Google Search Quality Declines
Google results really have declined. Even though I've produced so called "affiliate sites" that are jammed with content designed to sell something, I've recently noticed that some searches where I genuinely need information are greeted with adsense farms and unoriginal articles that were probably cranked out by a spinner.
Anyway, has anyone else noticed this? Do you feel responsible for the deluge of content that provides almost zero value to your readers? I never really saw the impact of internet "marketing" until now.
Anil Dash (dashes.com) just wrote a post about it (his stuff is great-way ahead of the curve with most of his opinions):
Anyway, has anyone else noticed this? Do you feel responsible for the deluge of content that provides almost zero value to your readers? I never really saw the impact of internet "marketing" until now.
Anil Dash (dashes.com) just wrote a post about it (his stuff is great-way ahead of the curve with most of his opinions):
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Noticing a pattern here? Paul Kedrosky, Dishwashers, and How Google Eats Its Own Tail: Google has become a snake that too readily consumes its own keyword tail. Identify some words that show up in profitable searches -- from appliances, to mesothelioma suits, to kayak lessons -- churn out content cheaply and regularly, and you're done. On the web, no-one knows you're a content-grinder.Alan Patrick, On the increasing uselessness of Google: The lead up to the Christmas and New Year holidays required researching a number of consumer goods to buy, which of course meant using Google to search for them and ratings reviews thereof. But this year it really hit home just how badly Google's systems have been spammed, as typically anything on Page 1 of the search results was some form of SEO spam - most typically a site that doesn't actually sell you anything, just points to other sites (often doing the same thing) while slipping you some Ads (no doubt sold as "relevant").And finally, Jeff Atwood, Trouble in the House of Google: Throughout my investigation I had nagging doubts that we were seeing serious cracks in the algorithmic search foundations of the house that Google built. But I was afraid to write an article about it for fear I'd be claimed an incompetent kook. I wasn't comfortable sharing that opinion widely, because we might be doing something obviously wrong. Which we tend to do frequently and often. Gravity can't be wrong. We're just clumsy ... right?From there, Jeff links to several more examples, including the ones I mentioned above. As Alan alludes to in his post, the threat here is that Google has become a monoculture, a threat I've written about many times. Now, is all this anecdotal evidence reliable? Perhaps not. What is worth noting now is that, half a decade after so many people began unquestioningly modifying their sites to serve Google's needs better, there may start to be enough critical mass for the pendulum to swing back to earlier days, when Google modified its workings to suit the web's existing behaviors. |
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