Getting links from outside is always desired, and this kind of trade, giving up decent content for links is probably a good trade. But in the back of my mind, I get this nagging feeling that making my own website better with this same content – exclusive to myself – might not in the long run benefit the website more. It might give it some added stickiness, and at the same time expand the “long tail” and also get more natural links from people who are interested in the content.

Truthfully, I have not done much of this type of article submission up until now. But entering into the Web 2.0 world, I figure I need to “do as the Romans do”. I have shot out three articles that have been approved…

• U.S. Water Among Safest Says CDC
• Changing a Bread Recipe
• Antique Toilets Are Collectible

It is worthwhile? After over 100,000 page views on 138 articles (over what amount of time he does not say) the Business Blogger seems to think it worthwhile. He even points to a 15 percent clickthrough to his own websites. He also says that most of the articles only have a short staying power. They seem to stop getting much traffic after a week or so.

On InDepthInfo articles seem to do fairly well in general. They do fluctuate when pulling in traffic, but they tend not to taper off. This might be partly because I try to write articles that will not be dated quickly. In any case, it is one more reason to wonder if writing articles on someone else’s website is truly productive.

There are even Ezine scammers out there. I am sure most are on the up-and-up, but some do make promises that they cannot keep, and it only goes to show that if you do not control the platform that your work could be misused or even disappear without a trace. I do like having pretty complete control over my content.

Well, all this considering has led me where I usually get to on these issues, nowhere. I suppose that I will continue to post a few articles to the article websites and monitor the results.