Page ranks do not usually drop overnight. Google updates page ranks of websites regularly on specific periods of time.

Submitting to article directories and blog carnivals are much different from submitting the usual web directories that you are referring to.

Since your articles will be posted by blog owners to their blogs or websites from your submissions, they will spread out gradually giving you a natural link back to your websites which is healthy way to grow your links especially when your articles will be posted to related blogs.

If all the anchor text that links to your website is based on ONE keyword and they are ALL linked to your MAIN page, then it is unnatural and your website may be penalized for that.

With articles submissions you may include link to your website with a different anchor text and to different pages of your websites. With blog carnival submission, the carnival owner may link to your post with different anchor text.

Although, I have my reservations about automated submission softwares. Yes they are indeed instantaneous. My concerns lie in the hundreds, if not thousands, of instant backlinks to ones website or blog. I personally believe submitting automatically to hundreds of directories at once resulting in my blog’s page rank to plummet from 2/10 to 1/10 overnight. I take it this is the sort of thing you are warning about with ‘overuse’ above, isn’t it?

Thanks for the review on the blog carnival submitter software. Before reading this post/site, I was totally unaware of a blog carnival.

Sincerely,

Daniel Tetreault.
Webmaster/marketer.