Google Gets Ready to fight "content farms"

[Geoffrey Freedom]

Just a heads up on new press release by Google. They are going after content farms, which I assume will affect anyone with auto blog style websites.

here's the link

[yukon]

Good, maybe they will shut down Ehow[.]com!

This announcement comes just as Demand Media gets set for an IPO. Demand owns eHow, LiveStrong.com, and several other properties that often get labeled as “content farms,” and is reportedly going to go public next week.

[Adie]

Originally Posted by yukon

Good, maybe they will shut down Ehow[.]com!

I noticed a lot of useless ehow contents recently...

[carljohn]

Great! Maybe associatedcontent, infobarrel, ezinearticles along with other thousands ofo article directories too!

[bouncingboy]

Bottom line - if your website (ehow and livestrong) doesn't check the qualifications of your writers (eg. MD degree, ASE certified tech, etc.), then it should be the same as all the other garbage sites like EZA. They should not be writing outside of their expertise as well. Of course, that means Demand's business model will fall apart since they have to pay qualified writers a lot more. $15 an article does not prevent garbage from showing up on ehow and livestrong.

[gtk29]

Content farms do not provide good articles, they just concentrate on SEO techniques to milk Google. So all good

[debra]

It sounds as if Google is referring to syndicators as content farms. And...the percerption of content farms are of "low quality" content. Correct me if I'm wrong.

So...what happens to Google News and Google Buzz and many of it's other properties that it owns? Google has it's own fair share of properties that should fall into those same guidelines.

And as far as quality content goes: One man's trash is another man's treasure. That's a personal perspective. What I would think is useless crap as far as content, that same content might serve as the Golden Goose for another.

I doubt that Google can actually capture controll of the worth or value of content. Google has to follow it's users in order to stay competively on top like they have. I think they will allow the users to make the determination of quality content for them...so I would be more concerned with how they track a users behavior.

With that said, I also think that Google will look even more towards social proof to make those determinations for the serps.

So people...hang on for the ride and get your "likes" on.

[yukon]

What's funny is ehow[.]com runs Adsense on their site.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by debra

It sounds as if Google is referring to syndicators as content farms. And...the percerption of content farms are of "low quality" content. Correct me if I'm wrong.

So...what happens to Google News and Google Buzz and many of it's other properties that it owns? Google has it's own fair share of properties that should fall into those same guidelines.

And as far as quality content goes: One man's trash is another man's treasure. That's a personal perspective. What I would think is useless crap as far as content, that same content might serve as the Golden Goose for another.

I doubt that Google can actually capture controll of the worth or value of content. Google has to follow it's users in order to stay competively on top like they have. I think they will allow the users to make the determination of quality content for them...so I would be more concerned with how they track a users behavior.

With that said, I also think that Google will look even more towards social proof to make those determinations for the serps.

So people...hang on for the ride and get your "likes" on.

Everything Google does involves scraping other sites content.

The rules only apply to everyone else (not Google).

[carljohn]

Originally Posted by debra

It sounds as if Google is referring to syndicators as content farms. And...the percerption of content farms are of "low quality" content. Correct me if I'm wrong.

So...what happens to Google News and Google Buzz and many of it's other properties that it owns? Google has it's own fair share of properties that should fall into those same guidelines.

And as far as quality content goes: One man's trash is another man's treasure. That's a personal perspective. What I would think is useless crap as far as content, that same content might serve as the Golden Goose for another.

I doubt that Google can actually capture controll of the worth or value of content. Google has to follow it's users in order to stay competively on top like they have. I think they will allow the users to make the determination of quality content for them...so I would be more concerned with how they track a users behavior.

With that said, I also think that Google will look even more towards social proof to make those determinations for the serps.

So people...hang on for the ride and get your "likes" on.

You're right. I heard Google is going to implement a new "likes" or "spam" button in its own chrome very soon

[WealthWithin]

85% of the content floating around web is either scraped, duplicate or without a credible source.

Does this mean that I can't write on my blog about a headache? (because I don't have a MD?) What if I write 15 blogposts about a headache - am I a content farm?

EZA and all other article sites publish low quality content, and they've been doing it for years (often worse than ehow articles). Demand Media was stupid enough to publish the numbers. What about HubPages or Squidoo? They're all so called 'content farms'.

Taking out ehow from search results doesn't make your site rank higher. The big guys will find alternative ways to officially 'game' the new system.

You say ehow doesn't provide useful content?
Take 25 random articles from eHow and 25 random articles from CNN. Which do you think will have more actionable and knowledgeable content?

I'm not affiliated with eHow in anyway. I'm just trying to say 'some' content farms are a problem. But definitely not the ones like eHow where the content is moderated.

Producing a product at a lower cost does not make it lower quality. Guess where all the iPhones and XBoxes are made, and who keeps most of the profit?

[Derek S]

Originally Posted by carljohn

You're right. I heard Google is going to implement a new "likes" or "spam" button in its own chrome very soon

LOL what a joke!

I'm putting it out there first...

$1 to every member nice enough to mark my competitors sites as "spam" once this chrome plug-in becomes available

[Corvinus]

Originally Posted by Adie

I noticed a lot of useless ehow contents recently...

We all know what the writers are up to with that kind of content. Ehow must be strict about it.

[AlphaWarrior]

What is a content farm?

I have a site where there are a lot of articles. Some by me, some by others. With articles written by others, I make sure that the are written by qualified authors and have valid info. A lot of the articles in article directories really have no value to the reader. Is my site considered a content farm?

[debra]

Originally Posted by Derek S

LOL what a joke!

I'm putting it out there first...

$1 to every member nice enough to mark my competitors sites as "spam" once this chrome plug-in becomes available

I'll be your first top affiliate!

Have Click, Will Travel

[OnlineMarketingSys]

Originally Posted by AlphaWarrior

What is a content farm?

I have a site where there are a lot of articles. Some by me, some by others. With articles written by others, I make sure that the are written by qualified authors and have valid info. A lot of the articles in article directories really have no value to the reader. Is my site considered a content farm?

Content farms are typically considered autoblogs, blog networks,ect. Basically sites with badly spun content, designed to either rank high or get backlink juice.

Sites like article directory's,especially ones that are humanly moderated are far from link farms. And just like the "journalistic" piece pointed out they are often "labeled" as content farms. That doesn't mean they ARE.

[GrowTallerNiche]

Originally Posted by bouncingboy

Bottom line - if your website (ehow and livestrong) doesn't check the qualifications of your writers (eg. MD degree, ASE certified tech, etc.), then it should be the same as all the other garbage sites like EZA. They should not be writing outside of their expertise as well. Of course, that means Demand's business model will fall apart since they have to pay qualified writers a lot more. $15 an article does not prevent garbage from showing up on ehow and livestrong.

You can be more knowledgeable than people with MD's and ASE certified tech. Think Good Will Hunting. Especially for something like bodybuilding that is fringe. If the internet won't allow for maven's where are they supposed to go?

[MattSanti]

eHow's evil new year's resolution for 2011: Bankrupt Google because of all the relavent adsense ads.

[bgmacaw]

I think what they're saying is that they'll be looking at sites that duplicate certain well known sites that permit their content to be copied under certain conditions. This would include Wikipedia (which they already check for to some degree), StackOverflow, EZA and other article directories and some other sites. These sites won't be penalized themselves but sites that duplicate their content in mass will be.

Also, they'll probably try to weed out things that are scrapes of Amazon reviews, Yahoo Answers, eBay product listings and such. They may work their way down to common PLR and database sites although this may prove more difficult for them to pull off beyond the low lying fruit stage.

[theseoguys]

Hopefully the next project will be to go after article spinning....

[vikramd]

Originally Posted by carljohn

You're right. I heard Google is going to implement a new "likes" or "spam" button in its own chrome very soon

And if that is the case - it will be so easy to game. Even someone without an ounce of programming skill can create a bot (with the right point and click tools) to simulate that behavior and rotate it through proxies.

Hang on tight boys and girls! It's time to figure out how to game the system all over again ;-)

-Vikram

[vikramd]

Originally Posted by GrowTallerNiche

You can be more knowledgeable than people with MD's and ASE certified tech. Think Good Will Hunting. Especially for something like bodybuilding that is fringe. If the internet won't allow for maven's where are they supposed to go?

Exactly - after having three kids and numerous trips to the doctor's office over the last few years I've lost all respect for the medical profession.

I know how to spot spam and worthless content and over the years I've come to trust the opinions and judgements of other parents on random Internet forums more than credentialed experts.

[carljohn]

I think Google ultimate goal is to encourage peoples to use its own products. Want better search results? Use Chrome, use Google, and sign into your Google account.

[faceblogger]

Good Luck Matt Cutts! You will fail again

[Geoffrey Freedom]

I can see Google putting together and algorithm that "un-spins" content. Nothing is stopping them from reverse engineering the top spinners on the web. If they suspect content is spun then it would trigger an "audit" of that website focusing on posting frequency, similar websites with the same ip, backlink structures, etc.
I think syndicated content will be fine as long as extra content ( review, commentary, social ratings, etc) that passes a LSI test and possibly a minimum (extra) word count.
Only time will tell, but Google is smart and they are trying to protect their bread and butter and I assume they will do whatever it takes to do so.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by MattSanti

eHow's evil new year's resolution for 2011: Bankrupt Google because of all the relavent adsense ads.

No joke, I'm jealous of those Adsense Ads directly below the content, I bet they have an awesome CTR!

hxxp://www.ehow.com/how_7830512_do-pump-1995-f350-engine.html

[Danial09]

i see all of EZA and other articles directories are full crap and squidoo and hubpage as well. I ever just publish my crap scrape content to them and are appproved instantly. LOl

[azmanar]

Hi,

What's going on in Google is because everyone is "Google This" and "Google That" for lots of things. Worshipping Google.

So Google is thinking that everyone needs it.

If that is the case, then Google can do just whatever it wants.

This includes the Google Slap, Google Ban, now Google Relevance and soon Google Spam.

Please remember, Google users were complaining that the Search Results are getting spammier and more irrelevant. True.

Everyone here knows that more people are writing for SEO rather than quality content. So users' complaints are somewhat true.

But...if Google is attacking whatever they defined as Content Farm, it seems to be an attack towards it's rising competitors.

For instance, if I want to search for something specific or niche, I no longer go to Google. Google is way too spammy. I did try searching Google's very own content farm called Knol, but I don't like it.

I do the search in EZA, Associated Content, Ehow, 5min, Howto, Answers, About and Bing. I bet there are a growing set of people like me, big enough numbers that worries Google.

Google is also worried about rising Advertising Channels, which are jeopardising Adwords and Adsense. Not only that. Google is also competing with CPA and CPS Networks - where more and more are becoming affiliates. Many dropped Adsense out from their web space. Many are advertising in 2nd Tier channels.

Not our fault. Google is charging very expensive, getting billions and billions but paying peanuts to affiliates.

So after competitors, the second group Google is attacking in its latest move is IMers, like us.

So what do we do about it?

[yukon]

Originally Posted by azmanar

This includes the Google Slap, Google Ban, now Google Relevance and soon Google Spam.

I doubt that will ever happen!

On the slim chance that it ever did, I'll hit the spam button on every single site between my site & the #1 position in Google SERP with proxies.

[JackPowers]

Google hasn't become much spammier. Who are the morons saying this? Maybe it's because Google got to big and too well known and now it's time for a slap, like how Microsoft was relentlessly attacked in previous years.

Yes, there are more affiliate sites showing up here and there, but that's probably more to do with the growth of affiliate marketing than with Google.

Your average indignated consumer is just waking up to the fact that they're being sold and marketed to online and they don't like it.