Content Farms Google

Much has been discussed recently about Google‘s new search engine ranking algorithm update that is related to google content farms. Facebook and twitter are filled with messages which relate to the blogs getting blacklisted because of the content farms on google.

Content farm google definition: In accordance with wikipedia…

In the context of the Internet, the phrase content farm describes a business that employs great numbers of professional freelance writers to create a lot of content that is specially produced to satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval by automated search engines. Their primary goal is to earn ad income via attracting reader impressions.
(This wiki document was updated many times mainly because Google’s announcement on algorithm update and its content neutrality has been disputed)

So, what exactly might be content farms
Based on that definition, one would think how such category of sites quickly fall under this tag in accordance with the content farm business type that they follow:

Article directories that have hundreds of thousands of content produced by hundreds of freelance authors and many from the content is plagiairzed.
Multi-blogger blogs that churns out 1 or additional search engine targeted content by employing guest bloggers or permanent writers. Mind you, there are always exceptions.
Auto-blogs and scraper websites that republish content of multiple source feeds
The following explanation is based on the multi-author and duplicate content aspects in the content farm definition. However, from what one could have witnessed on the blogosphere even that blogs which ‘aggregate’, ‘refurbish’, ‘replicate’, ‘polish and publish’ content that is already obtainable on the web for monetization function qualify to be referred to as content farms. Does that mean that 75% or even 90% in the blogs accessible are content farms? Perhaps, yes.

Good blogs whacked…
Just read on facebook that Amit Agarwal’s blog is tagged as content farms by Google. This really is his feeling according to the  site visitors drop in the recent days. Because it doesn’t occur under the category of multi-blogger blog or one thing that refurbish content (there may be some any kind of content), I would believe that generic changes have affected him as well. The difficulty with any algorithmic google update is that there cannot be a generic method that covers all varieties of sites and blogs – we have millions of them out there. So, I am tempted to consider that even very good websites can get affected by Google’s policy changes – technical or otherwise.

Why blame Google?
I don’t quite blame Google for whatever they’re doing. It is a publicly listed business that – on top of other services and products – includes a search engine which aggregates facts and serves whoever is asking for it. It’s up to them how they need to categorize or index that internet data according to the relevancy as they see it and offer it for the facts seekers. If you aren’t satisfied with their technique can you really blame them? As I have maintained several times before, if your organization type is as well a lot dependent on Google only you should be blamed to your same or live with what you get.

Other forms of content spam
I am not certain if I should call here kind of content seeds, sprouts or saplings that contribute to the content farm spam.

– An individual who wrote about 3 free of charge tips on something, a person improvised it with some delta (5 incredible tools to try and do the same thing) and may be another blogger doing 5 amazing tools + one bonus tool to complete the same crap

– Topics including ‘Make cash through affiliate marketing, AdSense, website flipping’ or items that you simply have read 100 times elsewhere

– Okay, you got a news from Mashable or Engadget. Now add 1 or two lines on what you look at it and add as your own new article because you’re not spammer but a qualified enrichment officer.

– New rocket scientist produced mobile phone features (republished from it’s genuine specifications site)

– Guest blog posts including ‘How to insert Google Analytics code on for your blog’ that defame the author who have posted excellent issues inside the past. Isn’t he marketing content spam and creating a content farm out of his established blog?

You can see many other examples when you look around. And it wouldn’t be surprising if Google will take on a whole money-making blogosphere as well as the spammers around.