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What does Google consider SPAM and how does that factor into my page rank?

It really is impossible to say what Google considers spam, but they do factor in the number of times you use keywords in the article. If your article is over stuffed with keywords it is possible to trip their spam filter and be penalized by not ranking for the very keywords that you are trying to rank for. I would read this article to get a little better idea of exactly how to write an article that ranks well in the SERPS.

Can you provide a link to the article regarding SPAM? I want to get the most bang for the articles I place but I don't want them to backfire. I usually included 2 or 3 links in my articles.

I guess at some point i took down the article i was referring to but this one should help. http://netrat.com/index.php/2008050422/Article-writing. I will try to find the other article and put it back up.

I found it at peoplefuel.com http://peoplefuel.com/index.php/20080507101/writing/article-writing.html

Great article Alan. I struggle to title articles because I tend to want to be witty rather than descriptive. But I'm learning.

It's also tricky to use the title within the article body 3X. I don't think I've been able to do that yet. Usually I put the title in the first line and then the last paragraph. My target phrases begin HOW TO WRITE... which doesn't exactly flow in conversation. I'll start with an intro "so you want to know HOW TO WRITE..." and then conclude "now you know HOW TO WRITE..."

I honestly haven't done enough work in this area to comment on the results. I did commit to writing articles for 5 key phrases by the end of August. Once I get those up I'll share my results with the team. Just FYI my daily traffic is ~120 but none of it is from search term "HOW TO WRITE"

Success will be one relevant search result.