Is Using Free Articles On Your Blog a Good Idea
One of the things that i've contemplated doing on this blog especially when i'm struggling with bloggers block is to publish free content from one of the many article directories such as ezinearticles and goarticles
These article directories are full of free to use articles on a whole range of subjects from dog training to cruising. After contemplating the pro's and cons of using free articles on this blog i've come to the conclusion that using them would be a bad idea. Here's just a few of the many reasons why i would recommend that you DON'T use free to use articles on your own blog…
1. Duplicate Content Penalty
The biggest reason i don't use free to use articles is because of the duplicate content issue. Google and i suspect other search engine as well filter out duplicate content from their indexes. It makes sense if you think about it from a normal internet surfers point of view. I certainly don't want to go to google and type in a search for say "How to House Train Your Puppy" only to find the results come up with the same article in positions 1, 3, 5 and 10 of the results. I want 10 different results and solutions to my question!
2. Losing Your Blogs Personality
Blogs by nature are like personal journals and by posting an article that's written by somebody else you'll lose your blogs personailty which is one of the main reasons why anybody reads your blog in the first place. Your blog becomes what i call a "Cut and Paste Blog" which is basically a blog that's filled with free articles. Honestly it's not that hard to write your own unique content for your own blog it just takes a little more time and a little more effort. Be unique with your content and you'll be ahead of 98% of the crappy cut and paste blogs that are out there…
3. Quality Of Articles Are Lower
While it may not be entirely true about all articles submitted to directories i've found that the articles are of lower quality with the only main purpose of getting the reader to visit the authors website. I know that this is the main purpose of submitting to directories in the first place but surely you should be writing some good quality content for people to read…
Summing Up
I would recommend that you don't use free to use articles from directories such as ezinearticles and instead concentrate on producing your own unique content. Here's a great resource that will help you to write some quality unique content for your blog Hundreds of Resources for Finding Content for Your Blog
This site is dedicated to helping other bloggers learn the skills of blogging
Matt Keegan | June 6th, 2007 at 9:32 pm #
I agree. As someone who has contributed hundreds of articles to the two mentioned directories, I have received some benefit in the form of backlinks. However, to place repeat articles on your blog will mean you won't even receive PageRank.
Better to take the time to write original material then to be penalized for copying existing material even though it is legal/ethical for you to do.
John Metcalfe | June 9th, 2007 at 8:04 pm #
Like you say Matt the only benefit with submitting articles to directories is in the form of getting backlinks. I don't think i've ever received any major traffic from articles that i've submitted so i keep all my articles unique to this blog and rely on people linking to them from their own blogs for the backlinks…
John