Best Article Directories for SEO
Selecting the best article directories for SEO (search engine optimization) are topics which have been discussed by article marketing communities severally and various conclusions drawn. These conclusions often misguide the article marketers decision process upon selecting an article directory that potentially returns the most SEO value for their website. Common misconceptions among the community forums is the relation of Alexa rank and homepage PageRank as the "defining substance," or key element which affects the visibility and PageRank of the linked website. This report discusses alternative methods for calculating the true SEO worth of an article directory.
Alexa Rankings
Alexa.com ranks article directories by computing data gathered from Alexa toolbar users. Since a considerable portion of Alexa toolbar users are associated with SEO activities such as article marketing, an article directory highly publicized or popular amongst the SEO community will achieve an improved Alexa rank. Therefore, article directories with good Alexa rankings is typically false evidence of the true SEO worth the website potentially provides.
Homepage PageRank
An article directory with substantial homepage PageRank is important. Its an indicator of the amount of PageRank capable of leaking into article pages without the manipulation of external links to increase the PageRank of an article. However, an article directory with low PageRank can provide more SEO value than an article directory with high PageRank.
High PageRank Article directories possessing huge blocks of syndicated articles, scraped posts or low quality content typically passes less value and PageRank through the article submitters anchor text link. The purpose of the Google Panda update was to devalue this type of content. The effects of the Panda update shuffled hundreds of thousands of article pages in Google's supplementary index. Articles existing in the supplemental index are never displayed in Googles search results. Thus incapable of being linked to by outside sources if not presented to readers. Readers not linking to articles further diminishes chances for PageRank to be distributed evenly throughout the directory, and further decreases sites performance. Therefore, acceptable SEO benefits can't be achieved if no PageRank exist outside of the homepage.
A lower PageRank article directory with highly optimized articles, original and reader informative content can provide more SEO capabilities for user submission's. However, a lower PageRank article directory must contain fewer pages to be SEO friendly. Moreover, a lower PageRank article directory must grow in a manner that doesn't exceed SEO limiting factors. These factors include article submission growth versus incoming links. For an article directory to grow without degrading its SEO worth it must obtain a balance of article submissions versus incoming links, also know as popularity votes. This factor helps distribute PageRank evenly thus increasing article positioning in SERP's.
For any article directory to survive post Panda, it must be highly selective and only accept submission deemed worthy. Submission that inspire external linkage and content beyond basic knowledge. In addition, the article directory must only publish articles that are formatted to achieve high natural rankings (e.g. with the exclusion of link manipulation). Therefore, its critical for article directory Webmasters to understand search engine qualifiers that determines how well a page will rank naturally in search results. The Webmaster must also evaluate the linked website to weed-out those articles linked to spammy or low quality sites.
Calculating SEO Worth
The best way to determine the SEO worth of an article directory is to calculate number of keywords that dominate organically in Google search results, then compare those figures to the actual number of "article pages." Article pages are defined as; actual number of content pages and not category, sub-category or user profile pages. One semi-accurate tool for discovering Google keyword domination is Semrush.com.
Calculating the number of "article pages" can only be done through estimation, unless the article directory is forthcoming with this information (some are). However, a fairly accurate guesstimate can be done using some online tools. Once these two factors are obtained, calculate the number of Google dominate keywords versus number of article pages (Y/X = P%). The final percentage is the most accurate means of measuring the SEO worth of an article directory. The final sum provides the best odds of a submitted article obtaining a natural flow of internal link juice, top article positioning in SERP's and overall quality of the article directory.
The Internet is an unreliable source of information. It's evident by searching for the term "list of article directories." Ninety-five percent of Webmasters steal a list from another website, place the list on their own webpage, fill the page with a few words, throw links at the page to manipulate search results and call it the best SEO article directories list. Unfortunately, web surfers landing on the page assume it's correct, because the homepage PageRank of the article directory is high. The Alexa rank is great...but that doesn't answer one question?!?! If those article directories were so great, how is it they have 3 million pages and only dominate for a couple hundred to a few thousand keywords? Thats not great at all.
Also see best article directories for SEO to read entire article. The directories which have the highest percentage will equal more SEO benefit.
PR=PageRank T/P=Total Pages K/D=Keyword Domination Highest %=Best
WEBSITE
|
PR
|
T/P
|
K/D
|
PERCENT
|
| Acme-Articles.com |
3
|
1,074
|
305
|
28.5%
|
| Suite101.com |
7
|
946,000
|
151,033
|
15.9%
|
| Streetarticles.com |
3
|
62,000
|
8,969
|
14.6%
|
| Selfseo.com |
4
|
8,680
|
656
|
7.5%
|
| Ezinearticles.com |
6
|
3,900,000
|
198,058
|
5%
|
| Selfgrowth.com |
6
|
426,000
|
18,615
|
4.3%
|
| Gather.com |
6
|
2,010,000
|
67,023
|
3.3%
|
| Abcarticledirectory.com |
3
|
146,000
|
3,206
|
2.19%
|
| Sooperarticles.com |
4
|
494,000
|
8,257
|
1.6%
|
| Articleclick.com |
4
|
286,000
|
4,046
|
1.4%
|
| Articlebliss.com |
2
|
15,000
|
156
|
1%
|
| Articlesfactory.com |
4
|
322,000
|
2,796
|
0.8%
|
| Articleblast.com |
4
|
66,900
|
549
|
0.82%
|
| Articlefeeder.com |
4
|
59,800
|
444
|
0.7%
|
| Articlecity.com |
5
|
546,000
|
2,216
|
0.4%
|
| Goarticles.com |
6
|
1,720,000
|
6,795
|
0.39
|
| Articlerich.com |
4
|
201,000
|
773
|
0.38%
|
| Isnare.com |
5
|
1,240,000
|
3,748
|
0.3
|
| Easyarticles.com |
3
|
61,000
|
50
|
0.08%
|
References
Surez, Mike R. "Niche Article Directories." Niche Article Directories. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016. <http://nichearticledirectories.blogspot.com/>.
