There are a few article directory software programs in the
marketplace. Some are great, some are good, and some stink to
high heaven, for the writer and for the website owners.
In an ideal world, all article management software would be easy-
to-use for the webmaster. Also in an ideal world, the submission
process would be fast and easy for the writer. But, this is not
an ideal world.
In today's article hungry marketplace, there are literally
hundreds 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 Articles
Available for Reading
With these different kinds of directories, you will find
different categories of webmasters. This distinction is more
important than you think.
* Corporate Owners
* Independent Online Business Webmasters
* Hobbyist Webmasters
Personally, I own two article directories. One has nearly 2500
articles in it, and the other has nearly 5000 articles in it.
Both of mine are of the first type, Stand-Alone Directories of
Articles 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 type of
owner will determine where your articles will be published today
AND tomorrow.
Corporate owners have a bottomless supply of web server space
available to them. In the corporate category, these directories
are 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 web
hosting, and therefore, they have a limited amount of web server
hard drive space.
Most of these new directory owners have jumped into their website
with both feet hoping to cash in on their Google Adsense revenue.
After a few months, the truth will crash them into the wall.
On http://www.articles4reprint.com, I have more than 4500
articles live. I have another 1000 articles pending my approval.
Generally, it takes 30 seconds to approve one article. So, the
articles currently pending on this site will require an
investment of another 8.5 hours to bring up-to-date. One day a
couple of weeks back, I spent 19 straight hours approving
articles on this site. I am not going to stop taking submissions
to this article directory site, but it does require a lot of my
time to maintain.
Perhaps I am exceptional. I will spend the hours required to
approve articles, but will the next person?
I started this site with a basic account. I have had to upgrade
my web hosting package three times to be able to continue
accepting articles to the site. Will the next person make this
kind of commitment?
The payoff for operating a website like this one is the Adsense
revenue developed from hosting such a wide range of content on
the website. In the case of the http://www.articles4reprint.com
website, I am currently generating only $40 per month on my
Adsense account. Will the next person consider this a fair trade
of time for money? Likely not.
I Know This Is My Business, But Don't Take My Word For It
At various times, I submit articles to various directories. The
distinction of "at various times" is actually important. Websites
that were accepting direct submissions from me six months ago are
no longer accepting submissions from anyone.
Writers want to believe that they can just crank out hundreds of
articles, 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 has
a human moderator at the other end of the transaction, and they
have the right to choose what materials they will use and what
materials they will not use. Each webmaster can also consider
whether the time required for the approval process will help
their bottom line.
These big article directories no longer accept articles from
anyone. Also shown is the last date an article was added to the
site.
* 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. In
most cases, the websites show that they accept articles, but you
never realize that they are not printing your articles until you
look or until you hit the Submit button on the Submission Form.
Or, you can continue submitting to them, never realizing that you
are wasting your time, until you go to search the website for
your articles.
http://www.articlefinders.com says that they have a monster
backlog and they are not taking new articles until they get
caught up.
http://www.marketingtroll.co.uk seems to indicate that they are
still accepting articles, but they have not published a new
article since May of 2005.
Folks, I could go on forever. I could literally show your
hundreds of directories that seem to be accepting articles, but
they have not published any new articles in months or years.
Generally, Mailing Lists on the Major List Servers Deliver
Better Results
Article distribution email groups on Yahoo and Google generally
provide good results, but they fall into disuse almost as
frequently as web article directories.
Here, I will show the subscriber count of the Article
Distribution Group, the last time an article was published
through 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 there
is no moderator to review your posts:
1390 – June 2005 -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ReprintArticles-Paradise
(the only people who can submit to this list are those
who were not moderated at the time the list owner
disappeared.)
In Conclusion...
If you are distributing your own articles to a house list, check
back from time to time to make sure that they are actually using
your articles. Always verify your results. Don't waste your time
submitting articles to people who will not even look at your
articles.
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