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

Re:There's a reason for that.

[Kelson]

Of course, there are easier ways to trick people into landing on your site. Apparently just taking out an ad for your site with the keywords "download firefox" is enough to confuse some people and get them to think you're the official Firefox download site.

This, I think, lends a bit more credence to Jakob Nielsen's anti-search diatribe earlier this year.

All that said, I agree with your point that in the long run, it's easier and more effective to write good content and do the necessary promotion than it is to try to cheat the system.

Hawthorne Effect

[Sad Loser]

The Heisenberg Effect is a good geeky example, but the correct/ relevant the social sciences equivalent is the Hawthorne Effect.

Google is dealing with this

[Animats]

In the article, the author wrote that he was hired to write copy to plug "colloidial silver". Google's first hit for "colloidial silver" is currently Quackwatch. "Colloidal Silver: Risk Without Benefit". "Long-term use of silver preparations can lead to argyria, a condition in which silver salts deposit in the skin, eyes, and internal organs, and the skin turns ashen-gray." They have pictures.

Google 1, search engine spammers 0.