How to measure the value of an Article directory

It looks like submitting articles is today a favorite method of link building for many. In this post we will learn how to evaluate / measure the value of an article directory. Do not waste your time submitting to any rif-raf article site. Find the valuable ones and work with them.

Wait before I tell you how good is an article directory we need to know that in this case we are talking about submitting unique informative articles and including our backlinks in them. I am not at all talking about re re-writing useless bits of content and spinning them to get more useless content. This graphic explains my thought better.

 

Test No 1

Is it a human edited articles site?

If your posts are approved instantly then it is not Human edited.
Are your posts sometimes rejected owning to insufficient information, inappropriate justification of title, bad grammar and language or similar such reasons?  This is good. It would mean human editors are at work and they are closely monitoring your work.

Search engines massively favor such article directories, the ones that are human edited. Even if your article takes a week or two to get approved I would say it is worth the wait. E.g GoArticles Sucks while EzineArticles rocks.

 

Test no 2.

Are the Links dofollow? 

We are doing all this labor for back links. Well there may be other reasons like trust building, branding, talent showcasing but lets not beat around the bush. It always is about the backlinks. So are they dofollow? If not it not worth wasting time on them. e.g Hubpages sucks while Squidoo Rocks.

 

Test no 3

How good is the linking structure?

Internal linking is what will add value to your article page. If your article page gathers PR dust and linkjuice then it will send some to your linked pages. That is why you should pay serious attention to  the site navigation or linking structure on the article site. Make sure your articles are reachable in 4 or less clicks from the home page. Test no 4.

What is the Google PageRank of the Site?

Many people will argue with me that PR is not important. Well it is important. So the higher the PR of the linking domain the higher is the degree of trust it has (generally) and easier it is for you to get some link juice passed to your target pages. When the no of linking domains is accounted for high PR linking domains out weigh lesser PR ones very drastically.