Now, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with this, I just believe that authors who are doing this are missing out on potential traffic and/or customers. Such resource boxes will only benefit their site rankings in any search engine that values incoming links.

Is this a bad thing? No. Where they are losing out is as follows.

Much of the traffic to my article directory comes from search engines, by people searching for information on a specific topic. Now, this user types in their keywords, clicks on the search box, and is given a list of related sites. They chose one, and are taken to the author's article. They read the article about, say, snowboarding, think "This is interesting" and go to the author's resource box at the end of the article to see what else they have to say on this subject. There, they find a link to a site advertising mobile ringtones. Is the reader going to be impressed, or interested in this? Not very likely. They want to find out about snowboarding, not personalize their phone. I believe one of three things will happen then:

The reader leaves the entire site in disgust.

The reader clicks on a link to a related article.

The reader clicks on a related Google AdSense (or similar contextual advertising) ad.

They don't click the author's resource link. That's a potential customer lost, quite probably for good.

Yes, put a link in to your site in the resource box, but most article directories allow several links, so for goodness sake put a link in that's related to the article subject as well, and preferably put it in first, before you lose the customer.

"But my site doesn't have anything to do with that subject on it!"

Then add something that does. Add an article directory, and have the resource box saying "To read more articles on this subject, click here". Add a web directory, and have the text say "To view links to sites on this subject, click here". Or simply go to ClickBank, look for related projects, and have a link to them, with the link saying something like "If you want to learn more on this subject, purchase this product". Preferably, not a direct link to the product, but a cloaked or redirected one.

By doing this, you still get that link to your site that you were after originally, but, additionally, you have the chance to make money from the reader in a new way. A win-win situation. Plus, you don't look like someone simply submitting purchased content on any subject merely for the sake of the backlink it will give you. A much more professional look. Isn't it worth taking the time to make better use of your resource box?