Search Engines Breed Worthless 'Original Content'?

Carl Bialik writes to tell us the Wall Street Journal has an interesting look at how search engines and original content are affecting the quality of the web. From the article: "If there is a topic in the news, people will be searching on it. If you can get those searchers to land on a seemingly authoritative page you've set up, you can make money from their arrival. Via ads, for instance. Then, to get your site ranked high in search engines, it's best to have "original content" about whatever the subject of your site happens to be. The content needs to include all the keywords that people might search for. But it can't be just an outright copy of what's on some other site; you get penalized for that by search engines."

Comments

Frist pots

[Merdalors]

effecting the quality of the web

Yes, I'm effraid the web has been effected enough already.

Best sentence of the piece

[ArsenneLupin]

In fact, search engines are more like a TV camera crew let loose in the middle of a crowd of rowdy fans after a game. Seeing the camera, everyone acts boorishly and jostles to get in front. The act of observing something changes it.

Now, everybody get on to wikipedia, and vandalize the Schroedinger's_cat article as much as you can!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

A low down dirty shame

[nanojath]

Yes, this creation of worthless content for money is disgusting. People should be more like me - I blog, and create worthless content for free.