Article directory

Article directories are a form of Search Engine Optimization where companies and professional writers submit articles based on a specific niche. Article directories are also called Ezines or Online Magazines for their depository methods hosting hundreds or thousands of documents related to a given subject.

Relationship with SEO

When search engines like Googlebot search the Internet for content, it spiders the web pages and harvests links from each page [1]. The crawler then searches other pages for links and indexes pages that link back and forth with each other.

Article directories use this technology allowing website owners the ability to link back to their site using keyword articles that trigger search engines to rank pages higher. Although common SEO methods specify that duplicate content penalizes a website ranking, Google has denied it [2]. However, article directories often require unique content and use specific editorial guidelines and rules to help deter the manipulation of search results, such as keyword stuffing.

Article standards

Article standards developed by SEO experts are a word count of 400-500 words and a keyword density of approximately 2%-3%. Article submission sites like ePubster allow article submissions and contain job boards for authors to freelance writing services for website owners. Ezinearticles also gives authors a way to submit articles but charges authors for multiple submissions. Articlewindow and Expertscolumn require Authors to submit unique Articles and rewards Authors through Revenue Sharing services generated from the Articles. While article submission sites allow link backs for SEO, they have limits to how many are normally allowed. Link backs should be keyword optimized using HREF tags with keywords in the title tag. Writing standards also prohibit keyword stuffing, so articles are reader friendly for humans and not just crawlers.

Plagiarism

Another growing concern with the increasing amount of content on the Internet is plagiarism. The ethical concerns over plagiarism affect high school teachers and colleges professors in the academic arena, and the amount of stolen content from published articles has also been prevalent. The amount of plagiarism has led to some websites offering plagiarism detection services that check the Internet for duplicate content by other writers.

See also

• Web directory

References

• United States Bureau of Labor Statistics