If you’ve been paying attention to the Google Panda update, you’ve noticed that EzineArticles – the largest article directory online – was hit and suffered a huge traffic loss. That’s a doggone shame. But what is even more of a shame is the article directory’s response to the update.
Chris Knight says he agrees with Google’s update. So do I. But he boasts about EzineArticle’s quality guidelines post Panda. Here are the changes the article directory has made to its quality guidelines and what you’ll have to do to get your articles approved there.
- Match the author name in your resource box with the byline
- Limit your links to 4
- Deliver on the article title
- Limit reference material within the article
- Properly format your articles
- Keep the resource box short (15% of total article length)
- Maximum keyword density of 2%
In an age when most serious SEOs have given up on keyword density, that last point seems rather strange and out of place. I understand all the other guidelines and agree with them. Perhaps EzineArticles is saying it won’t publish articles that exceed a certain percentage of keyword density because it wants to control spam in its directory. But this guideline sends a signal that keyword density is important. I would not walk away with that impression. Google has more than 200 criteria for making ranking selections. No one, not even EzineArticles, knows all of them, but I’m reasonably sure that keyword density isn’t one of them.
