There’s two kinds of backlinks–durable backlinks and “soft” backlinks.  Soft backlinks are links that you have to maintain in order to preserve their SEO juice.  These are social bookmarks, profile page links, forum links, etc.  These are very powerful but you have to keep building them in order to maintain their power.  The more durable backlinks include article submission-based links.  These links’ link juice persist longer.

I am writing this post to warn you of the danger of relying on blog posts that purportedly lists “tons” of “helpful” article directories.  We recently updated our article directory submission list for our SEO backlink building services and have been reminded yet again of the following:

Many of the “helpful” lists of HUNDREDS of article directories out there are BOGUS.

That’s right.  Bogus.  As in faker than Pamela Anderson’s chest or Paris Hilton’s singing ability.  Steer away from these time sinks.  We recently had a staffer compile a list of article directories from these dubious blog posts and webmaster forum posts.  We collected several thousand.  We ran these through our Link Quality filters and only 50+ made it.  Why?  Most are a) no follow  b) lower than PR3  c) dead links  d) had spoofed Page Rank  e) Yahoo groups  f) don’t take new submissions/new accounts  g) restricted only to 1 niche  h) required reciprocal links  i) not really article sites and were inserted only to chump webmasters.

Lots of ownage lurking on the interwebs in regards to article directory listings.  Be careful.  Great way to waste a few hours.

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