But once search analytics firm Systrix collected some data on “farmer”, a different picture emerged: while some sites had been slammed, article marketing stalwart EzineArticles lost 90% of its traffic, and Yahoo!’s Associated Content lost even more, the big names were largely unscathed. Demand’s eHow actually rose slightly, although some of their other properties dropped.

I’ll admit it: my SEO strategies leaned a little too heavily on article marketing in the past. It was tempting, it was easy, and it was pure SEO.

The old trick was pretty simple: there were dozens of “article directories” online, which would pay somewhere between “A pittance” and “$0″ for 300 words or so of content, which could include a link. They took care of the hard part:  building a trusted site that could rank for the long-tail terms that showed up in the articles, and would pass link-juice along with traffic.

Google’s “Farmer” update didn’t end that process, but it definitely changed it. The first reactions assumed that Google was going after the big content farms — i.e. the biggest of all, Demand Media’s eHow.

But once search analytics firm Systrix collected some data on “farmer”, a different picture emerged: while some sites had been slammed, article marketing stalwart EzineArticles lost 90% of its traffic, and Yahoo!’s Associated Content lost even more, the big names were largely unscathed. Demand’s eHow actually rose slightly, although some of their other properties dropped.

“Farmer” means that doing article marketing the easy way is over. You can no longer treat low-level content production as a commodity, and crank up the dial in order to achieve rankings. Not only did many content farms lose rankings, but they responded by raising quality requirements and implementing no-followed links. Not only will you get a smaller audience, but you’ll have to invest more to get it.

Target the top content sites. eHow is still ranking well, and still delivers traffic. Youtube also benefited from the latest rankings change; it’s not hard to create a one-minute video around each of twenty different long-tail terms, which could easily rank on page one.

Reemphasize social media. Facebook was one of the top beneficiaries from this change. But more importantly, social media as a whole may benefit in a relative sense: you can’t get into the universal search results as easily, so getting into the stream and the newsfeed may be the next-best option. A few possibilities: Instead of five generic articles, write one compelling (and re-tweetable) piece of linkbait. On Facebook, don’t just “own” your business name. Try to own a mid-tail keyword, too. Find out which “sharing” icons your users click on; ditch the rest.

Start emailing. If you can’t own the SERP and you’re already at maximum capacity in the stream, you need to own the inbox. Read more at searchengineland.com