You see, this is why Google call your %&*&*% niche site "webspam", and I don't blame them

Sure, there is a lot of that. But even among those people, how many of those sites are REALLY THAT GOOD?

I mean, I will be the first to admit it, I used to produce those XFactor-style niche sites. John XFactor used to claim that "writing was his passion". Well, I never saw anything he wrote on a niche site of his, of course, but I sure as hell know most of the XFactor spam his method spawned was absolute crap. Articles that just go waffling round and round in circles and don't tell the visitor anything they really wanted to know. I GUARANTEE you MOST of the sites that have got slapped recently were of that ilk, while a minority, I agree, may have been legitimate sites that got bad SEO advice and are paying the price for that now...

I am no Google evangelist, I am sure they have got it wrong some of the time, but most IMers content is not HALF as stellar as they think it is.

Yeah, I do welcome the bar being raised - I think that's got to happen eventually, the barrier to entry has been way too low (not that a very large proportion of people ultimately succeed in IM/SEO, but a lot sure get into it).

Generally, despite mistakes along the way, it does seem that the Google algos are beginning to really learn to identify some of the signals that indicate quality content/sites and flush out the crap.

It will never be perfect of course, people will say, well there will always be ways to game Google, and that is probably true, but Google don't need to eliminate those altogether, they just need to raise the bar so that most people can't jump on board. I just worry, not that SEO will die (as is so often predicted on forums), but that it will become too expensive/time consuming to implement for all but big business - which is another way of saying that big brands will be favoured...

The algorithm is never perfect and some low quality stuff always get through but generally google are good at putting quality content first. Part of google's difficulty is they have to keep tweeking the algo to counter the various and often inventive spamming techniques that in some cases allow people to rank content that should not rank.

I agree it can seem like that, and there is still probably a lot of dodgy stuff ranking on page one, though the examples I gave probably haven't even been through a Panda update yet, and they have such low competition they rank by default. OR, they are still using some serious linking techniques that work, even despite the crappy content.

But I'll tell you, plenty of niches I was following got totally cleaned out of thin/microniche-type content. The fact is the majority of microniche sites were propped up with low-quality links, so that was an additional easy footprint to target.

For example, Google "online French course" - page one used to be dominated by crappy niche sites, little more than doorway pages, promoting the (very lucrative) Rocket French affiliate program. They are ALL wiped out, and page one is full of authority sites.

Put it this way, sure it's possible to still rank crap content, but Google are making it more and more a short-term strategy...

Well, the Google algorithm is constantly chugging away, but the Panda and Penguin updates are known to be special refreshes that apply a particular algorithm across the entire SERPS at a scheduled time, the reason probably being that they (currently) require way too much processing power to be able to run on an ongoing basis (someone feel free to correct me on that).

So yes, I believe that technically you could create a site in between Panda refreshes that could rank for a short time (a VERY short time) and then get slapped when the next one came along. Sure. Though why would you?

Depends what you mean - I have never been professionally employed as a writer but I am UK university educated, well-read, have DONE a great deal of writing in my time at academic and other levels and have a good idea what constitutes "good content", or at least what constitutes well-written English.

However, I do NOT, for example, consider myself a particularly good copywriter, for example when we are talking about sales/squeeze pages, as those are completely different animals!

Also, I still outsource a lot of content, just because I don't want to spend all my time writing, but I have found a handful of GOOD writers from whom I can extract the kind of content I want on my sites.

I don't have a writing background but what is needed here is not exquisite use of grammar but more content that at least meets the searchers needs and where possible exceeds expectations.

Content is any medium used to communicate desired information to a searcher for example: text, video, images etc etc.

I'm sure if people used most of the time they put into mind boggling link building schemes for content development they would do quite well.

Well actually no, I am not claiming good content means well written at all - sorry for the misunderstanding, I was just explaining my own background.

I believe the ultimate definition of "good content" as defined by Google is "the searcher found what they were looking for". That's it. And most of the recent changes are really just aimed at determining that.

Google's entire business model depends on people trusting their search engine - anyone who claims that they would sacrifice that JUST to favour big brands or JUST to increase Adwords revenue just doesn't understand that and is just repeating the same old conspiracy theory.

The day Google stops delivering what the searcher is looking for to any great extent is the day they get into serious trouble because their entire empire rests on search.

Yes, that coupon sites example is another good one. "Many people these days are looking for coupons. Coupons are a very good way to save money so it is not surprising that people want to find coupons..." bla bla bla zzzzzzblggghhhhh...

I am not sure I would go as far as to call them Internet marketers... Just opportunists - it's blackhat really, in fact even many blackhatters have some sort of code of conduct about not scamming people, which is all this is really...

It was interesting to look at the backlink structure of these sites. Seem to have a few social bookmarks along with a few other links. One link is from:

Travel tips

What blog network is this?