Article Marketing Link Building Test (June 2010)
By MMJ admin on Jun 10, 2010 in Article Marketing
I’m doing a new test of the link building powers of my current article marketing strategy. I’m doing this because I think it’s important to periodically test services like these because sometimes they can improve (or get worse) over time and it’s good to stay on top of what is working now (rather than what used to work.)
I’m also doing it because I haven’t done a real test yet of SEOLinkVine which is the newest article submission service I’m using (I just a little over a month ago.)
The test works like this:
(#1) I set up five new hubpages each one of them assigned to a specific article marketing service. (I’ve just finished this step today.) These hubpages are all about subjects that are very much related to each other so that I can write one article which I can use for all of them.
(#2) I do not link to these hubpages with any other means. No social bookmarking. Nothing. The test must be as “pure” as possible to be meaningful.
(#3) I write/spin one 300+ word article with Magic Article Rewriter.
(#4) I submit the spun article (with the appropriate links included) to each of my article submission services. To be clear, I only include the specific hubpage link that is assigned to that specific article submission service (along with other links that have nothing to do with this test.) This way I can tell that if links are built for that specific hubpage that they are being built with that specific article submission service. This is what makes it a “test.” It’s now how I would normally work (I would build links with all of them usually, mixing everything up) it’s only to see how well each submission service works.
(#5) I will check my external link count (making sure to exclude internal hubpage links) using Yahoo Site Explorer. I’ll be posting the results in the comments here.
The Five Article Submission Services
UAW has done very well in my tests in the past and I’m quite confident that it’s a very effective link building tool. Yet, it’s still good to do a periodic check to be sure.
(#2) Article Marketing Automation
I’ve been a member with AMA for over a year now. It’s done very well in past tests too. It’s a very user friendly service which I do recommend. It did go through some issues a few months ago (with slower submission rates) but they seem to have cleared those issues up. This test will let me make sure of that.
(#3) ArticleRanks
This service seems to be getting stronger and stronger. I’m excited to see the results for it.
(#4) Free Traffic System
You can try this one out for free, so if you’re broke this would be a good place to start. That said, I’m a paying member because you are leveraging your work far better as a paying member. My philosophy is that you shouldn’t be afraid of spending a little money if it saves you a lot of time. It’s an investment.
(#5) SEOLinkVine
I haven’t tested this service yet so I’m most curious to see these results.
Yes, I Know
I’ll probably get some comments from people saying things like just the amount of links on it’s own isn’t meaningful without knowing the quality of the links etc etc. Yes, I know. I’ve been doing this for a long time. And yes I know that what really matters isn’t the links but the SERPS. It’s the search rankings that are ultimately going to make me money! That’s the ultimate goal. But it’s much more difficult to test that (I’ve done it in the past, I don’t want to get into all of the technical difficulties.)
And of course when I check my backlinks using Yahoo Site Explorer for this test I’m not just seeing a total amount of links built, I’m also seeing where those links are coming from.
Step by Step
My last post (from May) includes my current step by step approach to building links (search engine rankings) with article marketing.
All of the submissions have been sent out, I’ll start updating with results (here in the comments) within a week or so.
MMJ admin | Jun 11, 2010 | Reply
I interested to see the results
James | Jun 17, 2010 | Reply
Very Early Results:
(external backlinks as shown in Yahoo Site Explorer)
ArticleRanks – 2
UAW – 1
SEOLinkVine – 0
AMA – 0
FTS – 0
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Not very encouraging results right? Well it’s very very early – it takes awhile for backlinks to show up in Yahoo Site Explorer usually so I wouldn’t take too much from these results.
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On the good site, all five hubpages are indexed by Yahoo! and all but one are indexed by Google (only UAW’s lander isn’t… which is unusual.)
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I’ll update again in a couple of weeks when there should be something more substantial to report!
MMJ admin | Jun 22, 2010 | Reply
I have been using articleranks and what I have noticed is that in the first couple of weeks, the articles will get indexed. Check back later and very little (maybe 5%) are still indexed. I am wondering if Google is just getting rid of these article submission services, since they are so easy to spot.
Hope to hear more information on your results
James | Jun 28, 2010 | Reply
I’m testing UAW but in slightly different way. I’ve created a website to do the test with and I’m looking at serps (and trafficc) more than links.
Links are the first step, then reviewing the serps, then evaluating the traffic (numbers and conversions).
Of course there’s two variables that will impact any test. Competition strengh and number of searches which have a huge impact.
But I will be interested in your comparison testing since it puts these popular programs up against each other.
Texjd | Jul 1, 2010 | Reply
Update:
UAW – 6
ArticleRanks – 3
AMA – 2
SEOLinkVine – 2
FTS – 2
These results don’t seem to be as good as I’ve got with similar tests in the past… but there are a lot of possible reasons for that so I’m trying not to overreact.
I know article marketing as a whole is still effective as it’s got me some great search engine rankings which are making me most of my income… but in isolation like this, it may not look very good.
James:
Are you spinning your articles? If so, how much?
MMJ admin | Jul 5, 2010 | Reply
Yes I am spinning them combining 4-6 different spun articles together. I really check in Google to see if they index and they do, but when you check back weeks later, they are nowhere to be found. I am still going to test them out to see if it makes sense or the big G has just figured out the network.
James | Jul 7, 2010 | Reply
This is pretty interesting. I came here from DP. Really curious to see any updates you may have.
Jeena | Jul 19, 2010 | Reply
Today’s Update:
UAW – 7
ArticleRanks – 5
FTS – 5
AMA – 1
SEOLinkVine – 1
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I plan on replicating this test in July but in a different niche (the niche for this test is MUSIC) to see how that works out…
I will admit that the results from this test have been a bit disappointing – but at the same time… I’m not sure how much stock I would put in them – I’m still seeing great results with what I do (using these services) as far as what really matters (search rankings)
A great example of these real world search ranking results can be seen here: http://www.moneymakerjobs.com/article-marketing-loop-new-article-marketing-test/205/
MMJ admin | Jul 20, 2010 | Reply
One possible explanation is that Yahoo Site Explorer is not picking up as many (or not showing them anyway) backlinks as it used to.
MMJ admin | Jul 20, 2010 | Reply
Check out my new test (which avoids any problems with Yahoo Site Explorer not showing full backlink results)
http://www.moneymakerjobs.com/article-marketing-search-engine-saturation-test-unique-author-name/208/
MMJ admin | Jul 26, 2010 | Reply