Article spinning - is it a spam or legitimate way to build SEO

[bfurman]

I am being told by one SEO company that article spinning is the best way to achieve best rank on google.

They use software that modifies articles and then submit them into lots of blogs and directories.

I am worried that this is not a good long term strategy vs manually writing articles and put them into directiries

[AdamThompson]

Article spinning is certainly not the best way to achieve top rankings. In general, I would consider it "probably  spammy" depending on how it is done. Google is actually starting to crack down on article marketing in general a bit with the recent Panda/Farmer update. There are definitely better strategies to focus on.

[Partouter]

I agree with Adam.

How would you define article spinning? What is the purpose of article spinning? What's the benefit for users?

I'm afraid the purpose is to generate as much automated content to boost the number of pages artificially on your website. I don't see any benefits for users.

Looking forward to our feedback.

[CPU]

This sort of approach may have worked in the past and does still work today but is less likely to work in the future as Google attempts to redcue the benefits of this spammy technique.

Poor quality articles or virtually duplicate articles spread wide across the web do nothing to add value to the user or their search engine results so Google's "boffins" will be working against this approach.

This approach may be best for the SEO company as it is a short term solution that may mean they can reach certain targets or get paid certain bonuses but it is not a technique built on the principles that will help a site rank higher for longer.

Improving on-page factors, ensuring that the sites architecture isn't working against the site, natural link building and focusing on improving content are areas that the SEO company should be looking at if they want to provide results that last.

[Doc_Sheldon]

I guess I'm not quite as polite as the rest of these folks. As far as I'm concerned, article spinning, at its best, is spammy and does the client an injustice. At it's worst, it's theft, as many spinners start with someone else's work as a base.

Neither definition fits what I think my clients deserve.

[KeriMorgret]

A badly-spun article can also make your company look bad and incompetent. Do you really want your company name attached to an article that was written by a machine? And do you want a backlink from a spammy blog or directory that is filled with other such articles? You're not getting on most of the good sites with that type of article, as the good sites have humans that can spot these articles and leave them in an unpublished purgatory (at best) or ban the submitter/destination URL from that entire site.

Now that it's been a couple of months later, can you tell us what you decided to do, and anything interesting you found?