A number of writers have voiced the fear that article PR will die through 'over-use', just as keyword stuffing and link farms died. But I don't agree. Why? Because article PR isn't just useful to authors and SEO copywriters. The success of article PR is based on the premise that our articles are also useful to READERS. So long as the majority of articles remain useful (i.e. helpful, informative, and easy to read), readers will still want to read them, publishers will still want to publish them, and article PR will remain a viable link building method.

This is true no matter how many people are writing and publishing free reprint articles. Frequent use of a tool doesn't make the tool ineffective. (Just look at traditional forms of advertising - millions of businesses engage in radio, print, and TV advertising, and those methods remain very effective. The fierce competition simply encourages advertisers to improve the quality of their ads in order to stand out.)

No, in my opinion, there's no such thing as too many articles. However, there is such a thing as too many BAD articles. Readers want helpful, credible information; they don't want badly written articles or empty words ('article spam') which simply carry a link.

Just as importantly, webmasters don't want to spend hours trying to find the right article to publish. At the moment, there are literally hundreds of article submission sites out there. Most of them are generic, fully automated affairs that involve no human moderation. They don't distinguish between good writing and bad, they don't cull article spam, and they don't categorize their articles very well. As a result, publishers have to wade through a sea of poor quality to find a handful of useful articles.

These issues are the real hurdles that need to be overcome if article PR is to survive.

Overcoming the problems

The article submission sites will overcome the problems. Here's how...

As mentioned above, readers aren't interested in bad articles or article spam. This means that, in the long run, there's no real value in publishing such articles (either for webmasters or article submission sites); readers will frequent the sites that publish useful articles and ignore those that don't. Likewise, publishers will frequent the article submission sites that post useful, easy-to-find articles and ignore those that don't.

This means we'll see an increase in the number of human-moderated article submission sites. And once this happens, the article PR landscape will change forever:

1. Human moderated article submission sites will offer a higher percentage of quality articles, and those articles will be easier to find;
2. Human moderated article submission sites will attract more publishing webmasters, and, as a result, more authors;
3. We'll see a decrease in the number of un-moderated article submission sites because they won't generate enough traffic to make AdSense profitable;
4. We'll see a decrease in the overall number of article submission sites (anyone can launch an automated article submission site, but it takes real commitment, business sense, and a dedicated budget to run a human-moderated article submission site);
5. The spoils will be greater for the surviving article submission sites, so they'll go to greater lengths to ensure the high quality of their articles; and
6. We'll witness the decline of article spam and poor quality articles simply because they won't be accepted at the good article submission sites.

All in all, it's a positive outlook for authors and publishers of quality articles.

TIP: For a list of approximately 250 article submission sites and article distribution lists, as well as some useful tips and templates, please visit Article PR.

Happy writing, publishing, and posting!

* Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter, website copywriter, SEO copywriter, and article submission and article PR specialist. He heads copywriting studio, Divine Write, and is a director of article PR company, Article PR. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Visit http://www.DivineWrite.com or http://www.ArticlePR.com for further details, a FREE SEO eBook, or more FREE reprint articles.