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Google Tweaks Algorithm; EHow Traffic Plummets

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the small-mercies dept.

jfruhlinger writes "For some time there's been rumbling that Google's search results have been gummed up by low-quality pages from 'content farms,' written at low or no cost specifically to score high on common Google queries. Now it looks like the latest update to Google's search algorithm is having an effect, cutting into traffic to eHow (and cutting down the stock price of eHow's owner, Demand Media, in the process)."

7 of 286 comments (clear)

  1. and nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    of value was lost!

    1. Re:and nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      At first people paid attention to you because they're desperate geeks (who, despite their claims of being meritocratic, will instantly treat something with tits better). Then they realised you were transgender and they felt conned, their frustration and impotence manifesting itself in selection of (-1, Offtopic).

      Humans are a predictable sort.

  2. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler by vlm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to just block all robot traffic to expertsexchange, ehow, and the like? Or even more trivial, allow users individual profiles to block specific user selectable domains?

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  3. Well duh the stock fell by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If your company's business plan focuses exclusively (or even primarily) on gaming Google search results, then anyone dumb enough to invest in you *deserves* to be screwed.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  4. Re:Hit me badly too by blue_adept · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wiping out small independent publishers who "collate" mountains of information that they don't own the copyright for may well be what google intends to do. Let's be clear here. Are you an author? Do you create content? Or do you amalgamate other people's work, with or without their permission and/or using "fair use" provisions of copyright law? You don't really say, but I'm guessing from the tone of your post that you don't in fact create content. So, if your site is useful, provide the link, so we can have a better informed discussion about the merits of your site wrt the recent change in google's algorithm.

    --

    "Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
  5. Re:Already done. by vlm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Interesting.. I did not realize that feature was available, because it is not shown to me in my results. There is no "block" option next to the "cached" and "similar" as seen in the blog posts etc. I do see in my search options that I can manually block up to 500 domains from search results. Nothing weird here, just a normal google account and a normal firefox with no unusual addons/extensions.

    Maybe that option only appears for certain "special" domain names, or "special" searches?

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  6. Good EHow sucks anyway by JohnRoss1968 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You can get better advise from the crazy drunk down at the park.