So where do you get these articles? There are a number of sources:

Lists with specific topics:

http://www.egroups.com/group/aahome - Home and family articles http://www.egroups.com/group/aahealth - Health related articles http://www.egroups.com/group/aageneral - General articles http://www.egroups.com/group/aainet - Internet articles http://groups.yahoo.com/group/littlewebsitethatcould - Web articles

General article lists:

http://www.egroups.com/group/article_announce http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articles_archives http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArticlePublish http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Content http://groups.yahoo.com/group/publisher_network http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishInYours http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SubPortal http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The-Article-Depot

There are also some web sites which offer same services.

http://certificate.net/wwio/ http://ezinearticles.com/ http://web-source.net/articles/ http://www.connectionteam.com/ http://www.ideamarketers.com/ http://www.marketing-seek.com/ http://www.womans-net.com/

Simply visit these sites and follow directions to receive your articles.

I must say that I really like this form of exchange, as I believe it is much better than your standard link exchange. The author gets to provide something of value to other webmasters all over internet, and in return gets a link. To me, this type of sharing is what makes internet such a great place to be involved with.

I would like to thank two authors who wrote articles on this subject. By reading their works I discovered these lists and began my own contributions, which I hope are of benefit to others. Lynne Schlumpf, whose website http://www.littlewebsitethatcould.net/ is one of best around, and Sheryl Ellis, who is webmaster of http://get-me.to/TrueCrime, and has written a few very good and humorous articles on subject.

Which paths are your visitors following? - For example, your visitors enters your site on page A, then surfs to B, then D, then Z, then exits your site. This can help your determine where to place ads and how to restructure your content.

Where are your visitors coming from? - A very critical piece of information, especially if you are running ad campaigns or link exchanges. You can use this statistics to determine if your promotional methods are actually working. In addition, I've found it useful to determine if our site is featured in articles and recommendations.

Which browsers are they using? - A very useful statistics, which can guide you in which HTML tags you use and how you code your web pages. What are their screen resolutions? - If most of your visitors are running 800X600 and your site is 1024X768, then you've got a problem. This statistic can help you fix that.

How many unique visitors did you get? - Different than page views or hits, this statistic helps you determine if you are getting many people visiting your site. This is most useful in determining if an ad campaign is actually working.

What search terms got your visitors here? - Useful if you are optimizing your pages for search engine placement. I've found it very interesting to find out what search keywords are getting people to my site, and how these often bear no resemblance to my own concepts of how people search.

Using these and other statistics, you can optimize your web site. For example, you may find that people are often leaving your site after visiting page XYZ. You can then test that page, and you can determine why it is driving people away. Perhaps it loads slowly or has offensive banner ads? Once you know cause, you have a chance of correcting issue.

Using these statistics intelligently, and you can create a better experience for your visitors. If you are selling something on your web site, statistics will tell you areas that you can improve, and areas that you shouldn't touch because they are working well. Without statistics, you are running blind.