Article marketing sites

[eriksatie]

Hi, I'm looking for article marketing sites in English. I have searched and analyzed over 50 sites but I have not find any with the specifics I'm searching to: high/average DA, dofollow, and the possibility to have an anchored text, any suggestions? Thanks!

[MarieHaynes]

At the risk of sounding too repetitive, I'd advise against this:

And that's what I'm looking for: a few good articles mkt sites (3-4) to put some good articles on. That's what the client can afford now and I'm sure it is better then nothing.

If you find a site that will allow just anybody to post to it and link out to their clients then it's either not going to pass much link equity or be a site that is on Google's radar as a low quality site that links out for SEO purposes.

Now, I do believe that it is possible to strategically connect with the owners of quality websites and find ways to either provide content for them or offer them something of value on your clients' website that will make them want to link to them.  But, this is not something you can do at scale.  And you have to be really careful.

What I do for the majority of my day is deal with websites that have been either penalized or algorithmically demoted because of link schemes gone bad. I can very easily spot a link scheme vs earned links. If I can spot these, then I'm sure Google can.

If you're looking for a list of great sites that will allow you to post articles freely and add value to your clients, they likely don't exist IMO.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Have you some real case of real penalty just for some article mkt?

Lots. It is one of the more regular issues I find when performing back-link audits and disavows. Spammy links are one thing, but these sites just invite issues.

There is no substitute to creating something that others want to link to without having to ask.

Best of luck,

-Andy

[eriksatie]

Dear Marie, thank you very much for such an exhaustive opinion aboout article mkt. what are you saying it is surely what Google wants, and what ask us, as site owner or SEO, to do.

But we also know that a good mix of linking technique can be acceptable and can help also clients who don't have big budgets to develope great content and reach out for a real natural link building. It's simply not true that everyone can have great content. Some site simply cannot have it. And probably will not ever compete for highest rankings. But from my experience, in not high competitive niche, a bit of article mkt, some good directories and hopefully a few editorial links can still make a difference, especially for new domains without any links at all

And that's what I'm looking for: a few good articles mkt sites (3-4) to put some good articles on. That's what the client can afford now and I'm sure it is better then nothing.

[MarieHaynes]

I have had many penalty clients who used primarily article marketing in the past.  I don't know that any of them used only article marketing as usually there will be low quality directory links and other links in the mix as well. I've done hundreds of reconsideration requests and have often gotten back article marketing links as example unnatural links from Google.

I can see how Google's quality guidelines can be confusing when you're trying to decide whether article marketing is good or not.  The line that is specific to article marketing says, "Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links". So, if you did it on a small scale is it ok?  If you didn't use keyword rich anchor text is that ok?

But the guidelines go on to say,

"creating links that weren’t editorially placed or vouched for by the site’s owner on a page, otherwise known as unnatural links, can be considered a violation of our guidelines."

Essentially, if you made the link yourself, it's an unnatural link, even if it could be seen as helpful to others. John Mueller just said in the last webmaster hangout as well that the anchor text is not what makes the link unnatural. A branded anchor texted link could still be considered unnatural.

The grey area is when it comes to guest posting.  If I write a helpful article and can get a website to publish it and link back to my site, then that's editorial, right? But what if that website freely publishes links to all kinds of unrelated sites? What if I've got a whole bunch of similar types of links?  Matt Cutts wrote this regarding guest posting. He essentially said that if you are guest posting (or article marketing) to get links, then you are at danger for getting penalized.  There are some cases where guest posting is ok.  For example, I write on the Moz blog and I'll even link back to my site where appropriate.  But, my primary reasons to write for Moz are not to get a link but rather to increase brand awareness and to get business.  I would still want to publish an article on the Moz blog even if I couldn't get a link from it.

I think that you'll find that most people who have attempted article marketing find that it doesn't work any more.

Think of why links matter.  Google counts a link to a site as a "vote" for that site.  If you were running in an election and people were voting for you, would self votes count?  No, of course not. The only votes that Google wants to count are truly editorial votes....votes where someone said, "I am recommending this site, so I am linking to it."

Links from articles that you can get published yourself are likely to not give you any benefit.  But, even worse, they could cause you to get a manual penalty, or to be affected algorithmically by Penguin.  That's even worse because you won't know why you're not ranking well any more.  You don't need to have a massive scale link campaign to be affected by Penguin.  So, if you say, "I think she's wrong and I'm going to just go ahead and build some links this way" and for some reason you just can't seem to increase your rankings at all in the future you won't know whether it is because Penguin is now recognizing your self made links or whether there is something else going on.

I'd definitely advise trying to find ways to get people to want to link to you on their own.  It's much harder, but those links will count for a lot more than self made ones.

[eriksatie]

Have you some real case of real penalty just for some article mkt? I'm not talking about dozens of articles, but If the content is informative and unique, the site is good quality, I don't understand why this should be considered spam. maybe is not as effective as some years ago but not spam at all

[MarieHaynes]

This type of SEO is no longer advised.  Article marketing is a surefire way to invite Penguins to come over and eat up your site.

[Mike.Bean]

Hello,

Check this article from quicksprout out.

Thanks,

- Mike Bean

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I agree, the best way to get "mentions" is to create content that engages your audience. I actually answered a question similar to this recently, I suggest you check it out as it contains a lot of great resources and ideas.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[Andy.Drinkwater]

**any suggestions? **

Yes, don't use them for link building. Create wonderful content on your own site, make it very link-worthy and then start plugging reputable sites in your niche to see if you can get them to reference you.

Article marketing as it used to be no longer works.

-Andy