That is correct, Jake.  Most (but not all) carnivals require/request that you do not submit the same article to another carnival. 

Thanks. Will do :)

"Do not submit an article which has already appeared or will appear in any other Carnival."

I'm a bit new to carnivals, but I did not read this at all. So, should I only pick 5 or less carnivals and send different articles to each?

Jon,

 

Thanks for responding, I should add that if I do submit to a carnival, I don't link back for fear of link scheming or trading links, maybe I'm just paranoid.

 

 I'll try for some of the carnivals on the link you provided. Thanks for the info. 

This fear is unfounded. In fact, it would appear less natural to Google if you DIDN'T link back, because that's what most people do.

For an article to be accepted, it must meet these qualifications:

• The article should reflect your point of view or opinion.
• Positive stories are more enjoyable than negative stories or rants.
• Only one submission per weblog will be accepted.
• The entry should fall within the broad topic of personal finance.
• Do not submit an article which has already appeared or will appear in any other Carnival.
• The article should be recent, having been published within the last two weeks, but preferrably in the week leading up to the Carnival.
• As a participant it is your reponsibility to link back to the published Carnival as soon as possible.

Thanks for your thoughts. I didn't realize that a carnival would block you for not linking back as I've never read that as a requirement for submitting to any carnival.

But, I guess carnivals can't explicitly state that in the rules or it would be a 'linking scheme' in the eyes of Google. If they are blocking you though isn't that forcing people to link back...I see I may be over thinking or at least trying to predict the next Google update. 

Oddly enough, I'm hosting my first Yakezie Carnival this week, I guess that is what has got me thinking about this. 

Jon,

Thanks for responding, I should add that if I do submit to a carnival, I don't link back for fear of link scheming or trading links, maybe I'm just paranoid.

 I'll try for some of the carnivals on the link you provided. Thanks for the info. 

If that is the case, you should not submit to carnivals. The spirit of participating is to share everything as a community. Most carnivals will block you if you don't link back.

Thanks for responding, I should add that if I do submit to a carnival, I don't link back for fear of link scheming or trading links, maybe I'm just paranoid.

 I'll try for some of the carnivals on the link you provided. Thanks for the info. 

Jon,

Have you seen any positive traffic from this carnival site yet? I feel leery to contribute to same carnivals too much as Google might look unfavorably on next update. Any thoughts on this? 

I do get some traffic from some of the carnivals there, but nothing massive. There are also the SEO benefits to submitting to carnivals though.

I suspect, and this is only my thoughts on this, that you won't get penalised for submitting to the same carnivals, but the benefits will be reduced each time. I can't see any reason why Google would penalise your site for having several links on the same site. However I also cannot see Google giving the same weight to the 10th link as it would to a link on a new site (asssuming it had same page rank, authority etc.) That is why I try to get included on a wide variety of carnivals, rather than loads of links on just a handful.

A link is a vote of quality to a site, and it doesn't make sense to me that a site can have inlimited votes as to what is a quality site. I'm fairly sure it's better to have one link on 10 sites than it is to have 10 links on one site, assuming they are same quality of sites.

Have you seen any positive traffic from this carnival site yet? I feel leery to contribute to same carnivals too much as Google might look unfavorably on next update. Any thoughts on this? 

Hopefully they will fix it so that I'm allowed to submit to carnivals again. My submissions always got blocked, I'm guessing because of the first 10 letters of my domain name.

Lol, that made me laugh out loud! You could always contact the new owners and explain the situation to them. They seem a lot more responsive than the last owners.