A question about article submissions

[leporello]

Sorry, another noob question.

When submitting articles, should the content always be original. Or for example, could I submit the same article to ten different places?

Also, cany anyone give me a start on finding (or how to find) the best article submission directories for gambling related content? Is directory quality listed by pagerank or how is it done?

Thanks.

[MPC]

You would need to read the terms of the sites where you submit. Some will specifically require unique/original content. Having said that, if you look at this service you'll notice that the same content is submitted to 800+ sites.

[leporello]

Right and that's the crux of the issue. How do the search engines view that kind of behaviour? Is it seen as blackhat or acceptable and are the backlinks that are established worthwhile in obtaining?

Thanks.

[Randy Ray]

A link is valuable in direct proportion to how hard it is to obtain. Submitting one article to 1000 different article directories is pretty easy to do, especially if you hire someone to do it for you for $59. But how much value do you think that will have from an SEO perspective? How much value would you give those links if you were the search engineer in charge of using that linking information? Especially if your performance was based on serving up the best results for a query?

[doovde]

A link is valuable in direct proportion to how hard it is to obtain. Submitting one article to 1000 different article directories is pretty easy to do, especially if you hire someone to do it for you for $59. But how much value do you think that will have from an SEO perspective? How much value would you give those links if you were the search engineer in charge of using that linking information? Especially if your performance was based on serving up the best results for a query?

I agree Randy but for a lot of people buying quality links is not really an option. Or some cases the money spent on the links will be more than your earn from the ranking. I assume that free directory submissions have the same kind of value as articles.

Obviously link exchange is a valid option but there are only so many link exchanges you can do on one website.

For new webmasters obtaining quality links is hard. Especially if its a review page as people will rarely want to link to that.

[Michael Martinez]

Search engines don't view the submission of one article to multiple directories as "bad behavior". They know this happens.

Duplicate content in itself is not bad. Duplicate content becomes bad when it's abusive, such as when you're violating someone else's intellectual property rights or you couple that duplication with more nefarious actions, such as embedding malware in the content, etc.

The only good marketing reason for distributing the same content to multiple resources is to ensure you achieve the broadest reach possible for your message. That search engines may index more than one copy of your message is okay. They'll do their best to show their visitors the most unique and authoritative copy but they won't penalize anyone just for having duplicate content.

Filtering duplicate copy for users is not the same as penalizing Web sites that violate search engine guidelines.

[Randy Ray]

I never suggested buying links. In most cases, buying links isn't necessary at all.

Yeah, getting quality links is hard. Writing quality content is hard too. And you've picked a tough niche.

This is the business we have chosen.

I agree Randy but for a lot of people buying quality links is not really an option. Or some cases the money spent on the links will be more than your earn from the ranking. I assume that free directory submissions have the same kind of value as articles.

Obviously link exchange is a valid option but there are only so many link exchanges you can do on one website.

For new webmasters obtaining quality links is hard. Especially if its a review page as people will rarely want to link to that.

[MJ]

Randy in some cases you can be new to the niche, work hard and write quality content and put it all on a quality website - and it can still be next to impossible to get new quality links believe it or not.

What then? Especially when your competitors who might even have worse websites with worse content can and do buy a lot of links.

I've never done any link building until lately, so I'm learning.....a lot of poker sites just flat out won't link to you regardless of your quality if you aren't "in" their circle to begin with.

[leporello]

So in terms of link purchases, are links on high ranking poker sites better as they are seen as greater authority in the poker field than say a yahoo directory listing or the various other top paid business directories?

[Randy Ray]

It's not "next to impossible" to get quality links. Just do the work. Offer to write a guest article or guest post for every decent poker site you can think of. Interact on Twitter or Facebook. Comment on blogs and participate in forums. Become part of the Internet community and create linkable content.

When I was at PAP, I offered links for free to anyone who wrote an article in the format of a top 100 list. You know how many people took advantage of it? One.

I offered free one way links to anyone who launched a local-themed poker site. I don't think anyone took advantage of it, but I could be mistaken. We might have had one person take advantage of it.

I run a poker SEO blog right now. I'm far from overwhelmed with link requests, and I'm the most generous person in the industry about linking to quality content.

Most of the people I know in this industry are willing to link to someone else if you just ask. And even the ones who aren't "link-generous" will usually work out some kind of link exchange with you.

Randy in some cases you can be new to the niche, work hard and write quality content and put it all on a quality website - and it can still be next to impossible to get new quality links believe it or not.

What then? Especially when your competitors who might even have worse websites with worse content can and do buy a lot of links.

I've never done any link building until lately, so I'm learning.....a lot of poker sites just flat out won't link to you regardless of your quality if you aren't "in" their circle to begin with.