Article marketing is one of the oldest ways to build backlinks.  The system is very straightforward: article directories need content so they solicit web publishers/site owners/writers for content.  In exchange for your article submission, they will publish your content with some backlinks to your site.  Win Win situation, right?  Usually it is.  Not only do you get backlinks when an article site publishes your article, you also get the added benefit of third party sites interested in your articles’ niches publishing your article.  You benefit only if they publish your link.  That’s where it gets funky.

There are a few cases of blogs and other sites blatantly stealing article content and/or blog entries by publishing your text without your links.  These are fairly easy to catch using Copyscape or other duplicate content checkers.  The blatant ones are very easy to catch.  You just view copyscape results or run strings of your text on Google and you’ll notice your content showing up.  You click a link and see your content on a third party site without a backlink.  You can then take action at that point:  find their host and send a DMCA notice to get the stolen content removed.

Obviously this puts a dent in content thieves’ act so I’ve noticed an interesting evolution in their tactics, your article is republished and your links appear on their article page.  This would be enough to get most article owners off their backs.  However, if you cursor over the links, some article thief sites actually link the keyword to a broken version of your url (e.g. space in the domain name) or some other variations of this technique.  The bottomline is you’re not getting any SEO benefit from your article.  That’s one of the main reasons you wrote it in the first place.  Keep your eyes open when policing your content.