I have been using ArticleRanks for months now and I really don’t know why I didn’t write a review about it since it is a blog network that I would recommend for anyone looking to drip feed links to their sites from a high quality blog network which many agree is one of the best out there.
As always with me, late is better than never, so here is my ArticleRanks Review.
ArticleRanks Overview
| Name: | ArticleRanks |
| Creator: | Digital Connected Media Ltd. |
| Focus: | Blog Network |
| Price: | $39.99/m or $89.99/m or Free |
| Official Website: | http://www.articleranks.com/ |
How Does ArticleRanks Work?
Nothing new here folks. ArticleRanks is just like any other blog network and the concept is fairly simple. You submit a spun article in which you can include 3 anchor text links and it will get published on dozens of sites inside the network according to the category you select and the level of uniqueness.
So What Makes ArticleRanks Different?
Glad you asked. There are several factors that differentiate ArticleRanks from other blog networks and I will share them with you.
Credit System
The most important thing for you to know is that you can use ArticleRanks for free. I have been using it for free for months now and I submitted hundreds of articles. This is possible thanks to the credit based system ArticleRanks supports.
Credit can be earned in 2 ways:
- Buy Credits
- Add Sites
By adding sites to the network and getting articles published on your sites you will earn credits which you can use for submitting your own articles to the network. Each article submission will “cost” you 2 credits. Adding sites is easy and in my opinion the better choice if you have some sites that you can spare since it will allow you to use ArticleRanks for free (depending on how many credits you will earn from your sites).
Syndication Rates
It seems that most of my articles are being submitted on an average of 60 sites which takes about 6-8 weeks. I will show account stats later on so you will get a much better understanding as to how many submissions you can get from ArticleRanks.
In-House Indexing
One of the biggest problems all blog networks share is the low indexing rates of the articles you submit. If you articles are not going to be indexed than those links will not count and won’t provide any link power. Getting your articles indexed is important and ArticleRanks has a great feature that allows you to add social bookmarking sites (which will also award you with credits) and the articles being submitted will also be bookmarked which should potentially help the indexing rates.
Build In Spinner
ArticleRanks has a built-in article spinner but I really can’t say much about it as I never really used it. As you probably know, I am using the Ultra Spinnable Articles which are already spun and in case I need an article spinner I use The Best Spinner. From what I heard and read elsewhere, it seems that ArticleRanks built-in spinner is quite good but you will need to test that out for yourself.
ArticleRanks Drawbacks
Not all is perfect with ArticleRanks and there are 2 drawbacks that I want to highlight and make sure you are aware of.
Article Submission Interface
I have no idea why, but submitting articles to ArticleRanks has been a big pain for me at the beginning. It seems their interface doesn’t really work good with Chrome and only after I went back to using Firefox my problems were solved. So if you are a Chrome user you should switch to Firefox when submitting articles to ArticleRanks.
This was very annoying for me until I figured it out and now that I have an outsourcer doing the submissions for me I don’t really mind it but I thought you should know.
Domain Limitations
ArticleRanks starter membership is priced very low in comparison with other blog networks ($39.99/m) but it comes with a very big limitation. You can only use 10 domains in your live articles meaning you will only be able to links to 10 different domains.
The free membership limits you to only 5 domains and if you want to be limit free you will need to get the Pro membership which is priced at $89.99/m but comes with some added features.
This is something you should be aware of but keep in mind that the limit is only for links to domains in live articles. So if you have used your domain limit (5 or 10, depending on your membership) you can pause articles with links to a certain domain and that will allow you link to a new domain in new live articles.
Hope that made sense
.
What this limit basically means that you won’t be able to use ArticleRanks to link to 1st tier sites (unless you have the pro membership). What I love to do with these blog networks is not only use them to link directly to my money sites but also link them to some high quality “buffer” sites such as articles on big article directories, Web 2.0 sites and recently I also link to the high PR links I get from BuildMyRank.
This method would work great with new sites as I know many are afraid that building too many links to new sites (and blog networks can generate thousands of links in under a month) so using them to build links to these “buffer” site would work great for new sites.
Some Stats
I have been using ArticleRanks in combination with the Ultra Spinnable Articles meaning I only submitted Ultra Spinnable Articles to the system. Here are my ArticleRanks article submissions stats:
As you can see, I have submitted 427 articles so far and these articles got published more than 14,000 times. The average submission per article is therefor 32.8 but if you take into consideration that it might take 6-8 weeks to get 60+ submissions it makes sense as I add new articles everyday and they effect the average submission and make it seem lower that it really easy.
In case you still wondering how unique and high quality the Ultra Spinnable Articles are, just watch my article acceptance rate:
I love the Ultra Spinnable Articles and they save me tons of time and help me create thousands of links every month.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that ArticleRanks is recommended and I am not the only one to think so.
Even though the links you will get won’t be of the highest quality, they are still of better quality than the other blog networks out there and more importantly, these links work and that is the most important factor for me. I have ranked many pages on this blog and others by simply using blog networks so these type of links work and in many cases work great (yes, even after Panda).
Add the fact that you can actually use this network for free (if you add your own sites) and that it helps you get your articles indexed (by adding social bookmarking accounts) you really have a blog network that is worth trying and using.
To your success (and mine 
),
{ 44 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting tool Dave! I’d like to point out a few things. First of all, I’m a little confused on how to use it for free.
Are you saying that I can use some of my sites to post other peoples Articles in exchange for posting my own?
I’m also confused on the domain limitations. I don’t know where to start, but there were a few things in there that I really didn’t catch on to what you were talking about.
Outside of that, great post Dave, you’re honestly one of the few product review sites I enjoy. Also, could you tell me how you find out about these products in the first place? Thanks!
Hi Jon,
Regarding how to use the service for free – you got it. You add your own site or sites so that other people will post articles and you will earn credits that you can use to submit your own articles.
About the limitations – a FREE account has a 5 domain limit. the STARTER account has 10 domains limit and the PRO level has not domain limits.
Thanks for the great feedback Jon. This is exactly why I do this and for those that think I do this mainly for the money, the sad truth in the IM world is that being honest means making less money (at least in the short term).
How do I find out about all these services? From my own personal experience. Since I am doing my own SEO and link building I keep my eyes and ears open
Thanks again.
I purchased a credit to try articleranks before jumping into the full time service and can’t get the ultra spinnable articles to work? What changes do you make in order to use the ultra spinnable articles with article ranks? I must be missing something.
Hi Jayson,
Use spinnertools.com and convert your article to SEO Link Vine from the drop-down list on the top right. Also, be sure to use Firefox when you are submitting to ArticleRanks as it seems to work better (at least that was the case for me). That should allow you to submit it without any problems.
Dave, 2 things I noticed when using the ultra spinnable’s for AR , I have to cut the length of the article, for some reason it doesn’t support the full USA, as you mentioned the spintax is not the normally used format, but you can simply use TBS export function to change this. My question is if you are only trying to link to one site, domain should you split your links between 3 keywords or is it better to target only 1 keyword per site to make the link more powerfull.
Hi Tony, I am linking to 3 different domains with every article I create and I try to have 2-3 keywords for every page I target. You should diversify the anchor text you are using a little and not use just one keyword all the time as the anchor text.
Hey Dave,
1) Could you explain where you’re placing your links in the article?
Example. Are your links contextual and only in the body or do you add them at the end of the article?
2) How long are your articles?
Thanks
JD
Hi JD,
I am only using contextual links. I don’t put the links at the bottom of the article and I don’t recommend you do so. I am using the MTUSP’s in order to easily add the links in the beginning, middle and conclusion of an article.
Since I am mainly using the Ultra Spinnalbe Articles and Article Builder the articles are usually 500 words or more.
Hey Dave,
Thanks for the response.
Awesome that you’re helping us noobs
Saw your video on youtube and i’ll be using that method.
Last questions from my part:
1) How often do you submit your unspin variations?
2) What do you enter for Tags for the business niche spinnables?
3) Do you limit the countries you submit to? (under countries)
Hi, first of all, tx for all the information you share in your blog! it’s just awesome!
I have a question related to AR, im using it for some months, when i go to the stats i can see that i have a lot of “auto rejection” do you know what could be the reason for that, and what it means by “auto rejection”?
tx, and have a nice day.
Hi Bruno. When you add a site to the ArticleRanks network you can choose to auto reject an article based on the level of uniqueness. I assume your articles are not unique enough (not rewritten enough) to pass some of the site owner base level which they select when they add their sites.
This is how it is written in the add site interface inside ArticleRanks: “Auto-Reject Articles That Are Rewritten Less Than…” and than you can select a percentage from 10% to 90%. I recommend you keep you articles spun at over 50% in order to get more of them approved.
I am using the Ultra Spinnable Article and Article Builder and I have 3% rejection rate.
Hey Dave,
Short question.
Did my 1st AR submit pointing to different posts on my blog (with over 100% uniqueness on both title and body) but thinking how i should make the backlink juice more powerful.
Do you use AR to point backlinks to backlinks?
Short example would be awesome.
Cheers,
JD
Hi JD, not sure I understood what you meant about your 1st AR submit.
I am using AR to promote my money sites. Didn’t use it to build backlinks to my backlinks yet.
Hi Dave,
Nice article also read your one on traffic kaboom.
I’m a newbie and will start producing about 10 new niche sites a week or 40 a month (using VAs) but am looking for a ‘best’ backlinking program also one that has the least work, ie don’t have to spin or ultra spin every article.
I’m not looking to create massive amount of backlinks to these new sites but slow drip feed them. And total links within the first 90 days perhaps about 50 or so because I’m going after low competition KWs.
My questions are:
1) It doesn’t seem like you can control the drip feeding unless you point to other sites ie web 2.0 as you mentioned, but it doesn’t sound like you truly have control as compared to other backlinking programs like UAW which allow so many submissions per day?
2) At $89/month perhaps it would be better to go with UAW and MAN for $25 more (UAW $67, MAN $47, total $114) and have two systems instead of one. Also, I’ve heard they are not real particular on the spinning requirements.
3) I guess traffic kaboom is out being that you have to submit unique articles or pretty darn close to it after reading your review?
Thanks ahead of time!
Hi Dean,
That is a good plan you have but what will the VA’s do and what will do?
You say you want to create massive amount of links but than you say each site will only have 50 links after 90 days. 50 links after 90 days is not massive link building.
1. With ArticleRanks you don’t control the drip feeding, it is done fore you. Each article will keep getting posted for around 60 days which is great.
2. I don’t like MAN. I used it before but it lost power over time so I stopped using it. I also think the price is $67 now but i’m not sure.
3. Traffic Kaboom does make it a little harder to submit articles, yes.
Hope that helps. Best of luck
Dave,
Thanks for the reply.
* Does AR care about if the anchor text matches the subject of the article? So if my money site is about banking but the article is about boating will that go through?
* I’m thinking of using USAs and start off with the minis, but they are limited
to just a couple a few categories. If AR cares about anchor text and the subject of the article matching up, what might you suggest to use? The premium account (seems expensive) or John Ledger’s gig?
RE: VAs. They will be doing the KW research using SEcockpit. Then later I’ll have them do other areas so I can just play a managerial role at some point (that’s the goal).
Hi Dean,
I am using AR and inserting links that are not relevant to the article topic so I guess you can do that to.
The minis have 6 different categories (not 2). I have both premium USA’s and Article Builder and you will need to choose which one you go for.
Do you know how to do the keyword research yourself and telling them how you want it done?
Hi Dave,
I’ll have to checkout the USA minis. I think I will go with AR and ALN and try to find a PR5 website to purchase and submit.
I like SEcockpit being that it can do 100 or more top ten evaluations in seconds. For me this is a huge time saver. I can’t stand waiting on my desktop tools to take “forever” to do just one top ten evaluation. I’ll set up a video for the VA to watch. I just go after the basic stuff:
low competition, typically under 5K local searches, CPC >= $1 and then sort competition from lowest to highest. Then evaluate the top ten of the 2-3 that look promising. If no go, onto the next seed keyword.
I’ll give the VA a large list of seed keywords from Semrush. I gleaned this from a guy I follow who has already set up the VA process: video, templates, spread sheets etc.
Again, I’m new at all this but I’m trying to set up a system so I can crank out
40 adsense sites a month and have it mostly outsourced. As you know this site building process is a numbers game.
Thanks again for your generous responsives!
That is a great process.
Can you explain a little more about the list of seed keywords you get from SEMrush?
semrush you can use to scrape keywords from any website, ie, bestbuy.com; ezine articles, or any article directory etc. Also find competitor keywords. So I just scraped 40K keywords. It’s still no walk in the park to find the KWs. It’s just somewhere to start or have my VA start somewhere instead of picking something out of the air.
Here is a 14 day free trail (no aff link) http://www.seobook.com/sem-rush-coupons
which will allow you to scrape a limit of 10k per site. All the KWs from each site are within the top 20.
SEcockpit is $77/mth or quarterly $300. I like that it’s expensive so less people will use it.
Thanks for the info
Correction on secockpit that’s $297 for half a year (about $50/mth).
I’m using articleranks right now paying the $89 / month membership. they say it is unlimited articles to be posted each day , but i tried posting more than 60 unique articles each day and i join the spam filter they have.
I would like to know if you have the same issue as me?
Hi Aldo, I am not submitting that many articles a day so I don’t have that problem. 60 articles a day is a indeed a lot so I can understand why you are hitting the spam filter. Try contacting them and asking what the limit is. Are you submitting unique articles or USA’s ?
Hey Dave!
I’ve been trying to figure out the best and easiest to use blog network to join. I think I’ve narrowed my search between BMR and AR, unless you suggest otherwise?
I had a few questions that may strongly influence my decision:
1. Regarding AR, do you have an approximate breakdown of the PR for the blogs you’re getting posts on?
2. Are the articles you post on BMR spinable, or is it one article, one link? Seems like one spun article will go much further on AR.
3. On your BMR review, you posted some positive search result gains, how well did AR work for you?
4. Which would you recommend?
I appreciate your help, I need it!
Hi Josh,
BMR and AR are both blog networks but they are very different and you can’t really compare the two.
Build My Rank will only work with unique content, so one 150 word post will provide you with one link and the links are much higher quality than the once you will get with AR and any other similar blog network.
ArticleRanks on the other hand will help you create a lot of low-medium quality links. It is the best blog network right now for me and provides great results.
Since they are very different I can’t tell you to go with one over the other. BMR will allow you to a create a few high quality links while AR will allow you to drip feed and create hundreds of low to medium quality links.
Best thing is to use both and since you can use AR for free if you add a PR blog than you should consider doing that.
Hope that helped.
Thanks Dave! I think I’ll start with AR. I’m still jumping all over your blog now, how do you think authority linknetwork would compare?
In regards to ALN, I wouldn’t have blogs to contribute, so I’d be a subscribing member.
I personally think that ArticleRanks is better and if you have to choose between them, I would currently go with AR.
Dave,
This is somewhat off the subject. Do you know how to setup the Article Ranks wordpress API?
Their instructions seems very vague.
They ask 3 questions:
1) Site remote publishing URL: (I assume that is the website, ie example.com?)
2) Blog ID: (I assume that’s the post #?)
3) Remote publishing API: (choices are: wordpress API, metaWeblog api, blogger api etc I assumed the first one)
I sent customer svs a question but they seem to take forever.
Sorry Dean, never tried that myself so I can’t really help.
Hey Dave, do you submit the same ultra spinnable article more than once or a different article for each submission?
I always submit flat spins to ArticleRanks. I never submit the ultra spinnable article as is.
With that said, I do submit many flat spins of the same master ultra spinnable article.
Thanks for you reply, may I ask if you also spin the flat spins at word level as well before submission?
No, I don’t usually do that. I find these articles to be unique enough without me adding anything but it is a good thing to do if you want them to be even more unique and with The Best Spinner it is actually pretty easy to do.
Looking at the membership plans on Article Ranks, do you know what does the “1 free top level category for free” mean?
Thanks
When you submit an article you get to choose a category. Some membership levels will allow you to choose more than just one category.
Hi Dave,
I personally never signed up with Article Ranks…. and I NEVER WILL! My complaint has to do with other matters dealing with the morals of the company. I like your blog and come here often, but I had a very negative experience with ArticleRanks and Paypal recently.
Hi Dominic, sorry to hear about the problems you had. I guess no service can be 100% for all its users.
hi, Im looking to use AR. Im currently using SEOLV and previously used thelinkjuicer. is AR way better to use or do I keep on using SEOLV.
Im using USA for a long time now, and when I tried to submit in AR using the USA and using MTUPs, it won’t allow me saying that I’m submitting 75 links! Do you use the MTUPs or do you just add your link at the end of a sentence or somethin?
I would really love to hear your thoughts on these
Im currently ranking #1 on all my keywords for my business site and using backling energizer to get all my links from seolv and linkjuicer. I need something to keep me on that spot so going with AR and giving up either seolv or thelinkjuicer, what your thoughts?
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Hi, I think AR is better than SEOLV and i’m using AR myself.
I am using the MTUSPs when submitting to AR. you just need to reduce the spinning to 1 level spinning and you can do so using spinnertools. Just select SEO Link Vine from the drop down list and that should work. Also, about AR, I found that it is best to Firefox when submitting to it and when you are copying the article from spinnertools, don’t use the “copy article” button. Just highlight the entire article (CTRL+A) and copy it (CTRL+C).
If SELOV and Link Juicer worked so good for you, why are you looking to replace them?
I’m new to this backlinking activity and thus have appreciated all the information on your site. I have a question on submitting articles to a blog network like AR. If I want to get articles from Ultra Spinnable Articles. How do I add in the backlinks with my anchor text into the article so that it makes sense?
Hi Gary, I’m using the MTUSPs you can get with a membership for the Ultra Spinnalbe Article to add links that appear relevant to the content.
1. Can’t answer that. I submit articles every day promoting dozens of sites. There are no rules for this. Just try and see what works best for you.
2. I enter tags according to the article I submit and the topic it covers.
3. I only submit to the English speaking countries.
Glad to help in any way I can
.
Thank.