What Article Directories Are Looking For

Just in case you haven’t noticed, there are literally hundreds of article directories cropping up on the Internet. In line with Google’s Adsense program and other such programs, people are looking to get on the Internet with their Web page. One thing that most Web site owners have learned is that having articles that say something help rank them higher on the search engines instead of having jumbled up keywords on a page that doesn’t read well at all.

Article directories have a big job—every day, thousands of authors and want-to-be authors submit their articles to these directories. These authors aren’t seeking payment, but rather a link back to their site, exposure for themselves as writers and for their websites. It’s a scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours society. Many of the articles that are submitted to these directories are not articles at all, but rather blurbs of nothingness with little content and usually lacking readability. The revenue from Adsense for the article directory Web sites can be substantial, but only if they have quality articles posted on their site and if they can get it up quickly.

There is of course Spam to these article directory Web sites as well—repeat articles submitted one after another or copied-and-pasted content that has been plagiarized from the Internet and another author. This Spam and plagiarism scam is the bane of article directories and the editors that run them.

Article directories are looking for articles—if your article hasn’t been accepted, it’s likely for a good cause. The articles that should be submitted to an article directory should reflect your best work—remember, you are putting your name and your link to your Web site on the work, and the people who are looking at it could want to commission you to do more work for them.

The articles themselves should be clear and concise, error free and well-written. Don’t get verbose on the bane of your own existence or the antics of your dog—save these rants for your blog and keep them off the article directory sites. Your article should be lengthy, at least 400 words and definitely not less than 250 words. Anything less than this suggests a lack of thought by the author and a cheap attempt to get their name in lights with a link-back to their site without sharing anything meaningful.

It is also important to note that adult material, gambling and pharmacy content are against the terms of service of Google Adsense. Editors at article directories are careful to delete these types of articles that are submitted so as to not lose their Google Adsense account and revenues.

All in all, it is highly important to output quality articles that are informative and well-written. These types of articles are much more likely to get through onto the article directory. Avoid plagiarizing materials from the Internet at all costs—most of the larger article directories and even some of the newer, smaller ones run the copy you submit through Copyscape to scan for plagiarism. Editors at article directories are constantly barraged with emails from irate authors who claim their content has been plagiarized—the usual course of action for the editors is to delete the article completely.

Article directories are very popular and are consistently gaining in popularity as well as more and more Web sites pop up on the Internet every day in hopes of making a few dollars. Articles are used by Web site owners to increase their readership; however, it is important to note that the more copies of the articles that appear on the Internet, the lower the search engine ranking can be for any particular Web site that uses it.