After a huge posting on Google blogs last week addressing the companies’ plans to introduce a new initiative towards eliminating spam, many people are cheering from the rooftops. It has always been a problem when it comes to searches. You type in a specific search topic and you get hundreds if not thousands of spam links in return from the Google giant. Content mills were mentioned in the posting directly, saying:
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.
This is taken by some to mean that content farms or mills are on the way out, while others see it as aiming the powerful Google gun at sites that are pure spam through and through. The real question is, what constitutes a content farm or mill?
Google defined what it is to them in the quote listed above, and some writers that work for sites such as Yahoo Contributor Network or Demand Studios say that they are speaking of someone else altogether. Other industry analysts disagree entirely, and say they are speaking specifically of Demand Studios and their ilk. The answer to this question remains to be seen as the year wears on, but one thing is for certain—people have spoken and the Google machine is responding.
Looking at Demand Studios, for example, it would be hard to consider them a pure spam company. While they do produce hoards of content for low prices, the content is held to a certain level of quality. It could be argued that this level of quality is substandard by some, but the truth is it is in high demand all over the web. People like what Demand Studios is selling. That is the bottom line in business.
Those that feel that Demand Studios and the likes are who Google is referring to, say that they are low quality, substandard copies of information that is widely found throughout the Internet. Basically they say that the information is copied from other sources, and then rewritten in a spammy way to draw “artificial hits” and web traffic. They feel as though these companies have driven the price of SEO content to such tiny levels that consumers are no longer willing to pay the big bucks as they used to.
When you look at these content farms that they are talking about, you can quickly and easily find plenty of examples of poorly written, substandard work. You can also, however, find plenty of articles that are very well done. To paint the companies like Demand Studios and the Yahoo Contributor Network with the same brush is shortsighted, but to ignore the less than scrupulous works that exist on these websites and others like them are equally dangerous.
Google has not yet made it clear whom they are specifically talking about and “targeting” with this new initiative, but over the course of the coming year that information should be clear. In the meantime, it will continue to be a hot debate among SEO experts and Internet writers of all kinds.