Google kills article directories

The conventional wisdom in article marketing is to set up a website, write a sales pitch with links to the websites of the merchants, and write many articles for submission to article directories.

The articles will contain a link to your website.

The readers will click on the links from the article directories, enter your website, and click on the links from your website to buy the products or goods.

You will earn from the sales of the products and services.

That is the way article marketing used to work.

Many people willingly submit articles to article directories, since the articles have a better chance of ranking in the top article directories.

However, the recent change in Google search algo changes all that.

The recent change devalues the importance of article directories.

That means an article that used to rank in the top three positions will drop in the search engine result page.

The purpose of the change in search result is to reduce the ranking of websites with tons of crappy content.

Article directories happen to contain massive load of crappy articles.

Some marketers used to boast of their effort in writing 30 articles per day.  They just change the keyword and rewrite the content.  All the 30 articles use the same points, with different sets of keywords.

The article directories do not have stringent standard in the selection of articles.  As long as the article is in English, and students in elementary school can understand, they will publish it.

As a result, there are more nonsense than good articles.

Not many people will give their best to write for article directories, since they do not receive payment.  Why would people want to spend hours in researching, and writing, and then give out the content freely?

Hardly anyone will do that.

They prefer to post the best articles in their own websites, and hire ghostwriters from developing countries to write the articles for submission.

The current rate for hiring ghostwriters is 1 cent per word.  Some ghostwriting services even quote lower than that.

Imagine asking someone to write an article of 400 words, and pay just two dollars.  Do you think the quality is top notch?  Unlikely.

The ghostwriters may do their best to produce a good article.  However, English is not their first language.  In some cases, it is not even their second language.

The marketers do not need well researched content.  They just need an article with sufficient information so that readers will click on the links to read more.

The change in Google algo benefits the readers, since readers can read articles from good writers instead of crappy articles from article directories.

If you are thinking of article marketing, you need to write informative articles, and post in high ranking websites that welcome good writers.  The basic concept of article marketing remains unchanged.  However, selection of websites to post your articles becomes an interesting venture.

Content is king.  Google recognizes that.  As long as you write for the readers, with seo techniques, your content can benefit your readers, and earns money for you.