Link building basics part 2 - article directories

Following on from the first post on link building basics - directory submissions, today's post covers another important part of any link building strategy: article directories.

What is an article directory?

An article directory is a site that aggregates unique content submitted by web users. These articles cover a wide range of subjects and are usually listed under specific categories. Some directories allow anchor links or basic links within the copy, hence their importance for SEO.

Dealing with URL canonicalization issues

While not the most talked about SEO problem , URL canonicalization is certainly a very important one. Judging by the number of businesses not aware of it I thought a quick post could help clarify what it is and how to fix it.

What is a canonical page?

While I could try to explain what canonicalization is myself, I'll just quote Matt Cutts as he is the expert on all things SEO at Google:

 "A canonical page is the preferred version of a set of pages with highly similar content" 

In SEO terms, this means that a page or set of pages with similar content should only display under 1 URL.