We’ve all heard about how advantageous it is to spread or syndicate an article across the Web. Even new comers in the field of web-mastering, affiliate marketing, etc. know these benefits like the back of their hand.

But have you ever thought about the flip side of the coin?

Think about it – nothing in this world is perfect… Not even the best marketing and promotion techniques out there – including article syndication. A closer and critical look at this promotion and marketing method will reveal its flaws that you must understand if you are planning to add this in your arsenal.

But first, let’s have a recap of the good side of article syndication

Be The Expert In Your Field
Once you become the Go-To guy,  so to speak, when it comes to dating, marketing, or whatever niche or market you are serving, whatever you say has more weight and receives more attention and respect from your readers.

And there is no better way to establish yourself as the expert or the authority in your field than to create truckloads of targeted and very informative articles that are spread through article directories, newsletters, etc.

More Visitors
A friend of mine once told me that every article you write serves as a salesman who refers people to your website ‘round the clock, everyday of the week, and they don’t complain or answer back.

I couldn’t have said it better!

Assuming that you have written a byline that’s good enough to pique your reader’s interests and SEO’d it with the right anchor texts and links, you can expect that the more articles you write and syndicate through the internet, the more visitors your website will get.

Truckloads Of Backlinks
In the eyes of the major search engines, offsite optimization weighs more than onsite optimization. And offsite optimization is all about building quality and relevant links pointing back to your website.

I can’t think of a better way to build backlinks than to publish and syndicate high quality and relevant articles all over the net – through relevant forums, article directories, blogs, etc. link them back to your website and have them indexed by the search engines.

Alright, we know those benefits all too well. This time, let’s check out the UGLY side of article syndication -

Your Content Gets Old
This affects you even more if you are serving a niche that changes or updates very fast – say computers, mobile phones, etc. Your content could easily be rendered obsolete. And you have no choice but to replace them with the latest articles focusing on the latest developments on the niche… or else, you run the risk of your website getting sidetracked by other sites that can keep up with the pace.

Unauthorized Changes
Like you, there are people within the market that you’re serving who’re always looking for something to write and syndicate about. However, instead of researching for raw facts and figures to base their articles from, they’ve found an easier but not-so-ethical way to do it.

And that is to take your article, rewrite it, and replace your links with their links. It seems like you’ve written for these guys for FREE!

Spam!

Let’s say you gave someone a license to republish your article provided that everything – the title, content, and links remain intact. That’s great news, that means your article gets more exposure. Nothing could go wrong, right? Wrong, there is a possibility that your article to be used used in spam newsletters, article directories, etc. Your organization and your website will be associated with spam without you knowing it! As well, duplicate content on two different URL’s can easily be penalized by search engines.