ArticleRanks Or Unique Article Wizard?

This post is only 2,890 or so words.  Keep that in mind as you read.  Approximate reading time is 2.3 minutes…

If you are new to internet marketing or a veteran, you probably have heard of Unique Article Wizard. But have you heard about ArticleRanks? Granted, there are other services out there that you can try, it’s not as if these are the only fish in the pond. There are others to choose from.

A reader, Thomas, asked recently if I would compare both services. A comparison between ArticleRanks and UAW has been on my mind for a while, I only needed to conduct some testing. The test involved a client’s websites, web 2.0 as well as self-hosted sites.

During this test, only ArticleRanks was used, on websites that had some age. But here I simply want to compare ArticleRanks and Unique Article Wizard.

What do ArticleRanks and Unique Article Wizard Have In Common?

Both ArticleRanks and UAW alike are article submission services. With either of them, you get to do the following:

• Mass-Submit Spun Articles
• Schedule Submissions
• Select Categories
• Receive Free And Unique Content
• Submit In-content Links

Embed Videos

Nothing new, really. Using either service, you spin the content (see note below regarding on-board spinner and re-writer with ArticleRanks). This is done so more of your articles “count” for backlinks in Google, copied content will fall into the supplemental index and will not be used by either humans or search engines in most cases.

Both ArticleRanks and Unique Article Wizard will allow you to schedule future posts. Both allow you to select targeted categories, since there are other members on the receiving end who want that content for their own blogs. Both allow you to receive free content, whether or not you pay for membership.

And contrary to popular belief, Unique Article Wizard does allow in-content links. You can have up to two URLs, and 2 in-content links per URL. Up to 4, in other words. ArticleRanks allows you up to 3, and I wouldn’t recommend going higher than that, but do what you want on your own links.

The reason that matters for SEO purposes is that links in the body or content area are going to give your backlink more credibility, more weight, than links in a blogroll or even a resource box. On the Warrior Forum, I’ve seen SEOLinkVine peddlers talking about how, “Unlike Unique Article Wizard, SEOLV allows you in-content links…” Wow. That’s hogwash at best, crappy salesmanship at worst.

PSST! Hey, Warrior Forum marketers: SEOLinkVine sucks so quit the mis-information campaign.

Whew! Now that’s off my chest, the question is:

What Makes ArticleRanks and Unique Article Wizard Different?

Several things. Let’s start with that first bullet list of similarities, because there are a number of differences even there.

Mass-Submit Spun Articles
Both do allow you to submit articles that are spun and therefore unique, hence the name “Unique Article Wizard.” However, they differ in these ways:

1. Syndication
2. Spin Syntax
3. Nested Spins
4. Spinner Included in ArticleRanks

Syndication
UAW will syndicate your submissions to article directories – though not the high PR directories like Magic Submitter – ArticleRanks is purely a blog network of members’ blogs.

Also, tracking is an issue with ArticleRanks, although it’s made easier if your article winds up on another WordPress blog (if you use WordPress like I do). These automatically will leave a trackback to your site. Otherwise, Unique Article Wizard is the winner in this arena – you simply go to the “Find it” button after a while and you can get a list of sites and directories where your content was published.

**Note: that is not meant as an end-all, be-all method of finding your content, and neither is looking for your article in Google, since your titles will be spun, etc. So, tracking is really an issue with either, but it’s easier in UAW.

**TIP**
If you want an easier way to track your content, though not fool-proof, then pick just 1-3 author names as pen names – just make sure these names do NOT show up in an “exact match” (with quotes) search…otherwise…having “John Doe” as a pen name is pretty SEOLV-ish of you.

This does NOT work in ArticleRanks since they don’t use pen names of any sort – you post like a ghost…

…writer.

And that fact can make Unique Article Wizard the better service IF your goal is to build an online presence as some guru of whatever your website is about. Having 1,000 articles covering your topic, on a monthly basis, will surely establish you as some sort of something or other.

“Expert” or “Spammer” – pick your poison. The sales page uses the term “expert,” so we’ll go with that.

Personally, I have as many pen names as I have kids. You’ll never find me. Maybe. Well, hopefully not.

The point is that your content will wind up on directories as well as blogs in Unique Article Wizard but only on blogs in ArticleRanks.

One other difference is that I will assume at this point – since UAW has been around for 4 years and counting – that ArticleRanks has a

Much Smaller Blog Network Than UAW

That will grow, of course, but facts are facts. Now, that will be subject to change as more people join either network. Right now I have seen my highest syndication in AR reach 58 submissions – not that impressive, but it will continue to increase since they will syndicate that content to new members if they want articles on the subjects I’ve written.

(What sets them apart from SEOLV is about 30 submissions – I’d rather have 58 than 34 tops…)

With Unique Article Wizard, I’ve seen backlinks generated up to 250 on one particular run. To tell the truth, I’m not sure that backlinking metric is 100% accurate, I just know UAW has a bigger network than their competition that I have personally tried so far.

Tracking is BETTER in ArticleRanks than ArticleRanks because you will be able to check your submission stats, how many times an article was accepted or rejected, etc. It is a bit mis-leading on first blush, though – having 50-60 “published” just means they weren’t rejected.

It does NOT mean that your 50-60 articles have in fact been published, nor will all of them be indexed per se. ArticleRanks does suggest that their network is higher quality, and that is driven by their ingenious way of incentivizing higher PR blogs to join: if you have a higher PR, and add the blog or website to the network, you get free submission credits – see below about “Tags and Credits.”

Schedule Submissions
Both allow you to schedule submissions – not aware of any differences on this note.

Select Categories
ArticleRanks has a very user-friendly way to do this: they have a drop-down menu, you select it, you’re done. You can also target which countries you want to target, and I like that feature. I have products that are specific to the US market, so why target all markets? Oh. Right…backlinks…nevermind.

But listen to this: ArticleRanks will **charge you for more than one category** at a rate of I believe $2 per category. I’m being lazy, don’t wanna look that up, but I’m 37.9% positive that it’s $2 since I’ve used up all my credits…and they all went down 2 at a time, before I realized what was happening. (No, wasn’t category spamming – but there are some topics that can fit multiple categories.)

Why is that || GOOD NEWS || for ArticleRanks and their customers? Simple: you will have || LESS || indiscriminate category spam. (Right, Josh? :D) This means if you are receiving this content, and you’re a disgruntled SEOLV customer who keeps receiving articles on smoking marijuana, vacations in Ireland, and gambling addiction instead of pet sitting like you ordered, then you can see the precious value here.

If you bother to submit your spun articles and get them out to 125 categories, you will get a very high rejection rate. And such spamming does nothing to help the credibility of the service, since people join ArticleRanks and Unique Article Wizard, et al., in order to get free and ON TOPIC articles.

UAW does the same sort of thing in that they try to create more of a targeted submission process, in that they have an “interesting” (read: high learning curve at first) way you have to select categories for submission.

Unique Article Wizard uses a proprietary keyword funnel, and I’m sure the system was designed to generate more targeted content, and it usually works. Where it doesn’t work is that people spam all categories nevertheless, or somehow the editors miss it.

The process with UAW is:

Pick up to 15 keywords, from specific -> broad
Choose the drop-down menu category (3 of them, 1st-3rd choice)

This is to submit to the directories that they are part of, as well as for matching publishers’ blogs with your content. But many people get confused on it – there are TONS of training videos on UAW, with a tiered learning process online. Good stuff, your questions are answered either there or in the forum.

In case you missed it, there is an editing process at UAW. This means your articles go through a bit of an editorial review (by bots or humans, not sure). It takes 2-4 days for an article that was submitted to get accepted and begin submission.

With ArticleRanks, it literally takes hours.

Receive Free And Unique Content
Both are very similar, but UAW allows and encourages members to add their own affiliate links to articles posted using their plugins (they have a plugin for every CMS, it’s unreal – ArticleRanks uses FTTP or existing APIs). That’s good for the publisher who wants to do such a thing, but if you want to join the network that protects your content, then ArticleRanks is more your game.

I’ll be honest: I get articles through UAW, and I add aff links. I add them to Amazon, Commission Junction…but keep it limited to only about 40 links.

((That really was just a sick joke! I never go above 20 affiliate links…))

All that being said, I’ll just add this quote from ArticleRanks. In my view, this is good news for all involved:

Why did one of my sites disappear from the network?

AR wishes to maintain a high quality network of sites in order to attract high quality articles. We will remove a site from the network if administration deems the site to be unacceptable…

I Want to Earn Credits by Submitting My New Site?

Unfortunately newly registered sites are unable to earn credits, we have taken this measure to avoid the network being filled with spam.

They also mention that you may not re-post the content as your own elsewhere, you cannot change the hyperlinks…none of that. I’m not sure the bozo’s name, I think his name is “Dirtbag” or something with less credibility…but with one of my articles that ranked on page one of Google using UAW, the (insert Pirate language for “Dirtbag”…I think it’s “Scallywag?”) removed **all of my links** and author name.

Good. So glad I share a planet with the creature. Oh, and how do I know it was a UAW user? I didn’t submit the article to ArticleRanks.

From this angle, I do appreciate the quality controls at ArticleRanks since I know that my content is **supposed to be** protected. They can’t guarantee that Scallywag, Jr. or his cousin won’t actually do the same thing with an AR article.

It’s the thought that counts: UAW encourages users to re-brand content, since you can get a unique version of it with their plugins or by going to Uber Articles, and AR frowns on the matter. Me likey frowning on Dirtbag, Scallywag and Wormwood, Screwtape’s protege.

Submit In-content Links
Both allow this, with this difference:

UAW does not want you to put your affiliate links in your articles. They want you to put them on a landing page, direct traffic to your landing page using their service…ArticleRanks lets you put your aff links in. I have not actually tried nor read if they allow links with “img src” or JavaScript, many of my aff links from CJ are formed that way, but this is good news as you can promote various products this way.

Now other differences you need to know:

Price
Unique Article Wizard is $67 per month. Want to pause for a month? No worries, go to the subscription in PayPal and cancel. Re-sign up through the admin panel on UAW. No penalty to your links, unlike 1-Way Links or 3-Way Links (both owned by Jonathan Leger, who owns The Best Spinner, currently I miss Magic Article Rewriter because the text box is teeny when you have a bigger phrase to spin, and I can’t figure out how to make that text bigger – MAR has an easy-on-the-eyes font size). Both of those networks work so long as you remain a member. Otherwise: you quit? Your links drop. That’s called “forced continuity” and “lame customer service.”

With ArticleRanks you have a number of ways to join.

FREE – just add a site and earn credits for it, and earn by referring others and get paid for it. (Hint, hint: use my links.) =)

Buy Credits – $2 a for an article submission, $10 minimum, which is 5 credits. An article submission will be $2 unless you add categories, 1 credit per category.

Monthly – $39/month. That’s bottom dollar, or rupee, or peso, or EU…just don’t ask me to convert currency. (If you wire me or PayPal me some, I’ll convert your money into articles and backlinks. Just sayin’.)

Speed of Approval
UAW: days
AR: hours

Spin Levels and Spin Syntax
UAW: Unlimited spin levels. Typical Jet Spinner syntax:
{Samples at Cosco are usually pretty tasty. We cheap like that|After {church on Sundays|clubbin’ on Saturday nights|playing poker and running out of all my money}, I take the kids out to Cosco to “shop.” Really, we ain’t sho

Now, let me point out that you can break up sentences, have paragraphs in there, etc. Chop it up like you like in UAW. OR you can just submit 3 unique versions of the same article without ANY spinning – this is much faster and easier, and you can submit 3 articles to main directories by hand, and just use them for UAW submission.

It will somehow weave all the versions together, and not just exchange paragraphs. Don’t ask me how, it just does.

AR: Two levels of spinning only. Magic Article Rewriter comes with the MAN or AMA syntax – this is what you use to export to AR.

{ArticleRanks is cool~AR rocketh~If you like ArticleRanks then [it shows|it illustrates|that demonstrates] you [have a very large brain|my kinda peeps]}.

AR’s spinner takes a little time to use if you spin in their software. It offers you 10 boxes to rewrite your sentences, rewrite it as many as you lie to, and you can spin articles using the pipe “|” and square brackets “[ ]“.

To use Magic Article Rewriter, you will have to use the MAN or AMA export format.

To use The Best Spinner you simply use the [ | ] as the first level, and { ~ } as the second level for spinning.

Sentence spins are separated by the curlies “{ }” and tilde “~” — and yes. It’s NOT fun to fix all that if you get it wrong.

What if you get it wrong? Just use Notepad++ or other text editors, it’s not a disaster, just an aneurysm waiting to happen as you shoot blood out of your eyes in frustration…

If you ignore all that, your articles won’t submit correctly. You’ll get a paragraph that looks as large as the US Tax Code, minus paragraphs and sub-headings…

What I do when spinning these articles is to start out with a unique article, put it into my spinner, and then I rewrite as normal. But when I get to a sentence spin, I insert a token, usually a ## for the opening and closing, and then I will change the syntax using a text editor.

Just highlight the sentence and find/replace. Same with links – and both services allow you to spin URLs and/or keywords. I use a token like:

@@Anchor Text@@URL

That way I can just edit it in AR on submission.

**Note: the spinner at AR has a thesaurus! And my CHIHUAHUA has more of a vocabulary. Nothing to brag about yet…but it’s there if you are having a brain-fart.

Re-submission
UAW: allows you to re-submit the same spun article to the network after 4 months. Otherwise it will only be syndicated to new blogs or directories in the network. I LOVE THIS FEATURE. I just re-submitted a handful of articles, and all I had to do was hit my mouse.

AR: no way, San Jose.

Drip Feed?
One last thing: ArticleRanks controls the drip feed, they randomize it – and yes, it is pretty random. I submitted 16 articles for a client, and they go out at different rates, a few per day.

UAW lets you either bomb their entire network all at once (bye bye, website), or you set the amount. Nice feature. (I think this would be fine if your site has age and is in a niche where backlink spikes are common – otherwise I’d be hesitant to suggest it.)

Which service gets better results: ArticleRanks or Unique Article Wizard?

This is the real question – and I’m not sure how to answer that for you. My results have been so far: I don’t have a complaint to level against either (other than what I’ve noted). I think UAW is bigger, more established, and more links therefore…

But on my recent testing, every site that I hit with direct links using AR for my client has climbed in rankings. Every one.

With UAW, probably because I set the # too high in the early tests, I have seen sites disappear entirely for a while. (Weeks, no longer.) That is more a reflection of my ineptitude, and not UAW’s. Oh, and those sites are all on page 1 in Google for the terms I selected.

So, what will it be?

ArticleRanks

OR

Unique Article Wizard?

Only you can answer that. I’m loving and keeping both as long as I can afford to.

** Note: ArticleRanks just announced their prices are going up! As of Halloween 2010, their $39 a month is a note in history, my guess is $47 a month, seems to be the going rate.