Slashdot Mirror
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."
This kinda sounds like an excuse to be ignorant. "Sure I could learn proper grammar and spelling, and develop a large and useful vocabulary, but why bother? If I can convince enough people to keep fucking up the language, y'all'll just make a rule that the fuckup is the right way."
The evolution of language over time may be an interesting phenomenon for smarty men to study, but I would prefer that children were required to learn, respect, and apply the standards of clear communication in effect today.
Only people who have mastered the current ruleset should be given a free pass to break the rules.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.