Google Effectively Puts Demand Media On Notice Days Before Planned IPO
from the well,-look-at-that... dept
Over the last year or so, there was growing concern about how "content farms" like Demand Media and Associated Content were "clogging up" search engines and cluttering the web with junk content. However, as we noted last summer, this is really a filter problem, rather than a content problem as many were claiming, and we assumed that, sooner or later, Google would realize that people hate this type of content and it would adjust its algorithm to filter it out (or to make it a lot less prominent). It appears that time may be coming. Over the last few weeks there have been a bunch of articles complaining about the decreasing usefulness of Google, in large part due to those content farms.It looks like Google is finally waking up to this issue. Google spam-fighter-in-chief, Matt Cutts, has posted on the Official Google blog that the company has heard the complaints and realizes its algorithms need to be better at not recommending content farm crap that people don't like:
As "pure webspam" has decreased over time, attention has shifted instead to "content farms," which are sites with shallow or low-quality content. In 2010, we launched two major algorithmic changes focused on low-quality sites. Nonetheless, we hear the feedback from the web loud and clear: people are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content. We take pride in Google search and strive to make each and every search perfect. The fact is that we're not perfect, and combined with users' skyrocketing expectations of Google, these imperfections get magnified in perception. However, we can and should do better.The timing on this is especially interesting, given that the leading content farm, Demand Media, is looking to go public next week. The company's IPO is already considered to be pretty questionable, for a variety of reasons, including (but not limited to) the general sleaziness of how the company has been run -- including lying about profitability (and even suggesting others do it since no one gets caught), using highly questionable accounting tricks to make the company look more profitable than it really is, and the fact that insiders are dumping a huge amount of stock in the IPO. And, oh yeah, it relies really heavily on Google to make its money. So finding out that Google is likely to cut off at least some of that gravy train probably isn't what the company wanted to hear this week.
Hopefully this is a sign of things to come, however. While everyone has been complaining about content farms, it's time for the filters to step up and re-assert their own importance by diminishing the crappy content that no one wants to see.
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Filed Under: content farms, filters, search
Companies: demand media, google
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When have I ever said that? I said that Google should return the results that users find most helpful.
What you're asking them to do is to censor based on what a third party likes or doesn't like. That's different than improving the quality of search. I would have thought that was obvious.
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As for the "piracy" label, go fuck yourself, I'm not menacing anyone's life or job.
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Oh please. Just return my search query, get the fuck out of my face otherwise. Pretentious assnobs.
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Kool-aid?
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Crowdsource babe.
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While you are at it please kill.
Ehow
associatedcontent
ezinearticles
About - (3 or 4 times over)
Ask
And the zillions of keyword spam minisites
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not just Demand media
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All blog farms are content farms
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Considering, example, that TD is mostly short paragraphs and links to other places, is this a farm? There is little original content, just a lot of links off. Is this a content farm? By definition, it would appear to be true. So why would Google punish one site and not another? Perhaps because they like certain people and don't like others? That has "legal action" written all over it.
Hopefully Google will instead look at how these sites gain the relevance (in links from other places) and look for more obvious link farms, comment spammers, forum spammers, and the like and take action from the bottom up. If these sites are not useful, people will not link to them. That is perhaps the ultimate indication of what is and what is not relevant.
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Respectfully Disagree
First, I think the way it ranks sites like eHow are part of Google's strength, not its weakness. eHow, About, Answers.com (where I work) etc. usually show up on long tail queries where they're often the best page to match that search term.
Second, Matt's response essentially said: I hear the critics of content farms, and we'll do better, but realize that the critics are wrong on three key issues: these sites aren't spam, running Google Ads doesn't help you get ranked, and Google is getting better, not worse. IMO Matt understands that Google's ability to satisfy its users on long tail searches largely depends on the success of the large-scale content sites that are creating content to meet these users' needs.
For the most part, I don't think people hate this content. Competing webmasters hate this content for various good reasons. But generally speaking, it serves Google's users well.
My full take on this is here: Matt Cutts on search and spam
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Can't Wait . . .
You know it will happen.
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content
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