The way affiliate article marketing works is essentially very simple.

You write articles that include a link to your website or blog; you submit your articles to online article directories; people read your articles and, if they are interested in learning more about the topic, they click through to your website or blog. Hopefully, there will be something on your website or blog to motivate your readers to buy the product you are promoting as an affiliate.

That is affiliate article marketing in a nutshell. There are some techniques to learn in order to get your articles noticed; for instance you will need to learn how to research and choose keywords to include in your articles so that the search engines will include your articles in relevant searches. However, the basic system is simply that you write and submit articles relating to your particular niche topic.

Article marketing is reasonably straightforward, and there is no shortage of help available for affiliates who want to learn article writing techniques in detail, but this is not enough for some people. There are marketers online who aren't satisfied with having a simple and legitimate way to promote their products online free of charge. Instead of putting their energy into writing, some marketers focus on finding shortcuts and ways to cheat.

Shortcuts and outright cheating exist in several forms. One form of cheating consists of stealing the work of genuine authors, changing the odd word here and there and then passing it off as your own original work. Another form is to use software to manufacture articles

The fact that many internet marketers are looking for shortcuts has opened up a market for ghost writers. This is a good thing for people who can write and want to make money online from writing; it also preserves the integrity of the article directories that have to fight an ongoing battle to keep substandard articles from getting published.

The fact that people are prepared to cheat at article marketing is not a good thing for anyone. The result is that anyone searching for information on the internet has to wade through tons of rubbish to find anything worthwhile.

Some article marketers who use cheating methods to promote their products might make some quick profit in the short term but it won't be long until the article directories tighten up their editing procedures and dump the rubbish where it belongs. Then all the time, energy, and expense that went into cheating will have been wasted.

My Grandmother used to say "cheats never prosper"; I think Granny was right.