three Types of Article Directories
There are three kinds of article directories:
* Stand-Alone Directories of Articles Available for Reprint
* Stand-Alone Directories of Articles Available for Reading
* Article Directories Inside of a Website, with ArticlesAvailable for Reading
With these different kinds of directories, you will finddifferent categories of webmasters. This distinction is moreimportant than you think.
* Corporate Owners * Independent Online BusinessWebmasters * Hobbyist Webmasters
Personally, I own two article directories. One has nearly 2500articles in it, and the other has nearly 5000 articles init.
Both of mine are of the first type, Stand-Alone Directories ofArticles Available for Reprint. But, I am not a corporate owner.I am an independent online business webmaster.
The reason why the type of owner is important is that the typeof owner will determine where your articles will be publishedtoday AND tomorrow.
Corporate owners have a bottomless supply of web server spaceavailable to them. In the corporate category, these directoriesare the most important:
* http://www.ezinearticles.com/ * http://www.goarticles.com/
* http://www.ideamarketers.com/ * http://www.uniterra.com/
Directory Owner Budgets
Most new article directory owners have a small budget for webhosting, and therefore, they have a limited amount of web serverhard drive space.
Most of these new directory owners have jumped into theirwebsite with both feet hoping to cash in on their Google Adsenserevenue.
After a few months, the truth will crash them into thewall.
On Articles 4Reprint, I have more than 4500 articles live. I have another1000 articles pending my approval. Generally, it takes 30seconds to approve one article. So, the articles currentlypending on this site will require an investment of another 8.5hours to bring up-to-date. One day a couple of weeks back, Ispent 19 straight hours approving articles on this site. I amnot going to stop taking submissions to this article directorysite, but it does require a lot of my time to maintain.
Perhaps I am exceptional. I will spend the hours required toapprove articles, but will the next person?
I started this site with a basic account. I have had to upgrademy web hosting package three times to be able to continueaccepting articles to the site. Will the next person make thiskind of commitment?
The payoff for operating a website like this one is the Adsenserevenue developed from hosting such a wide range of content onthe website. In the case of the http://www.articles4reprint.com website, I am currently generating only $40 per month onmy Adsense account. Will the next person consider this a fairtrade of time for money? Likely not.
I Know This Is My Business, But Don't Take My Word ForIt
At various times, I submit articles to various directories. Thedistinction of "at various times" is actually important.Websites that were accepting direct submissions from me sixmonths ago are no longer accepting submissions from anyone.
Writers want to believe that they can just crank out hundreds ofarticles, generating hundreds of links back to their websites.Sometimes they can, and at other times, they cannot.
It comes down to this. Every website where I submit articles hasa human moderator at the other end of the transaction, and theyhave the right to choose what materials they will use and whatmaterials they will not use. Each webmaster can also considerwhether the time required for the approval process will helptheir bottom line.
These big article directories no longer accept articles fromanyone. Also shown is the last date an article was added to thesite.
* http://www.article-emporium.com/ - December 2005 * http://www.articletime.com/- December 2005 * http://www.learnthis.info/ -August 2005 * http://www.family-content.com/ - May 2005 * http://www.certificate.net/wwio/ - April 2003
Many smaller directories have also stopped taking articles. Inmost cases, the websites show that they accept articles, but younever realize that they are not printing your articles until youlook or until you hit the Submit button on the Submission Form.Or, you can continue submitting to them, never realizing thatyou are wasting your time, until you go to search the websitefor your articles.
http://www.articlefinders.com says that they have a monster backlog and they are nottaking new articles until they get caught up.
http://www.marketingtroll.co.uk seems to indicate that they are still acceptingarticles, but they have not published a new article since May of2005.
Folks, I could go on forever. I could literally show yourhundreds of directories that seem to be accepting articles, butthey have not published any new articles in months oryears.
Generally, Mailing Lists on the Major List Servers DeliverBetter Results
Article distribution email groups on Yahoo and Google generallyprovide good results, but they fall into disuse almost asfrequently as web article directories.
Here, I will show the subscriber count of the ArticleDistribution Group, the last time an article was publishedthrough the list, and the URL for the list.
1003 - September 2003 - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArticlePublisher/ 560 - September 2001- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArticlePublish 2002 - December 2000 - http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/articles_archives 752- June 2005 - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreeWrites 474 - December 2000 - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The-Article-Depot 465 - August 2003 -http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WriteQualityContent
The following article distribution group is active, but thereis no moderator to review your posts:
1390 - June 2005 - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ReprintArticles-Paradise (the onlypeople who can submit to this list are those who were notmoderated at the time the list owner disappeared.)
In Conclusion...
If you are distributing your own articles to a house list, checkback from time to time to make sure that they are actually usingyour articles. Always verify your results. Don't waste your timesubmitting articles to people who will not even look at yourarticles.
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