Article Submission Link Building Fail

Since I’ve written about an epic failure during the past few posts, let me add another one; it’s about an article submission link building fail.

Like the previous epic fail, I didn’t mention the name of the service provider at first but then again, no lesson can be learned without the need to list a person or company’s name. See posts Fractional Needling Therapy Fail Tale and Flawless Redeemed from Flaws and Skin Care Advice.

So the culprit this time around is no less than one of the brands I have even promoted in the past (edit: insert brand name here, I have chosen to not drop the company's name now) . It turns out that there was no edge in hiring their services particularly for Article Submission. That same service was in fact the reason why this blog had been penalized by Google.

It was a few months ago when I availed of link building services from the company mentioned above. The package was less than $100 but it supposedly included 80 search engine submission, 100 directory submission, 125 social bookmarking, and 200 article submission. It’s just a few more months before a year had passed by since then but the number of links this blog has is nowhere close to what was promised in the service I’ve originally paid for. The number of links showing in Alexa are even most likely the result of my own personal work slowly building links one at a time whenever I have the time to do so. 

I actually complained about three months after I hired the service because most of the links listed in the report fell off and were not even found on the site where they supposedly had been linked to. Article submission for one, showed less than 50 approved articles so it’s not even half of what was promised. I’ve exchanged emails with several agents about this including those from the escalation team. I understand that it does take a while before links take effect as per Search Engine Optimization (being quite a little bit knowledgeable about SEO myself) but technically, there will be no result whatsoever if the links themselves are not even present on the site included in the report.

The whole drama ended up with a refund of what I paid for. I didn’t ask for it, I was simply wondering why it’s taking a while for those links to be counted for this blog. Although they promised to resubmit those links which fell off, that didn’t happen anymore because the service was cancelled. It was a relief anyway because their offer fell short of what they have promised to begin with.

Also, they can no longer correct the worse that their service had brought about, which is penalty for duplicate content. I have no problem with the other services; it was article submission which caused the heaviest blow. In a sense it was my fault because I know all too well that copied articles are a no-no when it comes to search engine ranking. Their article submission service used only 2 articles and was submitted to several article directory sites. I know it’s wrong but I went on anyway because I already paid.

I noticed the effect of this after a few weeks when previously high ranking articles were demoted and are no longer found on the first page of search results. I tried to analyze what happened and even sought help from experts online. True enough, poor quality links is the reason behind it. Aside from the fact that only 2 articles were published for over supposedly 200 article directory submissions, most of the sites have PR0 or NA page rank. That would not have been a problem as long as the sites are not banned, illegal, or link farms of some sort. What made the link value poor is the fact that the articles were similar.

But I can’t possibly email all web masters now to have the links taken down nor can I login to each account they have created individually to delete the article from the article directory themselves. I’ll just find other means to generate traffic and to appease the penalty from Google somehow, someway, sometime soon.

I’m not writing this as a personal vendetta like I’ve also said in the previous article. It’s been almost over a year since then although this blog is still suffering the consequences of bad links created out of duplicate content. Thus, I write this to warn anyone else who intends to avail of link building services, particularly article submission. True, article directories are the most effective link source for long term SEO effects but not for immediate traffic but there are consequences when it’s done wrong. My issue above explains it all.

So in case you are contemplating upon the thought of building links through article submission, make sure to write original articles for each article directory. You may rewrite the same material but not copy one or a few exactly as they are. You should also choose which site to submit articles and links to. This is the problem with paid services; you can’t choose which site they will submit your article or site info. Plus, the links are submitted within the same day or week which is bad for SEO. It’s better to have a healthy difference of a few days when you create links. So in case you hire paid services for article submission link building, make sure to take note of all the pointers mentioned above to avoid the same problem I’ve been through.