Article Links

[JimSkychief]

I write and publish artcles. Typically I publish them on a few top article sites like EZineArticles. The articles then get picked up by other sites, often numbering in the hundreds. All of the articles are published with a link back to our website using a keyword. Are there any SEO risks in this type of link proliferation?

[Dan-Petrovic]

I would say no. If this was a problem a lot of sites would get in trouble, too many for Google to go and mass penalise.

[SeanStewart81]

This is definitely the bottom of the barrel type link. You're not going to get penalized and it's not risky, but the time you spend working on an article that will go on a site like ezinearticles could be better spent on higher ROI link building. Plus, I read that ezine experienced a huge traffic drop with the most recent algo update and have talked about putting nofollow on article links.

[scanlin]

Agree with Sean, time spent on writing for EZA would be better spent writing for your own blog or site. You can do some article marketing but don't obsess on it. If you outsource the writing then I would still keep it in moderation.

[JimSkychief]

Hey Mike, Thanks for the thought. I'm inclined to agree that there are better ways to improve search engine rankings, including adding content to my own site, writing on my blog, etc. So, in the end, I am left wondering if there is any value at all from investing time in writing articles.

[Everett]

Jim the key to link building is diversity. It might still be worth doing a distribution now and then, but - like everyone below has said - your time is usually better spent in other ways, including putting high quality content onto your own website, doing exclusive guest posts on higher-quality sites, etc...

I would have endorsed someone's answer instead of posting my own, but have to disagree that there is no danger in building massive amounts of links using article distribution, as you describe. I have seen sites get hit with algorithmic penalties for having overoptimized anchor text in their links. So if you have thousands of such articles all pointing with the same, highly optimized text, and your link profile leans heavily toward these types of links from article distribution, you could trip a filter and end up with a penalty that sets you back anywhere from a few spots to a few pages - or even a +950 penalty if some of those links are suspected as being paid for.

Long story short: If you diversify and focus your efforts on the highest quality links you can get - you'll be fine.

[JimSkychief]

Hey Everett,

Good answer - and it makes sense. Having once been banished to page four, I'm now being very careful about everything, especially over-optimized linking. Diversity is the way!

[AidanMcCarthy]

Late to the part with this but I just can't see G penalising a site because it has too many links from articles with the same anchor text.

If that were the case we would see a lot of webmaters and SEOs arranging lots of those links to their competitors sites in order to de-rank them, thus leaving the way clear for their own sites.