I'm mad - Google in cahoots with Demand Media

[Rita012]

I'm mad.

So Google does this 'content farm' update, and is deindexing sites left and right, linking sites by adsense ID and whois information to take down people's entire portfolios. Many other so called 'content farms', which were in some cases very large high quality sites, got beat up:
( Number Crunchers: Who Lost In Google’s “Farmer” Algorithm Change? )


Yet, Demand Media ( who owns ehow), which is a content farm if there ever was one. IT's a total MFA site, which Google supposedly doesn't want. Demand Media has an IPO coming up which has actually had a valuation increase, which has gone from 1.4 billion to $2 billion. This valuation increase is after the farmer update. ( Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt Answers Critics, Tells Us What The Biggest Internet Since Google Felt Like (DMD) )

Then, we recently read about how Google execs and the CEO of demand media spend time together on a 40 million dollar yacht called 'The Adsense'. I'm sure they were probably in conversations exempting Demand Media from any negative algo updates. ( Google Inadvertently Classifies Google Places As A “Content Farm” And Removes From Search Index ).

That's wrong, and that's an antitrust violation if there every was one.

It's a 'who you know world', coming from an so called 'impartial' hub.

That pisses me off.

[inter123]

Most (not all) of the content on ehow is actually quiet good. Nothing on there is earth shattering but it does provide answers. It is definately better then Ezine Articles. I don't think the fact execs from Google spent time on Demand Media yacht called 'Adsense' has anything to do with it. I am sure even Ezine Articles entertain visitors from Google.

[Rita012]

Most (not all) of the content on ehow is actually quiet good. Nothing on there is earth shattering but it does provide answers.

There is a boat load of junk on ehow too.

[DanielleS]

OMG! You mean to tell me that Google has self serving profit driven interests? *gasp! Shock and horror.

What will we all do now that we have discovered our God is not a just God?

-Dani

[Headfirst]

Listen man, I'm not sure you really understand what a content farm is. Ehow isn't one of them. Content farms are wide and flat, ehow happens to have some depth to it. Just because they have a ton of content doesnt mean that its a content farm.

Ehow provides a lot of value to google users. I get it that you don't like your competitors, but I wouldnt go so far as to say they are in "cahoots"

[Evs]

So you don't find it incredible and even a little suspicious that a google senior exec spends two weeks as a guest on a affiliate marketers yacht? Nothing suspicious there then eh? Must have been chatting about golf handicaps eh? :-)

[celenco]

Lol, what can you do, if you don't like it then don't use GOOGLE, or create something better. This is the sort o stuff that inspires startups

[Derek S]

Just got back from Fort Lauderdale ( where mega yachts are parked in the backyard of every home) and over happy hour at this bar I met a man with a $25,000,000 yacht. After a few drinks we started talking about it and was pretty fascinating how they use them to write off business expenses.

First off a $25,000,000 yacht costs around $100,000.00 per month just to run and maintain. When CEO's spend two weeks on a yacht they can write it off as a business expense and that is a VERY significant write off out of the 100K they would typically spend that month. So I wouldn't assume that having the execs on board was purely to bribe or persuade them (I would bet they have yachts of their own anyway)...

And I really cant see them sharing any "insider" advice with Nikesh Arora that both him and us don't already know.

[Rita012]

I'm might just buy one of those yachts. Need to have write-offs for all the big money - you know...

[mikemac1]

First, the story about the Google exec on Rosenblatt's yacht was an April Fool's Joke: April Fools 2011: The Big List

TC is notorious for releasing an April Fool's story the day before.

Second, as for why eHow wan't "slapped" in the recent Panda update, check out this post by Jennifer: Farmer Update 2011 – My Theory on the Google Algorithm Change | PotPieGirls Blog (PotPieGirl.com)

[WealthWithin]

There are some factual inaccuracies in OP
- farmer update deindexing sites - wrong
- linking sites by adsense ID - wrong
- google exempts demand media from their algorithm changes - wrong
- demaind media is already a public company

Most tech blogs accuse demand media purely because of the volume of content they publish. When they publish 5000 articles a day, there could be few which can slip through the cracks.

I think the content on ehow is decent quality. They're much better than the complete junk you find on EZA and other article syndication sites.

Disclaimer: I'm a content publisher. But I don't have any relationship with demand media.

[Torreylee]

Originally Posted by Headfirst

Listen man, I'm not sure you really understand what a content farm is. Ehow isn't one of them. Content farms are wide and flat, ehow happens to have some depth to it. Just because they have a ton of content doesnt mean that its a content farm.

Ehow provides a lot of value to google users. I get it that you don't like your competitors, but I wouldnt go so far as to say they are in "cahoots"

Yeah I'd have to agree, EHOW is pretty well received in the eyes of the public, usually when you pull them up in a search you get decent info.

[inter123]

Slightly off topic, is it worth now buying shares in Demand Media?

[yukon]

Originally Posted by inter123

Slightly off topic, is it worth now buying shares in Demand Media?

Long term - that's an easy way to lose your money.

DMD (Demand Media) depends 100% on search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc...) to bring in new customers (traffic). This alone is setting up an investor for long term failure.

Investing in something like DMD is playing with Google fire!

If you want to invest in tech stocks go after something that can hold it's own like BIDU. They have a monopoly on the China Search market. Google can't touch them, they've tried more than once & failed each time.

[Derek S]

Originally Posted by yukon

Long term - that's an easy way to lose your money.

DMD (Demand Media) depends 100% on search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc...) to bring in new customers (traffic). This alone is setting up an investor for long term failure.

Investing in something like DMD is playing with Google fire!

If you want to invest in tech stocks go after something that can hold it's own like BIDU. They have a monopoly on the China Search market. Google can't touch them, they've tried more than once & failed each time.

I see BIDU stock as a higher risk because the market share they own in search is directly related to the current Chinese government. Do a search in some parts of china using google and Baidu's search results are the ones that appear because the Chinese government strictly sensors their search.

If one day this changes and google is given an even playing field in China, it will be a much different story and Baidu's stock is dependent only on those few with the strongest brand loyalty.

Who is to say in the near future or just even if eHow's rankings become obliterated by chance, they will not just use media buys to brand themselves as the "how to" search engine on their own... And drop adsense in favor of selling advertising directly on their site instead? Heck if they sold ad space privately using CPM they would likely make more money then using google and only getting paid for ad clicks.

When buying stock the best thing you can do instead of asking stangers on a public forum is ask yourself... What has this company done in the past 5 years and what are they possible of in the next 5. If you cant answer that dont buy stock in them.

[bigcat1967]

Here is the thing about ehow. writers are not allowed to put any backlinks to their sites. That is why they got missed on the latest rollout.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Rita012

So Google does this 'content farm' update, and is deindexing sites left and right, linking sites by adsense ID and whois information to take down people's entire portfolios.

Google delusions.

Paul

[yukon]

I've had my own money in BIDU since the stock was at $18.55 (current price = $138.83), Im Up 648.56 % which kicks a$$!

China will not back down from foreign competition anytime soon (years), they want to control everything which creates Chinese monopolies.

I do agree with you very much, never take advice & invest money without doing our own research.

With that being said...

Watch BIDU between "April 18th, 2011 & April 26th 2011", watch how that price jumps on the 25th (just like clockwork every quarterly report). Iv'e been doing my own research (always) on BIDU since the first Baidu/Google fight started.

I'm all in on the 18th,

Originally Posted by Derek S

I see BIDU stock as a higher risk because the market share they own in search is directly related to the current Chinese government. Do a search in some parts of china using google and Baidu's search results are the ones that appear because the Chinese government strictly sensors their search.

If one day this changes and google is given an even playing field in China, it will be a much different story and Baidu's stock is dependent only on those few with the strongest brand loyalty.

Who is to say in the near future or just even if eHow's rankings become obliterated by chance, they will not just use media buys to brand themselves as the "how to" search engine on their own... And drop adsense in favor of selling advertising directly on their site instead? Heck if they sold ad space privately using CPM they would likely make more money then using google and only getting paid for ad clicks.

When buying stock the best thing you can do instead of asking stangers on a public forum is ask yourself... What has this company done in the past 5 years and what are they possible of in the next 5. If you cant answer that dont buy stock in them.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by bigcat1967

Here is the thing about ehow. writers are not allowed to put any backlinks to their sites. That is why they got missed on the latest rollout.

Ehow isn't Ezine, two different business models that have nothing to do with each other.

1) Ezine is free in exchange for a backlink.

2) Ehow hires out the content.

[Derek S]

Originally Posted by yukon

I've had my own money in BIDU since the stock was at $18.55 (current price = $138.83), Im Up 648.56 % which kicks a$$!

China will not back down from foreign competition anytime soon (years), they want to control everything which creates Chinese monopolies.

I do agree with you very much, never take advice & invest money without doing our own research.

With that being said...

Watch BIDU between "April 18th, 2011 & April 26th 2011", watch how that price jumps on the 25th (just like clockwork every quarterly report). Iv'e been doing my own research (always) on BIDU since the first Baidu/Google fight started.

I'm all in on the 18th,

wow great buy! What program are you trading with, TD? Watch what happens to the price of silver over the next 12 months

[yukon]

You'll laugh when I tell you I trade with sharebuilder.

Hey it works & the fees are low $9.95 in/out.

What made me go with sharebuilder was I can invest by the exact dollar amount that I want, not the stock price.

Example:
BIDU is trading at $138.83 & I have $5,000 that I want to invest I can buy fractions of a stock $5,000 / $138.83 = 36.02 shares of BIDU stock. This is good for long term investing, & keeps it simple.

Another example: I can buy $50 (or whatever number you want) worth of BIDU even If the price of one share is $138.83, stock price doesn't matter compared to how much you want to invest.

So the only thing I care about when investing is the percentage that the stock goes up. I've done good so far, but it's like anything else when investing money, it's all a gamble, just depends how much risk your looking for.

Again, investing is all about the research you do before you actually put money into it. Just like IM, you would research a niche before you sink any money into the project.

Originally Posted by Derek S

wow great buy! What program are you trading with, TD? Watch what happens to the price of silver over the next 12 months

[rumormill]

It was an APRIL's FOOLs joke. He does not own a yacht.

[LilBlackDress]

Matt Cutts tweeted that this was an April Fools joke.

Matt Cutts (mattcutts) on Twitter

"In case it's not crystal clear, this TechCrunch article is an April Fool's joke: Google Inadvertently Classifies Google Places As A “Content Farm” And Removes From Search Index 2:38 PM Mar 31st via web"

[azmanar]

Hi,

Many "Content Farms" suffered a big drop in Google's keyword ranks and some drop in traffic.

Affected Content Farms would say, " We focus on bringing traffic directly ". I assume 35% of their US traffic comes from Google and 65% are a composite of many.

What they would probably do to close the 35% traffic gap are :
STEP 1. Promote their sites vigorously in many ways to bring direct traffic.
STEP 2. Stringent evaluation of submitted articles by independent authors.

Do you think STEP 2 is really important to Content Farms? Not at all. If they do this, this will raise quality of content BUT .... will take up lots of their resources with no guaranteed results.

FACT to support my hypothesis : Take a look at Buzzle and Suite101. They are the two most stringent Content Farms in the market. And BOTH are in the top 10 losers, a slight percentage lower than EZA.

If Content Farms decided to focus on driving traffic through promotions, then this will be an opportunity for Warriors. Media Buy Offers in our blogs and sites, and lower price media buys for IM'ers in Content Farms. There could be other ways that will benefit us.

And if they also decided to go for QUALITY CONTENT, we have no choice but to start churning quality content instead of just spinning and scraping.

Bottomline,
1. Never rely 100% on Google for our marketing directions and strategies
2. We cannot rely on Article Marketing 100 % in other people's sites
3. We can longer place spun PLRs or scraped content for our own sites.
4. We have to diversify marketing methods.