Search Engine Optimization

Article Marketing: Fox in the Competitor Hen House or Chicken Little?

I recently was asked by an author to remove a free content

article from a client web site where we had posted it (with

several others from different authors) to increase topical

relevancy at a site that fit the article perfectly.

This article was submitted to free web content list archives

which I'd found online. A search turned up dozens of

additional uses across the web. I began to believe that this

author simply didn't like the site that used the article and

was seeking removal to avoid competition. We took it down to

avoid an unnecessary battle over something we didn't wish to

fight about.

The site we used it on did compete with this person, but the

client site has more to lose than the author, because readers

could click through to the author site from the resource box

link and gain the customer instead of the client. Having YOUR

article on competitors sites is an incredible marketing coup!

You should be glad anytime this happens as long as they follow

your use restrictions and provide live links from the resource

box at the end of your articles. The client wisely saw topical

web content for their site more valuable than the concern of

that external link to the author/competitor.

It does immeasurable good for your link popularity as well

since that link comes from a relevant and on-topic site,

rather than from a useless links directory. Your articles

serve as 500 to 1200 word advertisements for your business and

if it appears on competitor sites, it is as if you have been

able to sneak in the back door and steal customers from the

competing site via your article. Would you rather appear in a

random list of links, or have 1000 words to convince people to

buy your products or services?

All of this just baffles me as a content distributor. All of

those authors that requested removal would gain a valuable

one-way inbound link to their websites from topical and

relevant content that increases their link popularity and

their visibility.

Why on earth would they want those articles, that notoriety,

that credibility and the high quality links removed? When

there is no copyright issue present, you gain far more from

use of your article than you lose by having an article on

sites you don't like.

I've got articles lose in the world that I'm not proud of,

simply because I've become a better writer since I distributed

them originally. Several are outdated and recommend things

that are no longer valid or, in some cases, not at all useful

for current standards in search engine ranking - but that is

because the search engine algorithms have changed and best

practices have changed.

That is why I now date my article copyright to clearly show

the date associated with the article. But I would NEVER

request removal of my articles from sites that have old

articles posted. They will STILL be more relevant and valuable

to me than any cluttered, off-topic reciprocal links

directory, because they are a link within relevant text that

gain link popularity and sometimes lead to new clients and

further visibility.

Removal of your articles from compeitor sites would be silly

in most cases and will reduce your visibility and your link

popularity. Be the Fox in the Competitor Hen House instead

of Chicken Little in fear of the article marketing sky falling.

Copyright © August 10, 2005

Mike Banks Valentine operates http://Publish101.com

Free Web Content Distribution for Article Marketers and

Provides content aggregation, press release optimization

Custom web content for Search Engine Positioning

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