Posting articles in article-driven site brings down your ranking?

[zulkiflimusa]

Hi,

I am currently contemplating to submit articles from my site to a few websites where you can post your articles for free. I did some due diligence on some of the top authors and their websites (major article contributors). Followings are my findings:

1. The websites which you can post articles are in good rank with few millions visitors mainly. (not surprisingly)

2. I analyze the websites of the the major article contributors; i.e no. of links to their site, page rank/popularity and no. of visitors to their sites. Surprisingly, I saw they have thousands of links (1000-4000) but their no. of visitors and page rank is way, way lower than mine (mine is only 3 months old).

I wonder submitting too many articles will contribute to downgrading of your website rank, or have they been penalized by search engines due to some other reasons? Can someone point out why is this happening. Should I refrain myself from submitting articles to some websites?

Thanks.

[Shyflower]

I'm a writer and I spend several hours a week researching and fact-checking content. Rarely do I use free article sites (or for that matter find them in the SEs). Why?
Because articles at free content sites are generally "fluff" pieces. They skirt the meat of most topics and are full of generalities and mis-information. I imagine the reason for this is because webmasters don't want visitors bookmarking the article site. Instead, they want the visitor to click their link at the bottom of the article. At first reckoning, you might believe this is a "smart" move on their part.

However, if they waste my time by "giving" me a free article to read, right there I figure they won't care if they waste my time at their site... or I figure they don't have a good grip on their topic. What encourages me to click their link? Nothing.

So I don't use article sites.

Now, if you put well developed articles on a free article site, you might then believe that visitors will click your link. Not true. If they already found what they need to know at the article site, they have no reason to follow your link. In addition, people want fast answers to their questions. If they can get answers to many questions from several "experts" at a free article site versus answers to a single topic from you at your site, which site do you think they are more likely to bookmark?

No! Don't submit content to free article sites. Write good content (or have it written) for your site and optimize your pages so that your site has good standings in the SEs. If you want to submit an article to another site - even one that has a similar topic to yours - think about which site the visitor will bookmark. The site where they found the answer to their question or your site?

[Chris]

If you do decide to submit content, do not submit the same content you have on your site. You want to keep your site as unique as possible, so consider writing new articles for submission elsewhere.

[KLB]

I have to agree with both ShyFlower and Chris on this matter. In the long run, the content would probably be more worth while on your own site.

[zulkiflimusa]

all this while I've been under impression that the more links you have, the better you're placed in the search engine...

Now i learnt that it's only partly true..

[Chris]

Thats true zulk, the more links you have the better off you are.

However whoring out your content (for lack of a better phrase) isn't the best way to get links. The value in a content site is in it's unique content, protect it.