Google and page content: How recent Google search algorithm changes affect determining web site content

There has been a lot of talk in the media about how building web content has become big business. This talk has been fueled largely by the impending IPO of Demand Media, a mass content farm that churns out an unimaginable amount of web content every day. So, how does this affect you in determining web site content? Here’s why: because most of that talk has not been positive and the Google search algorithm has been changing as a result.

Determining if web site content is good or bad

The reason Demand Media is causing such a ruckus is because they are building web content that is poor – at least according to well paid journalists and writers. Demand Media’s business model is to pay very little for a “writer” (in many cases untrained stay-at-home moms and other people who are happy to make a part time living from home) to churn out a quick, uniquely written article that focuses on one long tail keyphrase.

This tactic works because no one targets long tail keyphrases with original content. This niche has traditionally been filled by what is known as slice and dice database web sites. These are web sites that take a database and “slice and dice” the data to build thousands, sometimes millions, of pages in a very quick period of time. Technically many ecommerce web sites fall into this category.

The news frenzy around Demand Media’s IPO has caused many reporters to look closely at the Google search results and their conclusion is that the search results are full of useless information. These reporters meant to tarnish the reputation of Demand Media (as it was their content they found to be useless), but the overall effect was that Google also took a look at what makes good and bad content.

How this affects duplicate content in Google

While Google does not yet have the technology for determining if web site content is good or bad, they can take a good, close look at different kinds of duplicate content in Google search results and whether this kind of content is helpful to their users. We all know that whole articles copied and duplicated is bad for SEO, but what about an ecommerce site that uses database content provided by a product manufacturer that hundreds of other sites use? What about a site that aggregates and displays excerpts from press releases, articles and blog posts? What about sites that provide addresses, phone numbers and other contact information that is available on many other sites?

In the past, this partial duplicate content did all right in Google. Page content that only used a little duplicate content could combine that data with text or important words and bring in a decent amount of traffic from long tail keyphrases.

This is changing. The past three major Google search algorithm tweaks have been aimed directly at sites that use these kinds of duplicate content. The latest tweak happened just last week and Matt Cutts has stated that the hunt for ways to weed out “poor” and non-unique content is not over.

What this means to you when building web content

These changes from Google indicate that the days of riding on content provided by other companies and sites is coming to an end. If you want good search traffic, you need good, unique content.

Writing unique content can be a daunting task, especially if you have an ecommerce site with thousands of products. But you do not have to face this task alone. We here at The Search Guru can help you with determining a web site content strategy that will work for your company, budget and resources. Whether it’s helping you write the content or training your staff to effectively write the content themselves, The Search Guru is happy to be your partner. Contact us today to find out how we can help your business write unique, SEO friendly content that will help skyrocket your search traffic.

Note: This latest algorithm change is related to blocking low quality content scraper sites and not content farms. The so-called “content farm algorithm” is yet to be released.

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