[jcorkern]

Well, it has not affected my ranking on hundreds of sites, So i would assume that it is false.

But there is also the purpose of doing several methods to build links, you shoud read a few more post that shows the many ways to build quality one way links. Although articles are a good resource, I also use 2.0, press releases and many other methods for getting quality links.

But articles are a main staple.

Here is one problem with articles. If you write on one subject, you will likely get published on the same places over and over. Just write a few articles that are mainstream, so that they get plastered all over the place and diversify your IBL IP addresses. So what you have 50 or even 200 non related links. The diversity of IP addresses will make a huge difference and also give you the oppurtunity to get some other high PR sites linking to you.

This is the basis of social bookmarking. You can do the same with articles just by changing the subject of articles.

There are several keyword phrases (and some competetive) that the articles on directories are still ranking. Do a search for "Chicago cash advance" and you will see ezinearticles.com in the top 10. Most of the time you will see the same in houston and many other cities. If they lost power, they would not be ranking.