Articles and duplicate content...

[shabaz]

Just recently I started submitting my articles to article directories. I've
noticed a drop in my rankings which may or may not be due to these
submissions. My main concern is if search engines will consider what I'm
doing as duplicate content and penalize me. I am submitting articles to
directories of which can also be found on my website...is this wrong? Is
there a proper way to be doing this? I don't want to be penalized for
duplicate content so should I submit the articles to directories and remove
them off my site? ...or can I keep them on my site but make small changes to
the titles or text so that they aren't exactly the same? Does anyone know
the best way to be submitting articles in terms of avoiding problems with
search engines or am I concerning myself over nothing?? Any help is much
appreciated.

[ssjothun]

The best thing is to write original articles for this. Maybe you get less content to put on your site, but you get even more content linking to you, as I assume as we're talking about ezine articles where people can freely publish your articles on their websites.

[shabaz]

Well, all my artices are original content. Are you saying it's best to add to directories and leave the same articles off my site to avoid conflicts with SEO? Is there any way that the search engines will not penalize me for having them on my site and in directories such as ezine?? ...such as changing a few words in the titles, anchor text, etc.?? Thanks for the feedback.