There are a few software directory software programs in the marketplace. Some are great, some are good, and some stink to high heaven, for the writer and for the website owners.

In an ideal world, all article management software would be easy-to-use for the webmaster. Also in an ideal world, the submission process would be fast and easy for the writer. But, this is not an ideal world.

In today\'s article hungry marketplace, there are literally hundreds of websites where you can submit your articles.

[b]Three Types of Article Directories[/b]

There are three kinds of article directories:
[b]*[/b] Stand-Alone Directories of Articles Available for Reprint
[b]*[/b] Stand-Alone Directories of Articles Available for Reading
[b]*[/b] Article Directories Inside of a Website, with Articles Available for Reading

With these different kinds of directories, you will find different categories of webmasters. This distinction is more important than you think.

[b]*[/b] Corporate Owners
[b]*[/b] Independent Online Business Webmasters
[b]*[/b] Hobbyist Webmasters

Personally, I own two article directories. One has nearly 2500 articles in it, and the other has nearly 5000 articles in it.

Both of mine are of the first type, Stand-Alone Directories of Articles Available for Reprint. But, I am not a corporate owner. I am an independent online business webmaster.

The reason why the type of owner is important is that the type of owner will determine where your articles will be published today AND tomorrow.

Corporate owners have a bottomless supply of web server space available to them. In the corporate category, these directories are the most important:

[b]*[/b] http://www.ezinearticles.com
[b]*[/b] http://www.goarticles.com
[b]*[/b] http://www.ideamarketers.com/
[b]*[/b] http://www.uniterra.com

[b]Directory Owner Budgets[/b]

Most new article directory owners have a small budget for web hosting, and therefore, they have a limited amount of web server hard drive space.

Most of these new directory owners have jumped into their website with both feet hoping to cash in on their Google Adsense revenue.

After a few months, the truth will crash them into the wall.

On http://www.articles4reprint.com, I have more than 4500 articles live. I have another 1000 articles pending my approval. Generally, it takes 30 seconds to approve one article. So, the articles currently pending on this site will require an investment of another 8.5 hours to bring up-to-date. One day a couple of weeks back, I spent 19 straight hours approving articles on this site. I am not going to stop taking submissions to this article directory site, but it does require a lot of my time to maintain.

Perhaps I am exceptional. I will spend the hours required to approve articles, but will the next person?

I started this site with a basic account. I have had to upgrade my web hosting package three times to be able to continue accepting articles to the site. Will the next person make this kind of commitment?

The payoff for operating a website like this one is the Adsense revenue developed from hosting such a wide range of content on the website. In the case of the http://www.articles4reprint.com website, I am currently generating only $40 per month on my Adsense account. Will the next person consider this a fair trade of time for money? Likely not.

[b]I Know This Is My Business, But Don\'t Take My Word For It[/b]

At various times, I submit articles to various directories. The distinction of \"at various times\" is actually important. Websites that were accepting direct submissions from me six months ago are no longer accepting submissions from anyone.

Writers want to believe that they can just crank out hundreds of articles, generating hundreds of links back to their websites. Sometimes they can, and at other times, they cannot.

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It comes down to this. Every website where I submit articles has a human moderator at the other end of the transaction, and they have the right to choose what materials they will use and what materials they will not use. Each webmaster can also consider whether the time required for the approval process will help their bottom line.

These big article directories no longer accept articles from anyone. Also shown is the last date an article was added to the site.

[b]*[/b] http://www.article-emporium.com/ - December 2005
[b]*[/b] http://www.articletime.com/ - December 2005
[b]*[/b] http://www.learnthis.info - August 2005
[b]*[/b] http://www.family-content.com/ - May 2005
[b]*[/b] http://www.certificate.net/wwio/ - April 2003

Many smaller directories have also stopped taking articles. In most cases, the websites show that they accept articles, but you never realize that they are not printing your articles until you look or until you hit the Submit button on the Submission Form. Or, you can continue submitting to them, never realizing that you are wasting your time, until you go to search the website for your articles.

http://www.articlefinders.com says that they have a monster backlog and they are not taking new articles until they get caught up.

http://www.marketingtroll.co.uk seems to indicate that they are still accepting articles, but they have not published a new article since May of 2005.

Folks, I could go on forever. I could literally show your hundreds of directories that seem to be accepting articles, but they have not published any new articles in months or years.

Generally, Mailing Lists on the Major List Servers Deliver Better Results

Article distribution email groups on Yahoo and Google generally provide good results, but they fall into disuse almost as frequently as web article directories.

Here, I will show the subscriber count of the Article Distribution Group, the last time an article was published through the list, and the URL for the list.

[b]*[/b] 1003 – September 2003 - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArticlePublisher/
[b]*[/b] 560 – September 2001 - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArticlePublish
[b]*[/b] 2002 – December 2000 - http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/articles_archives
[b]*[/b] 752 – June 2005 - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreeWrites
[b]*[/b] 474 – December 2000 - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The-Article-Depot
[b]*[/b] 465 – August 2003 - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WriteQualityContent

The following article distribution group is active, but there is no moderator to review your posts:

[b]*[/b] 1390 – June 2005 - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ReprintArticles-Paradise (the only people who can submit to this list are those who were not moderated at the time the list owner disappeared.)

[b]In Conclusion[/b]

If you are distributing your own articles to a house list, check back from time to time to make sure that they are actually using your articles. Always verify your results. Don\'t waste your time submitting articles to people who will not even look at your articles.
This article was found at Site Reference.