Google's Next Challenge, Spam Results

krou writes "The Guardian's tech blog is running an interesting piece on Google's next big challenge, which is dealing with the spammers it helped create. 'Google is the 900-pound gorilla of search, with around 90% of the market (excluding China and Russia), and there's an entire industry which has grown up specifically around tickling the gorilla to make it happy and enrich the ticklers.' They quote Paul Kedrosky who notes that 'Google has become a snake that too readily consumes its own keyword tail. Identify some words that show up in profitable searches — from appliances, to mesothelioma suits, to kayak lessons — churn out content cheaply and regularly, and you're done. On the web, no-one knows you're a content-grinder.' Whether searching for reviews, products, businesses, or even conducting academic research, scraper sites are ranking higher than original content. The article speculates that Google may try fix the problem but, from Google's perspective, most of these type of sites use AdSense ads, and generate revenue for Google (89% of clicks come from the first page of results), so Google may not have an incentive to change things too much. Alternatively, people could stop using Google, 'because its search is damn well broken... The question is whether it would be visible enough — that is, whether enough people would do it — that it would show up on Google's radar and be made a priority.'"

Comments

Re:Mixed metaphor alert

[oodaloop]

You want them to fix the summary? I'm afraid that train has sailed.

Re:Playing the game changes the game

[Atzanteol]

Believe it or not it's easier to be a good ad company if you're also a good search company. One doesn't have to suffer to the benefit of the other. It's easier to sell a product if it's a good product.

Re:People change.... only for something better

[eddy]

People wont change while theres nothing better to change to...

I see some nerds switching to http://duckduckgo.com/