Good content makes sense both gramatically and content-wise. It is written in a friendly yet professional manner that shows the reader that the writer knows what they are talking about. It should never contain information that is incorrect. Good content should be written logically starting at the beginning and progressing through the article in a way that educates and informs the reader. It should contain an introduction so that the reader knows what the article is about. And then the body should contain several paragraphs that go on from the introduction. The last paragraph or sentence should sum up all that has been said without repeating it.
Bad content is the opposite.
Example found on a website: " Be careful in your choice of boats, you don't want to autumn in love with the wrong boat." The writer obviously didn't know that the words fall and autumn are not always interchangeable. This is why so many people prefer native English writers.

This is a grey area that will get a lot of different opinions. For me the intentions and delivery of the content defines if its crap or not. For some a 1,200 word quality article might only take 30 minutes while it might take another 5 hours. I do not look at the 1,200 word article that took 30 minutes as less valuable because it took less time. Some people have a abundance of knowledge and can put out quality content faster then others. As long as it is a theral, informative, well written piece of content it is quality in my book.

For me it is pretty simple. Read through the content you're posting. Ask yourself did I just waste X minutes of my life reading this? If the answer is yes it's definitely crap content.

I got a mail from John Schwartz yesterday about his new Panda Pleaser product and have to say it's a pretty good shot at defining what Google wants. It's in the WSO forum.

In general 'good content' is useful to the visitor and provides some value while 'crap content' is useless text primarily aimed at getting ranked and diverting traffic to other offers.

Google can't really tell the difference between 'good' and 'crap'. They try to evaluate content as best they can by using other factors like social signals and user activities on the site.

If you are building an authority site and a relationship with your visitors, then you want very good content so they will return, interact and learn or have fun with you.

If you are building niche adsense sites, it is surprising what 'crap' will rank. Even after all the penguins and pandas.

Mahlon

If you're outsourcing your content at the standard $5-per-500-word-article for the main purpose of working up your SEO, then chances are that THAT is what Google defines as "crap content".

Good content engages the visitor and entices them to take action.

It's all about relevancy and unique content with a twist that provides value to the end user based upon what they are searching for. It's that simple.

Joey

If your grandmother asked you for a good article to read about [insert niche here] would you recommend your content? If not, it's not good content let alone great content.

Crap content can mean the following:

Spun content - automatically spun content that is barely readable and doesn't read well. Google has gotten a lot better at recognizing this type of content and you can't go too far with it.

Copied content - if your content is not unique and only copied from other websites, it's not going to benefit your site at all.

Keyword-stuffed content - if you include your target keywords too many times within the content, your site can get penalized for keyword stuffing - so be careful.

Good content is writing that has been written in a manner that meets the expectations and standards of your target audience and potential syndication publishers.

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Credit - MYOB


-Chris

For me good content is error free (correct grammar, spelling, sentence construction). A very informative and a content that your niche will surely benefit from. And a crap is something that isn't direct to the point, a content that you couldn't understand what the writer wants to say, and I tell you have bought a crap content online because it comes cheaper and faster, but the whole content is just crap.. Its always best to check out first before purchasing it online.

Qualities of good content :

1. will make a person comeback to read more.
2. will engage the reader, and makes him complete the article.
3. will be entertaining to the reader.

Anything that doesn't do all this is CR*P content.

If you're talking about what Google expects and rewards, they tell you what questions to consider as you're creating content. It's not really a mystery or a guessing game. There's a series of questions they tell us to keep in mind and try to answer with our content. The theme throughout them all is to be unique and engage your reader. Don't copy everyone else and be as specific as you can be.

In other words, you want your content to stand out from all the others and it needs to show Google that you didn't just whip it up in a hurry. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to an expert or spend hours on each piece of content you write (or pay to have written). But it does mean you need to go deeper than the usual crappy content that used to be enough to get ranked. Those days are mostly gone after Panda.

Pleasing Panda (Google) means taking the content game up a notch. You're gonna get left in the dust if you keep using the typical $5 article or spun stuff.

The biggest tip I can give is to pretend you're a visitor to your own site and you're hoping for something beyond a few hundred words of fluff that can be found on any number of other sites. If you can honestly say your own content would make that kind of visitor happy, you'll win in the long run.

John

Does anyone really and truly understand how Google works from one month to the next.

It is a good job that I personally do not have to rely Google for targeted traffic to my offers.

You could be guessing for a long time if you want to fully understand how Google works.

It probably depends on what niche you are in how much you do end up depending on ranking in
the search engines.

Simple really, just analyze your bounce rate. Add this:

Tracking Adjusted Bounce Rate In Google Analytics - Analytics Blog

I agree with Kurt. Content need not always be articles and there are a number of ways you can produce great content- podcasts, videos, infographics, pictures etc.

And in some niches, you probably don't expect the visitors to return to your site because there already got the answer for what they are looking for.

You can have the best content in the world, but there are some niches where people will not share the content with their friends and family because it may be something totally embarrassing to share.

Basically does the content offer value to your readers. Does it answer the questions that your readers have been having. Is it at least 500 words of high quality content. This is what quality content is all about

Copyscape / Grammarly, 2 effective means to check if your writing is really good or a Cr*p...

There are many providers out there on freelance communities who have learnt to do spintax & do not know the importance of unique content which is really important for establishing a website identity in long term...

That must be taken into care after a review of content we generally outsource to other's...

what i consider to be good quality content is if it answered the users question. If the user came to your site you want to give them quality that they can actually read and enjoy. Not something that has a kw stuffed 20 times in the article and has the user pressing the "back" button one paragraph in

A unique and relevant article with good value is what forms good content.

Bad content is the exact opposite of good content i.e. copied content that offers no value and which may not even be relevant to the niche that the website represents.

Ok, theres some great info here -

One comment mentioned about paying 1c/word = bad content.. how much generally translates to 'good' content, and does anyone have recommendations for writers that can produce 'good' content?

Good content either solves problems, answers questions or helps the prospect make a good choice by giving honest advice.

What Google defines as good/crap content, I have no idea. My definition of good content is something created with the intent to help. On the opposite end of the spectrum, crap content is something created just for the purpose of making money.

For some people, they associate good & crap content by the length of the article. Now while length is rarely important when it comes to determining good content... people naturally associate a 500+ word article (and above) as content be worthwhile. Just don't market spun articles.

Good content, in whatever format, satisfies the user. They got what they wanted to get out of the content.

This leaves the door open, though, because what satisfies me may not satisfy someone else. So what may be good content to me may be crap to someone else and vice versa.

So I'll make it more personal. Good content satisfies the users that I want to satisfy.

Because it's always changing, even Google doesn't really and truly understand how Google works from one month to the next.

Unless that reader is actually a viewer or listener. Is content that engages the reader/viewer/listener, but fails to bring about the action desired by the creator still good content?

It's actually up to the reader whether the content is good or bad. But one thing we all know that internet has so many lousy content. If you will look at it closely and cannot see the difference between the two then maybe this isn't for you but if you can see the difference between good and bad content then that's good for you.