Google publicly announces another step towards ridding the ‘net of content farms:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=145070#
Tag: Google
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As more and more search engines enter the content creation world, will the boundaries of editorial integrity be crossed?
If Google starts acquiring blogs to sell ads on those blogs, wouldn’t they be more inclined to ensure those blogs spoke positively of Google and negatively of its competitors? Okay, perhaps not entirely conspicuously – but if you network of content creation is large enough, maybe it doesn’t matter. Google just wants to make money, and that requires articles people read (a.k.a ad inventory). Sometimes negative articles make you more transparent and create plenty of ad inventory.
Further analysis here: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=144500&nid=123530#
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AOL just convinced itself to pay $315 for the HuffPost, which produces limited original content, outside of the ranting deranged posts of its readers who comment on the articles HuffPost assembles and reposts from other sites and sources.
Content farms are a true travesty on the internet, hurting high quality content providers and the end user.
The New York Times just penned a great article on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/business/media/11search.html?hpw.
The bottom line though is it will be tough for Google to crack down on these abusers who provide low value content. They do a great job at capturing traffic, which ultimately brings in traffic that in turn clicks on Google ads… So Google is making a ton of money off of these farms and therefore, it it lowered the rankings of the sites, it could lose money. The hope is that this will not happen because the better sites will get clicked, and generate revenue for Google; and more people will have a better experience, leading to more clicks. Recent data suggests that Google is losing this battle versus Bing. Bing is getting more people to click on a result than Google. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google updates its algorithm to slowly lower the rankings of sites that produce mostly crap content.
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I’ve recently started running a number of large campaigns on Facebook with decent success. My biggest problem is that the data I receive via the Facebook interface differs vastly from my Google Analytics data. I tend to believe G/A data, like it is my bible, so I’m a bit annoyed. Facebook’s reply to my inquiry was the standard reply that GA only records visitors to your site that don’t have JavaScript blocked or cookies disabled, etc… I don’t buy this as the primary issue because the discrepancy in clicks is nearly 40%. And 40% of Facebook users are not blocking cookies and JavaScript.
There’s a big issue with click fraud on Facebook which is a little odd, because Facebook doesn’t have an AdSense network like Google (where click fraud is a big issue). But, from what I’ve researched on the web, it seems that some competitors in certain industries do employ methods for clicking on competitor ads to exhaust their budgets. Based upon Facebook’s immaturity in the advertising space, I’m curious to see if they are equipped to detect, prevent and handle these types of abuse. I would guess probably not… Even Google was a bit late to the game in this regard and still has it’s work cut out in my opinion.
So, I wasn’t too surprised to learn that Facebook’s #3 advertiser is a site called make-my-baby.com which requires you to install a browser plug-in before continuing. It’s a toolbar that is a Bing-affiliate… meaning that every time you do a search and click an ad, Bing and the affiliate (the website I just mentioned) make money. So, they just need to get you to their web site once and the money rolls in… clearly it is working based upon the amount of dough they are dropping. Read the full story here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_3rd_biggest_advertiser_is_a_bing_affilia.php
Clearly, the only person who gets hurt here is the consumer, who gets a poor search experience perhaps… but, advertisers suffer because their rates get inflated as profits are diluted. I don’t Facebook or Bing care, since both profit from the situation. One shady toolbar company rakes in the bucks too!
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Google’s share of the US domestic search market continues to grow based upon the latest numbers from Experian Hitwise as reported by MediaPost.com.
The combo of Yahoo+Bing follows in 2nd place by a very wide margin.
Google is at nearly 70% of US domestic queries. However, the query-to-click ratio continues to lag at Google compared to Yahoo+Bing by about 1600 basis points (81% versus 65%). This gap may be due to Google’s dominance in capturing search queries more so than inaccuracy in delivering results (in my opinion). Read the full article at MedaiPost: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=142972&nid=122671#
Dan Soschin 