Should I still be using article marketing to generate backlinks?

• Google seems to be really discounting article marketing links these days. I used to be able to submit articles regularly to article directories as long as the content was mostly 40-60% unique. Now that doesn't seem to be the case at all. Should I remove this from my SEO arsenal completely? If not, what suggestions can you give me based on the climate?

Answer: Google has recently made some noticeable algorithmic changes to better weed out the duplicate content common with article marketing directory campaigns. Also, Google has publicly stated that not all article directories are high-quality and therefore you should become more discerning when choosing which ones to submit to. From Google's standpoint, the same article copied all over the place usually leads to a bad user experience, something they are determined to eliminate from their search results.

To that end, article marketing would not be our first link-building tool-choice in the current climate. But if you do, be sure to read our previous report on the correct approach to article marketing: How to Build Links Increase Traffic and Dominate your Niche with Article Marketing

Regardless, we still believe that article marketing can be effective under the right circumstances. However, your expectations must be realistic as article marketing is increasingly becoming associated with:

• Low-quality links — Links from article directories are not, in themselves, very important. Blasting out articles to hundreds of article directories using automated software is typically going to result in a lot of low-value, low-quality links.
• Duplicate content — If you're submitting the same article to several directories, you'll be crea...