How To Increase Your Google Page Rank To PR4 For Free
Recently I accidentally discovered an interesting way to increase your Google Page Rank to PR4 for free. I’m going to tell you exactly what I did. But before you read on, promise me that you will not report me to Google!
Ok, I was just joking. It’s nothing unorthodox, illegal or unethical. In its simplicity, the method is called article marketing.
You see, I do a lot of article submissions to promote my websites. But for years, I have been making 1 mistake that I only realized recently. This 1 mistake interesting made one of my ‘hardly-promoted’ website a PR 4.
Here’s the full story:
If you have submitted articles to article directories before, you will know that there are two ways to add an anchor link in your article.
The first way is to add it in a resource box. This is the most common way.
But some directories do not have a resource box. For such directories, you will have to add your link within the article itself.
One such directory is Article Alley.
When you submit an article to Article Alley, there isn’t any resource box where you can add your anchor link to promote your website. So I usually add the link within the article itself.
But what I didn’t know FOR YEARS is that there is one standard resource box for every author and this resource box, if filled up, will appear in all the articles you’ve submitted. That’s where my mistake was made.
Several years back when I opened my account with Article Alley, I wrote something in that standard resource box. I also put one of my first websites as my website address. This was done in the author’s profile and as a newbie at that time, I was just obediently filling up all the blanks.
For your information, the website I’ve entered is a mini-site, with less than 5 pages in total and very little content. I’ve never promoted the website at all. It was one of those ‘great idea but never follow through’ websites.
What happened was Article Alley automatically inserted this website url to ALL the articles I’ve submitted. I have 100s of articles in Article Alley and all the articles contain a link to this ‘forgotten’ website.
Years past and now, this ‘forgotten’ website has a PR 4!!
As I’ve said, this website has not been promoted at all and the only link it has is from Article Alley, but it has 100s of links from Article Alley!
Now, does it mean the website got its PR 4 solely by having 100s of backlinks from 1 website?
Not quite true. Let me explain.
Article Alley is an article syndication network. Articles submitted to Article Alley will be distributed to many other websites. When I do a search for the backlinks to this ‘forgotten’ website, I found many links from other article directories.
That’s the power of article marketing!
A useful conclusion
One useful conclusion I can draw from this little incident is that when doing article marketing, you can have more than 1 link in your article. All your links will be counted by the search engine!
In my case, I typically have 3 different links in each article. That’s about the maximum that most article directories allow. But in the case of Article Alley, I have a total of 4 links. 3 within my article as usual and one in the standard resource box, which links to the ‘forgotten’ website.
The link to the ‘forgotten’ website is the last of the 4 links in the article.
The fact that this ‘forgotten’ website can get a PR 4 shows that all the links are counted, regardless of where the links are positioned.
This means if you have a few websites of the same theme, you can write one article and include 3 links to 3 different websites. That way, you are promoting 3 websites at the same time. Of course, you have to do it tactfully so that your article does not look like a link spam.
This is one of the best articles I’ve read in a long time. Ive been using article marketing for quite awhile now, and its very interesting to know that this was one way I was building my PR up without even knowing it.
Hi Kenneth,
Most of us know that one of the most effective ways to generate website traffic is by submitting articles to directories.
Kenneth, thank you very much for your sharing. I didn’t know that the maximum that most article directories allow is 4 different links in each article. I have always used only 2 in my articles, and now that I know, I will want to make use of this benefit.
As this is an interesting article, I would like to put this at my blog asap. Thanks again for your great tip.
Hi Carol,
The maximum is usually 3, not 4. In the case of Article Alley, the 4th link is an extra link in the resource box. This is not usually the case in most other article directories.
Kenneth
Hi Kenneth & Maurice
Thank you very much for both yr comments.
Will definitely keep that in mind.
Hi Kenneth,
Having just released a new ebook entitled Article Marketing Expert, this post touches on just one of the things that so many authors do not use to good effect in their article marketing. There are plenty of other SEO benefits that people don’t understand or use.
If any of your readers are interested in grabbing a copy of the new book, it is 52 pages and can be found at my blog and downloaded for free - not sure how you feel about links in your comments, so I’ve not included one.
@Carol, Kenneth states that three links is the most common for article resource boxes, not four. Four will often get your articles rejected or deleted. I always stress to authors that they really must read the guidelines of each directory they submit to to avoid wasting their time.
I would only add that it’s not just about numbers, it’s about extracting the maximum SEO benefit from the links that you do post, and that’s where a lot of authors miss out.
In view of subsequent comments, I hope that you won’t mind me posting a link for the free ebook “Article Marketing Expert” which can be found here:
http://www.thecaymanhost.com/amexpert/
Hopefully some readers will find it a useful guide. It comes with giveaway rights too.
This was a very useful information and I can relate to it as I’m in the same shoes as you were when you were a newbie. I’m a newbie right now. I started my website Amazing gypsy Bazaar last year. I built it and I had no idea what I was doing. (still don’t know what I do.) But it’s getting better, however I find myself front of the computer almost all day learning and the more I learn, the less I know. What I mean is, the more I know the more I realize how much I don’t know.
Anyways here are my websites if you would like to make a suggestion what to do: http://www.amazinggypsybazaar.com.au/
http://www.amazinggypsybazaar.com/
and finaly http://www.tarotbazaar.com/
Have fun.
Well said Kenneth, Article marketing works when done correctly. I take this opportunity to request readers to write original content in articles. Copying others’ articles is unethical & illegal. How to write original content ? Simple - read other people’s valuable articles daily! Make it a habit & you will get good traffic to your website.
Excellent post! It is always refreshing for me to find someone who shares real information for fellow internet marketers. I am a true believer in the powers of article marketing - the benefits from this free resource are so powerful… yet, article marketing is so under-utilized!
Thanks for the post… glad I found it!
Thanks, I think I will try it. I have been using Article Submitter. Has anyone had any success with that one that you know of?
Thanks.
Jill
Thanks for the tips! I am just beginning to use article marketing techniques, and I didn’t realize I could even put one link into the article. I will from now on! Thanks! Linda.
Nice post! The ideas and insights are very worth reading. You really gave me valuable information. Thanks for sharing it!
Hi Kenneth
I went to Article Alley and found your list of articles you have submitted there, http://www.articlealley.com/author_1_85236.html
I looked at about 8 or 10 of your articles but out of the ones I looked at I could only find 1 article with 3 links at the bottom of it, this one http://www.articlealley.com/article_154157_29.html
The other ones that I looked at didn’t have any links in them at all. And I couldn’t find the 4th link from your profile.
I have a bit to say so I should start submitting articles myself. But I had a bad experience with the first article that I submitted a couple of years ago. I submitted what I thought was a good article to either WikiHow or eHow, I think it was WikiHow. Anyways because other members there can edit your article my links were changed to someone else’s within a day and some of my article was edited. I changed it back but within the day it was changed again. Within the week my whole article was merged with another article so my original was not even recognizable.
So that was enough for me to pack in article submitting as a bad idea. Someone else must have thought my article was good also because about 9 months later I found my article on someones blog, word for word. So for that blog owner to get my article word for word he would have had to scoop it the very first day that I submitted it to WikiHow, because like I say within a day it wasn’t the original cause other members edited it. WikiHow was suggested to me by a mod at the Empower board. He seen the article before I submitted it so it’s possible that he was the owner of the blog. My advise is to stay away from both of them.
Maybe I should get Maurice’s e-book and try it again the right way. Maybe it will tell me which ones NOT to submit articles to?
Thanks
Mike
The articles you’ve seen is not submitted by me. I don’t use Kenneth Koh in my article submission. I have a pen name.
Your experience is just 1 bad experience. Don’t let that stop you. In marketing, never mind the micro things. Look for the macro view. Just like affiliate marketing, I have experience where people replace my affiliate id and steal my squeeze page. So what? Focus on the macro view.
All I can say is, if you have submitted say 50 articles, you will seriously appreciate what article marketing can do for you.
That is a great idea to submit articles for better PR!
I am also finding ways to improve my PR:
http://whichuniversitybest.blogspot.com
But sometimes I can search a website with no PR available but still in the first position of search result. Do u know why?
Thank you very much for both yr comments.
Thank you.
Hola
Great article here. I’ve just started with article marketing. This surely is a pretty handy tip to know. I got to know about the link limit when my article was not accepted by eZine for having too many links.
Thank you for sharing this article with us. Article marketing is a part of my business plan, but after reading your experience, I will most certainly be giving it a higher priority.
I was wondering if anyone knows.. how long does it take for google to index a new website? I published my website 3 days ago and still nothing.
I got the asnwear how long it takes for google to index a website called Tarot Bazaar. It took 3 days. I think that is fast. Take a look: http://www.tarotbazaar.com.au/
my website http://1to1surf.com has a Google rank of 1. I am trying every thing to get one way relevant links to my page but all in vain, My page has still a rank of 1. Can anyone suggest why ?
usefull story
i will keep that in mind!
lol Rob
Sorry about the spelling mistake.
The info is more important than spelling. 
Since landing on this blog I have been swamped with quality reading and have spent considerable time here soaking it all in.
Excellent blog Kenneth!
In particular, this post really got me thinking…
how-to-promote-your-membership-site-with-no-list-and-no-jv-partner/
Greg.
Hits-A-Million
Great Information
Lettings Match
i was looking for some information to increase my website page rank. Thanks
http://www.torzone.co.cc
Great post. I now see more clearly how article submission, done correctly can seriously impact my exposure, expcially with the search engines.
Thanks,
http://www.YourBusinessForce.com