HuffPuff-AOL didn't talk to Google?

HuffPuff-AOL didn't talk to Google?

The Googster is officially tweaking its algorithm to better screen out SEO-driven webpages. And, it went so far as to officially confirm that was the reason:

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites — sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other Web sites or sites that are just not very useful,” Amit Singhal, a Google fellow, and Matt Cutts, who leads Google’s spam-fighting team, wrote in a company blog. “At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites — sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

More proof as to the nature of the targets?

Google’s announcement did not mention content farms. But Mr. Cutts has spoken in recent weeks about the problem and said Google was working on algorithm changes to fix it. “In general, there are some content farms that I think it would be fair to call spam, in the sense that the quality is so low-quality that people complain,” he said in a recent interview.

The company said, in that post, this should affect about 12 percent of blog searches. It also said that while this was a U.S.-only change for now, it would get rolled out worldwide, but that was coming soon enough. It also noted that a personal website "blacklist" tool on its Chrome browser, though not used in the algorithm tweaking, said the tweak caught about 85 percent of the most-blocked sites.

It also said that while some content farm shinola might rank high early on, the tweak would cumulatively reward the best sites, and so its effects should become more visible in months ahead.

So, the takeaway for HuffPuff-AOL should be that just because CEO Ted Armstrong used to work at Google Ads, the company will NOT be able to game Google's algorithm. Nor, in light of post-holiday shopping revelations, will a J.C. Penney be able to do that through web parking in the future.

That said, will that actually be the takeaway? I doubt it.

To the investment world public, Armstrong will probably claim that AOL sites (even though eHow) was mentioned in the blog) aren't "content farms." Inside the AOL hive, he'll probably work on a mix of redoubled efforts to game or crack the algorithm, on the one hand, and overwhelm it, and us in general, on the other.

That, in turn, will mean that the poor HuffPuffers, individually, will see their individual posts hidden in an ever-bigger blizzard, thereby denting their vanity. As for the pay-per-piece Demand Media, I'm sure teh Google's tweak will hit you, too.

And, indeed it will. Wired has an excellent in-depth piece on what this likely will, and won't, mean. (It's more pessimistic than the NYT blog about how much or little effect it will have, referencing Google's idea that an algorithm should be "neutral." [Bullshit. If true, you wouldn't tweak it.])

Re Demand:

Demand Media is highly reliant on Google for traffic to its sites and in its filings with the SEC noted that a change in Google’s algorithms could materially affect the company’s prospects.

But on Friday, the company tried to downplay the significance of Google, saying the company was increasingly getting loyal users and traffic via Facebook and Twitter:

“It’s impossible to speculate how these or any changes made by Google impact any online business in the long term – but at this point in time, we haven’t seen a material net impact on our Content & Media business. [O]ur properties are developing into recognizable consumer brands that are delivering real value to an increasingly loyal community.”

And, re Google's "neutral" bullshitting, some day, I may just start using Blekko or something.

Demand Media — what happens with it now?

Yesterday, I wrote my latest blog post about the "serfs" at HuffPost becoming part of AOL and a likely even bigger pile of serfdom, and how that might affect other SEO serfs? What got me started?

I wondered whether Examiner serfs get irritated, apprehensive and anxious to see your parent company advertising all the time for YET MORE WRITERS on Monster and Career Builder.

I asked:

People who would like to use the Internet with less spam: Doesn't the oncoming SEO deluge worry you? What next — "Examiners" from India? The Philippines? Any place where English has reasonable standing as a second language?

Well, what about Demand Media? Is Demand going to be in better shape, since it pays on piecework rather than article hits?

I still can't see how payment is going to go anywhere but down.

The NYT has a good overview on SEO websites and writing for them here. Demand is mentioned in the same breath as some others.

Now, some recent Demand news to indicate why I think it won't be too likely to rise above the SEO crowd.

1. Demand gets spammed ... one of its writers somehow made $7K per month writing articles too shoddy for it, with made-up sources, etc. The person probably was busted only due to the egregiousness of the violations. Some Demand higher-up saw some financials and said, "WTF? There's no way this person could make that much money on our system."

2. A Demand writer exposes its lack of quality control.

Re eHow:

The high quality of topic relevance must be why we see: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten different articles on the scintillating and über-complicated topic of peeling a hard boiled egg?

That's why so much content is recycled.

3. Demand also supplied content to corporate blogs — wonder how much it charges for this and how much SEO spamming that generates. Is this increasing or decreasing? How worried should we be about this?

Besides SEO spamming, will the AOLs of the world also do more and more link mining? JC Penney did, and until busted by Google, appears to have profited nicely.

As for my claims that we're due for a tech bubble bursting, CNN has a story on how Demand Media was able to raise $151M in an IPO despite losing nearly $10M last year, $22M in 2009, and countless millions in the years before. It's crazy; these companies are overvalued and someday the piper will be paid.

As for me? Yes, I make a few bucks off the Google ads, and a few bucks off click-throughs. Not much, but it could be more if serf-spammers who write about crap, rather than people who write about ideas and issues, weren't so prevalent on the Net.

But, I started this blog before I was offered the chance for click-through money and before I looked at activating AdSense, which I don't think was even available to me then.

Selling out to Pepsi in the name of science

I'm a bit late to the controversy about top science mag and science online presence Seed essentially selling blogging space to PepsiCo. (Fortunately, that offer has been withdrawn.)

That said, it leads me to two observations.

One, given that Seed does appear to be hurting financially, is about ... a bete noire of mine ... online paywalls.

And, it led me to think of two quasi bete noires of new media punditry, Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky.

Both of them, for all their commentary on the future of media, have failed to fully address the financial issues from all sides, IMO. That's why, though paywalls aren't perfect, it's an issue I hammer and hammer. Google has driven online ad prices lower and lower. HuffPost and elsewhere has shown, more than once, the conflict-of-interest issues that can arise with "donor media" on the nonprofit side. So, that means other financial models have to be investigated. (And, in dismissing paywalls, Rosen/Shirky have only attacked monolithic paywalls or micropayments; to the best of my knowledge, neither has really discussed the "metered flexwall" that a place like The Economist has.)

The second is that, Examiner, Suite101, etc. are showing how to ruin this model even further with SEO-targeted "writing." Not only does it lower the quality of writing, it sends more writing chasing after Google-lowered ad dollars.