Top 25 Article Directories and Free Content Sites Ranked by Alexa and PageRank

Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Editor-in-Chief Web Marketing Today Rocklin, CA - May 8, 2007
If you're trying to publish a regular e-mail newsletter for your customers, good news! There's a wealth of content out there that you can use for free -- poor, average, good, and occasionally excellent. Why is this content offered free of charge? Two reasons:

1. Article directories can earn revenue from Google ads placed on their site as part of the Google AdSense program (www.google.com/adsense). This has stimulated the growth of thousands of look-alike article sites that receive very little traffic. Others are niche sites that carry articles in particular vertical categories.
2. Websites can be promoted effectively through articles. A link to the author's website contained in each free article serves to: (a) bring targeted traffic through a well-designed, intriguing "signature" or author bio at the bottom of the article and (b) raise Google PageRank by creating more incoming links to a website. These links point to the author's website from the article's presence both on the article sites and on the websites that use the free articles.

If you're a marketer, I can hear your brain beginning to compute wildly:

1000 article sites X 1 link to my site X 15 articles submitted = 15,000 links to my site

Moreover, article submission tools make article spamming extremely easy. Hold on, it's not that simple. Submitting your article to hundreds or thousands of article sites can actually hurt you, since Google spiders are finely tuned to spot spam in its many flavors. You're much better off to submit your article to five of your favorite article sites and a couple of niche sites, and resist the temptation to blast your article to every pathetic article site on the planet.
How to Promote Your Site through Article Marketing, by Ralph F. Wilson
For more information on article marketing, see my book How to Promote Your Site through
Article Marketing.

To help you see which sites you might consider submitting to, I've listed below the top 25 article directory sites by their Google PageRank (10 being high) and Alexa traffic rank (1 being high). A disclaimer: The Alexa rankings are flawed and seem volatile, but give a relative measure of traffic to a site. Google PageRank (PR) is notoriously inaccurate, but can be seen as an indicator of Google's relative trust in a site -- sort of. The list is not exhaustive and includes both general article directories and some popular niche directories with an Alexa rank of under 50,000. Sites are listed in ascending Alexa rank order, with the PR 6+ sites boldfaced for your convenience.

Rankings as of 05-May-2007


Google
PageRank


Alexa
Rank

EzineArticles.com


6


499

GoArticles.com


4


3,592

ArticleDashboard.com


6


5,255

SearchWarp.com


5


6,032

ArticlesBase.com


4


8,735

iSnare.com *


6


8,791

SelfGrowth.com


6


9,653

Buzzle.com


6


9,698

ArticleCity.com


6


11,526

IdeaMarketers.com


4


13,121

ArticleAlley.com


5


14,259

Web-Source.net


5


15,375

SelfSEO.com


5


15,945

Amazines.com


5


17,509

ArticleTrader.com


5


17,633

SearchGuild.com


6


20,008

WebWorldIndex.com


5


22,233

ArticleSphere.com


4


24,462

BusinessKnowHow.com


6


28,036

PromotionWorld.com


6


29,707

ArticlesFactory.com


7


30,664

ExcellentGuide.com/article


6


33,740

ContentDesk.com


4


33,894

ArticleCube.com


5


36,322
AfroArticles.com

4
42,283

ArticleBiz.com


6


49,044
* Site is also is in the article submission business.

For more information on article marketing, see my book How to Promote Your Site through Article Marketing.

Dr. Ralph F. Wilson is one of the pioneers of Internet marketing, founding the Web Marketing Today newsletter in 1995 at the beginning of the commercial Internet. In addition to developing scores of websites and online stores and consulting with many companies large and small, he is the author of hundreds of articles and more than a dozen books on Internet marketing and e-commerce.
Link to: Top 25 Article Directories and Free Content Sites Ranked by Alexa and PageRank
http://www.wilsonweb.com/linking/wilson-article-marketing-1.htm

Top 21: The Best Top 21: The Best Article Directory List

by Jack Humphrey on May 23

Article directories are a dime a dozen. If you are going to do it the hard way, meaning you’d rather submit one at a time and not use the best article syndication service I have ever used, then focus on submitting your articles to the top 21 article directories below.

You won’t benefit from the long tail effect of submitting to the other article directories available, but you will at least hit the big ones with the highest Alexa and Google rankings.

1. EzineArticles

2. GoArticles

3. WebProNews

4. ArticleDashboard

5. SearchWarp

6. PubsACS

7. ArticleBase

8. Isnare

9. Buzzle

10. ArticleCity

11. IdeaMarketers

12. Site Reference

13. Article Alley

14. Web Source

15. Amazines

16. Submit Your Article

17. TheWhir

18. Excellent Guide

19. Directory Gold

20. Articles Factory

21. SelfGrowth

Need more article directory information?

Here’s a big list of article directories.

Also check out my post on getting the most out of article syndication.

Top 4 Article Directories to Submit Your Content To

Back in 2007 I wrote a post about article submission being a poor SEO tactic. Since then the article has had about 5,000 visitors that mainly came from Google and it’s still getting good traffic now. Because it has been so popular I just gave it a bit of an update and added information about how to submit to article directories and which ones to use.

Over the years I have been screwed over in various ways by a few directories such as Article Alley, Articles Base and Isnare, the 1st two added nofollow to my author signature links and Isnare took a payment from me for a featured submission and then never published it or got back to me when I emailed.

Anyway, fortunately there are a handful of decent general article directories that you can rely on, here are my top 4:

Ezine Articles Logo1/ Ezine Articles is the best article directory on the web, it has good standards, a PageRank 6/10 and currently, according to Alexa it’s the 185th most popular site on the web. The site is very easy to use, just click onto submit articles and follow instructions to get started.

Buzzle Logo2/ My 2nd favourite article directory is Buzzle, I have been an author there for over a year now, my articles are usually published within 24 hours and indexed by Google in no time. The site has a PageRank score of 5/10 and it’s Alexa rank is in the top 2,000. You have to apply to get accepted as an author at Buzzle and it can take a few weeks, but IMO it’s worth the wait.

Go Articles Logo 3/ Another great article site is Go Articles, it’s ran by the Jayde Online Network, it has a Google PageRank of 6/10 and its Alexa score is inside the top 3,500. Submitting is a piece of cake, click on submit articles and then fill in the register as a new member form to get started. Articles are published fast, usually in less then a week.

Article Dashboard Logo4/ Article Dashboard is a mother of an article directory with, according to siteexplorer nearly 4,000,000 links that have come from other article directories using their script. The site has a Google PageRank score of 4/10 and its Alexa traffic rank is about 5,000. Click on the sign up link in the top right hand corner, follow instructions and start submitting your content.

Make sure you read our article submission blog post before you start using these sites, if done correctly and in moderation article submission can be a good small part of your link building and SEO strategy.

FYI: I think the UK needs a really good article directory so I have just registered OriginalArticles.co.uk and I plan to launch that in the next month or so.

Posted in Link Building News By David Eaves a UK search engine optimisation specialist.