Topping the list with a PR 6 are EzineArticles.com, WebProNews.com, BPubs.com, ConstantContent.com and SelfGrowth.com in the Page Rank category. (Page Rank is Google's measure of the importance of a page.)

According to the Center for Digital Future, Los Angeles, CA in their 2008 study, the overall use of the Internet is steadily growing. Their findings say that the Internet is perceived by users to be a more important source of information for them – over all principal media including TV, radio, newspapers, and books. Additionally, they list among the top ten Internet activities; people are seeking information about everything from hobbies, online banking, medical information and travel information.

Within all this Internet growth and information seeking is a niche category called Article Marketing also experiencing high levels of growth. Simply put, Article Marketing is the process of writing and submitting 'free reprint articles' to popular article directory sites across the Internet. An article directory web site is considered a bank of free reprint articles - a place where writers submit their articles free.

In turn, web masters, web publishers and editors scour the popular article directory sites looking for free quality content to use in their newsletters, web sites and blogs. For the free use of a writer's article, the webmaster includes their author bio with active links to their web site. Each time a webmaster/publisher picks up a free article it becomes yet another link to the writer's site and a boost to their page ranking.

A study by Glenn Murray publicized as SEO Copywriter by the SiteProNews.com published that as a result of its (article marketing) new found mainstream popularity, the number of articles being written and submitted has increased by between 100% - 600% in the year 2005!

ArticleSpeedway.com creator, Earma Brown has carefully selected 5 criteria to distinguish the Top 100 Article Directories in her new ebook "Article Speedway: How to Put Your Articles in the Fast Lane to Success" and companion web site. The criteria are Top Page Rank, Quality Content, Site Originality, Simply Easy and Site Appeal.

Visit http://www.articlespeedway.com for Top 100 Article Directories List and her free mini-course "How to Put Your Article Marketing In the Fast Lane to Sales".

Brown is a popular expert in her field. Her articles have been featured on the Wiki-How's daily web site feature and considered a Platinum Expert Author among the top 12% of the 122,000 plus writers submitting to EzineArticles.com.