SiteSell Blog

Google Farmer's False-Negatives and eHow.com Let's Get Some Examples

Ken's Blog

A friend sent me an article that cracked me up. Someone was making fun of content farms.

So if you ever wanted to strike gold (or even if you didn't) - if you want to understand what a content farm is - read this post...

http://thecontentfarm.tumblr.com/post/3742445338/how-to-strike-gold

The author also makes an important (and equally hilarious) announcement - a brand new website dedicated to "the content farm"...

http://thecontentfarm.tumblr.com/post/3764246620/the-content-farm-launches-new-website-deserves-many

The new site's at...

http://www.thecontentfarm.net/

Hilarious stuff. It's all a parody, of course.

Content farms aren't really that bad, are they? Could they?

Are You Paying for Plagiarism or Quality Content?

Content & Article Writing

Be sure you are not buying plagiarism if you outsource content. You become legally responsible.

First, you should have a basic agreement in place that includes a point that all material submitted is original, does not violate anyone else's copyright and that they have the sole right to sell it to you, and that they are selling it exclusively to you.

This is a key clause. It makes them legally responsible to you.

Make Your Writing Feel Like a Welcoming Handshake

PREselling

The goal of good writing is to communicate... to build relationships with your audience.

All day long, in your "offline life," you do exactly that. You PREsell yourself. You build your personal "offline brand of one." This is the image that people have of you. Building a "brand of one" is just as easy to do online through your writing.

Relax. There is no mystery to good writing. No secret society. No smoke and mirrors...

Google, Master Manipulator of the Press

Ken's Blog

As I look back at the frenzy of activity after Google's Pap/Farmer/Panda release, the overall conclusion is that Google did some good with this algorithm, knocking many content duplicators and paraphrasers out of the Search Engine Results Pages ("SERPs").

That, of course, is good for quality sites of all sizes.

I've been a big fan of Google's for as long as I can remember. But there's a negative buzz lately. I believe it originates, partly from Google's DNA and partly from a conscious manipulation of the press. This post discusses the latter...

What bothers me about this release is how perfectly Google manipulated the agenda from the very beginning. And no one from the mass media really pressed them on it.

Start with Google's announcement of their algorithm.

The Google post can be summarized by these 2 following passages...

Google's Big Pap Attack, Part 2

Ken's Blog

This was not supposed to be Part 2. It was not supposed to exist at all, actually. But adding this is the only way I can help things make sense to those impacted by the other half of what Google is attempting to do... at the same time, it released its algorithm to fight content farms (except ehow.com -- it seems ehow.com is not a pap-churner, after all, despite the clear impression to the opposite of thousands of knowledge surfers and Blekko's inclusion of it on their blacklist -- but I digress).

Google launched Google Recipes at the same time as they launched their "content farm" algorithm to root out pap. If you have not followed the content farm story, start here...

http://blog.sitesell.com/sitesell/2011/02/googles-big-pap-attack-part-1.html

(Read the background posts that I link to in that post.)

If you have not followed the Google Recipes story, start here...

http://blog.sitesell.com/sitesell/2011/03/want-a-no-paying-data-entry-job-at-google-recipes.html

It's a fascinating story of exclusion of the "individual" followed by the coercion of same. Well worth the read.

Now, for those with recipe sites, put that fact aside for a moment...

Want a No-Paying Data Entry Job at Google Recipes?

Ken's Blog

To SBI! owners

Since I last posted on this in the SBI! Forums...

http://forums.sitesell.com/viewtopic.php?p=941917#941917

We've been noting who wants to volunteer to help us get a Google Recipe-Search module up and running ASAP. Please return to that thread and volunteer if you're interested, even if it's to supply brownies to the programmers. ;-)

Tomorrow, various members of content and UI and tech and I will meet. They have been planning the best course of action for SBIers.

This post is a high-level "bring-you-up-to-date." Aside from the material above, it is for both SBIers and non-SBIers with an interest in e-businesses based on recipes.

Background

Basically, Google cannot "know" if 75 is the number of degrees the milk should be at, or the number of mls of an ingredient, not with enough reliability to pull what it needs out of your Web page and then reformat it in some consistent manner (ex., an attractive SERP page).

Sooooo...

Google's Big Pap Attack, Part 1

Ken's Blog

Thirteen days ago, I posted How Google May Knock You Out This Year, And What To Do About It.

That was preceded by a 3-Part Series on "All That Pap".

Google is indeed off to the races to knock out content farms (BigCo or Little Guy, whoever has a business model that finds keywords that pay well with AdSense, and then creates regurgitated pap on those topics, plus-or-minus even-worse pap that links to the "money pap").

-----SIDEBAR-----
Think of pap as "nuanced spam."

The worst spammers simply copy the content of others with
little change. Another form of spam is the following...

There is software that creates sliced-n-diced content from
several pages related to any given keyword you choose. It
then submits those keyword-optimized pages (with links to
the "money pap page") to article sites and anywhere else
that does not check quality.

What's the difference?

Pap goes to greater lengths to create low-value content,
most often paraphrasing the work of others and/or making it
up "the best you know how." There is no original thought in
the content, nor is it based on any true expertise.

Let's summarize the pap business model like this...

Content Pap + Link Pap = Fool Google = Undeserved Income

Obviously, the pap must be made as cheaply as possible.

But when it comes to content, you get what you pay for.
And that is the fatal flaw in the content farm model.
-----SIDEBAR-----

Why Is Pap an Issue All of a Sudden?

For years, pap has had a free ride, intermingling with real, high-value content because engines can't actually read a page and say, "that lacked any useful, original material, and... gosh what boring writing!"

It started slowly with the highest-money keywords, keywords with the highest Commercial Intent, such as specific camera models. Clever marketers latched onto review sites as "easy money"...

Are You Missing the 8th "P" of Marketing?

Guest Blogs by SBIers

By Erwin Steneker from customerservicepoint.com

When I was a student of business economics, one of the first things I learned about marketing was the 4 P's of the marketing mix. Coined in 1953 by Neil Borden, the marketing mix talked about 4 instruments or ingredients (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) that a marketer could "mix 'n match."

While the 4 P's made a lot of sense to me, the concept still seemed incomplete, and not quite on the mark. Sure enough, at a later date, the marketing mix expanded to include 3 more P's... People, Process and Physical Evidence.

Many business owners I know focused on those 7 P's, building a marketing mix in ways that made sense to them. Some outcomes were wildly successful, while others were abysmal failures.

What happened to the latter group? Why did a particular marketing mix fly and not the next one? What essential ingredient was missing in the formula?

Beware of Article Spinning: Why Put Your Business At Risk?

Traffic Generation

Article spinning is an artificial way to obtain additional inbound links to your site. It does not reflect a "keep it real and add value" philosophy.

What Is Article Spinning?

Article spinning is basically creating several to dozens (some people create hundreds) of slightly different versions of one article. Those articles are then posted to several dozens (or hundreds) of article marketing sites, with the goal of receiving a link back to the author's site from each article, and the hope that the article will be published on several other sites... 

Nothing Happens By Accident

E-Business Tips

An e-business is all under your control, far more so than in the risky, offline business world. This reality can be summed up as follows...

Nothing happens by accident in the world of computers, the net, and customer response. There is always a reason for what happens, good or bad, and that reason is YOU.

Write this on a yellow stickie and post it near your computer monitor to keep this important e-business lesson front and center in your mind. You do not need Lady Luck or Sir Serendipity. Your online business success depends upon no one else, only you.

Make the needs of your target group your primary focus, the reason behind every action you take. Your desire to earn income always comes second.