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What IS and what is NOT a content farm?

by Bondtana
10 replies
I run a blog, which has a rather large video section. It's basically youtube videos (related to my niche) embedded with a brief description...

Right now I have about 300 of these videos. Each with it's own page.

The video section definitely engages users. I have a lot of cool videos up and I get lots of compliments on the video section. People tell me they will get lost in it for a couple hours all the time.

BUT... in google's eyes, is this just a content farm?

I've been thinking about uploading another 300 videos, which I have been saving up the last year. But I'm wondering if it will be a waste of time, or worse a detriment to my website?

What do you think? :confused:
#content #farm
  • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
    Based on THIS definition, it doesn't appear like your site would be one:

    Content farm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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    • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
      duplicate / useless content = content farm
      useful / unique content = quality website in Google's eyes (regardless of size)
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  • Profile picture of the author FraserC
    I always remind people that Wikipedia is a content farm. It's a vast collection of articles targeted at keywords.

    So, whether or not a site is a content farm depends on the quality of the content. On one hand you've got the great sites like Wikipedia, and on the other hand, you've got low quality spun and outsourced content. You want your site to be more like Wikipedia, and less like garbage content.

    Does your site have a recognizable brand and aura of authority?
    Does it seem trustworthy?
    Do the writers have knowledge and experience in the niche?
    Is every article unique, or do you have overlapping content?

    This article from Google is a good guideline to what their looking for.
    Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: More guidance on building high-quality sites

    And there's an amazing leaked document from Google which provides instructions to their quality raters. I'm sure there's a link to the document around here somewhere.
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    • Profile picture of the author Bondtana
      Does your site have a recognizable brand and aura of authority?
      Does it seem trustworthy?
      Do the writers have knowledge and experience in the niche?
      Is every article unique, or do you have overlapping content?
      The main part of my blog is definitely trustworthy, the content is all unique & I am a professional in my niche. I'm just a little worried about the video section, I'm not really writing articles for each video. Just short (but original) descriptions.

      My concern is that the posts are just a 50-100 word description with an embedded youtube vid. I wouldnt really say it's unique, but thats not the point of the video section of my site. I find lots of cool/interesting videos that people wouldnt normally come across or even think to look for.
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      • Profile picture of the author supershoesclub
        Originally Posted by Bondtana View Post

        The main part of my blog is definitely trustworthy, the content is all unique & I am a professional in my niche. I'm just a little worried about the video section, I'm not really writing articles for each video. Just short (but original) descriptions.

        My concern is that the posts are just a 50-100 word description with an embedded youtube vid. I wouldnt really say it's unique, but thats not the point of the video section of my site. I find lots of cool/interesting videos that people wouldnt normally come across or even think to look for.
        I do think it is no problem with your site with the youtube video.I think you just want to let visitors to learn something easily and clearly.and you have writen some original description about the topic. so i think it should be considered fresh content in google's eys.There are so many webmasters to link to the youtube vidoes to get something well-known quickly. I think it is understanding and user friendly.
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  • Profile picture of the author thekaver
    if all the pages were alomost identical but with small changes to target keywords then that would be classed as a content farm!

    if the website is good quality and not pages and pages of duplicate content then its not a content farm!
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  • Profile picture of the author Targeted Traffic
    I think the very simple definition would be that a content farm provides no value to human visitors
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  • Profile picture of the author ashleysmith12
    hi
    this is not the content farm,blogging sites itself provide the gadget for the youtube videos, this gives the option to the users that they can see the good videos with other content.
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  • Profile picture of the author gizmo222
    The textual content around your videos (page title, site motto, description, comments, cats, tags aso..) is the content which is beeing measured of duplication. If that's a little unique, nothing will harm you.

    PS: Agreeing to FraserC - "...Wikipedia is a content farm..."
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  • Profile picture of the author Nino Rostomashvili
    When there is a huge number of textual content on the site, this is site is said to be a content farm. The content is generally duplicate from other sources or is spam. The content farm is created for SE and contains the affiliate links. The site can be a content farm, if it falls in one of these categories:
    • Article Directories – there are content created by thousands of different authors.There is great chance that many of these articles be duplicate content.
    • Answers Sites – The huge content is generated on such kind of sites every day.
    • Multi-blogger Blogs – The blogs that accept the guest posts.
    • AutoBlogs and Scraper Sites – the sites and blogs which are publishing different infos from other already existing sources. So these content is Duplicate.
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