Google Takes on Content Farms: What Does it Mean for SEO?
There has been a lot of buzz this past week about Google’s “Farmer Update,” which was designed to take on content farms; spammy, low-quality content sites that have been crowding their search results. Google had this to say about their updated algorithm in a post on the official Google Blog on February 24th.
“Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible…This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. 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…”
The Google crackdown affected 11.8% of search queries.
While the “Farmer Update” did successfully knock a lot of splogs (spam blogs) out of the search results, several major content distribution sites took a major hit—EzineArticles.com , Business.com and Yahoo! Associated Content to name a few. Check out this graph from Sistrix to see how hard these and other sites were hit. EzineArticles CEO Chris Knight wrote a blog post about the consequences of EzineArticles getting labeled a content farm and what they intend to do about it:
“…we adamantly disagree with anyone who places the “Content Farm” label on EzineArticles.com… We’ll be evaluating ways to reduce the number of ads per page to improve the perceived user experience… Expect to see our current article rejection rate (40.6%) climb by another ~20%…”
The Google attack on content farms is a prime example of why sites need to take a diversified SEO approach. Sites that were relying on links solely from content marketing efforts suddenly found that a lot of links are now attached to sites that Google views as spam. Link credit (aka link juice) can have a substantial impact on a site’s trust factor. If a site’s inbound links are now associated with content farms, they lose part of their trust factor.
Content marketing got a lot of attention as a critical component of SEO. And once something is considered an important factor, that’s when the spammers and black hat SEO types swoop in and try to game the system. Since content marketing has taken a hit with the “Farmer Update”, websites should take some time away from content marketing and focus on other components of their link building plan. That is not to say that you should give up on producing a company blog or developing quality content. It just means that major content sites that were adversely affected by the update will have some sorting out to do before they can begin to publish new content. Hopefully the sites that were wrongly labeled as content farms will re-earn their spots in the search results.
Other sites were affected by the update because, while they may have had decent content, they may have had too many Adsense Ads or ads in general that are cluttering the page. The number of ads feeds into the overall user-experience, and a lot of ads comes across as spammy. Too many ads can kill the quality and usability of the content. However, Google hasn’t laid down a clear line of what constitutes “too many” ads. This has many site owners frustrated, as the feel like they’ve been unfairly penalized for trying to monetize their site.
Some are grateful for the update, glad to see Google finally taking on content farms that have been burying quality content in the search results. Others feel like Google went too far and attacked sites that typically produce quality content. What do you think about the new Google about and hot it impacts content farms?
35 Responses to “Google Takes on Content Farms: What Does it Mean for SEO?”
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The step taken by google recently to remove low quality sites from its search results is a good decision because of this users will now get more and more quality results. Thanks for providing the complete details.
All of our SEO packages include writing and distributing articles on sites like Ezine Articles. With the Google Farmers update I’m sure that the direct links will count less now. The real reason we write and distribute articles is so that our pieces get picked up and used by other sites besides the content farms.
Well it’s kind of funny being a blogger and all and recently hearing before the update that a family member was researching for flowers and numerous times ended up on eHow just to be unsatisfied and have to continue searching elsewhere for better results.
Now I realize this update effected large websites that contain thousands and even millions of articles but what about smaller websites, blogs, and content sites, how were they effected or will they be effected in the future?
It is very important that people use original content, presently people are copying articles from one site adding keyword links and posting on other sites. stealing articles is very common these days and sone one needed to take action for this theft.
It is very unfortunate that a site like EzineArticles has to suffer because of a change like this. My experience with them has been nothing but exceptional service, help and direction (including when they rejected an article of mine). On the other hand, the Google adjustment and crack down has forced EzineArticles to further examine their own internal procedures and acceptance policies for content and even further scrutinize the articles being submitted.
I am proud of their response. It would be way to easy to lash out at Google and claim foul. Instead, they chose to take the high road, look internally first and make adjustments.
What kind of world would we live in if everyone did that?
I run several sites and have noticed a big improvement in the SERPs starting in early Feb. I have the max ads on my sites, but my content is rather unique and niche’ specific. Two of my sites have over 5k pages a piece. Starting early Feb I saw my search traffic increase over 50% and the average price per click went up about 30%. I am glad to see those site that were total spam out of my way, particularly given that with big sites getting backlinks to the inner pages is not always piratical.
I like to see quality being rewarded.
This new standard set by Google can have both positive and negative effects on SEO and “content marketing”. I have to agree with Google’s perespective on “Farms” many sites just stuff copied content in an attempt to drive traffic solely for Ad revenue which is not good for the user. We’ll have to wait and see all the affects of the changes.
In the long run this will all get sorted out. It seems unfair they are making such a sweeping judgment.
One thing to keep in mind, there are other search engines such as Yahoo (who now owns Associated Content, one of the sites hit). Perhaps we all need to consider using other search engines in the future.
Google may be the search engine king, but even kings can be dethroned.
Really hard to see what will happen in the future…But needless to say, SEO is EVOLVING and becoming harder every day!
Yea for Google who tries to require all of us to be the very best that we can be in whatever internet venue we want to be in. I’m sure this effort will be a welcome, even if subtle, relief for the Internet Consumer.
Having just spent some time writng some articles on ezinearticles.com I am now worried that this might penalise me – or is it that the links from the article will not be as helpful to my site now? Any one know the answer please, would it be worth removing the links perhaps?
I think this is nice move as now are going to promote original people instead of the splogs.
As long as there are other ways to promote sites for those of use on low budgets it doesn’t matter. Otherwise the top 10 SERPS will always be taken by those with biggest budget, who can afford £100s for good link directories which Google do not consider on the same level as content farms.
The reality is SEO is hear to stay and if you don’t have big bucks you have to find free sources of links. And in reality to compete you will have to find more links than you could get organically.
I agree with Laura. Maybe if we started promoting the value other search engines as a group. Google would adjust their policies. I mean it is the SEO community that pushes interest in Google to our clients. If they take away the ability to improve your rankings, then what is the point. They are consistently hurting the little guy, and helping the rich who can afford to play. While they say they are making it more fair, they are actually doing the complete opposite.
In regards to your statement, “If a site’s inbound links are now associated with content farms, they lose part of their trust factor,” how can sites control for inbound links from content farms? I’ve found completely random websites with content from our website many times, and do not want to be penalized..
My concern lies in the recent proliferation of “auto-blogs” that grab content from sites like Articlebase just to have content. I’ve gotten a lot of trackbacks from these junk blogs and I’m sure just as many bloggers have stolen my articles from article sites like EzineArticles.com.
It sounds from the article above like my site is now going to be penalized because these lazy people are picking up and using my published content on their non-original content sites. That’s kind of like throwing the store owner in jail because someone shoplifted in his store, isn’t it? I think Google needs to realize that where our content is used is not within our control.
This news indicates seo specialists have to be more sharper and focused when building clients links. If you have been in the game for a while you will learn to adapt to whatever g throws at us. If you stop away from black hat techniques you will always do ok.
Unfortunately, while I agree this change can have positive results for searchers, Google doesn’t really address how this change will impact content aggregation sites. I still believe there is value in sites that pull together related content around a topic (like combining videos, articles, news and photos). As long as that content is not stolen, but pulled legally according to each source’s terms and conditions, then there is no foul play. And the service of putting it all together in a user friendly way is something that I as a consumer find very helpful. It is much better for me to see all the content I would have normally have had to find on 5 different sites on one site. Google doesn’t make it clear if these are included as “sites who copy content”. Anyone have any idea about this?
Hi Wayland,
Thanks for reading and your comment!
I am not sure either if these good quality content aggregator type websites will be impacted by this Google update. If you think about it, this could even apply to news websites who re-publish news from sources, like the AP, etc.
Hi Custom World,
Great question, I was actually speaking to some people at my company today about that very question! I think it is way too early to tell if links from some of the article websites out there (like Ezine) might be devalued from this Google content farm update. My thought is if you take a white hat, marketing type and diverse approach to your link building efforts then if these type of links are devalued a bit, it should not hurt your overall, long term SEO/link building efforts…
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
Nick
People who complain that Google only rewards sites with big budgets are just plain wrong. My site has a tiny budget but we work very hard at providing quality content on a consistent basis. As a result, for our primary keyword, we have been and still find ourselves among the top 5 in their SERP’s.
Good article. However cluster of Ads on a single page subject to AdSense policy. There’s is already a clear signal for that. Now identifying low or high quality content could be the possible factor.
Thanks
Oh thank god! I own an article directory and was always amazed at the amount articles submitted everyday! It usually took me about 2 hours to go through all the submissions (about 50% were just jibberish). Although I have noticed a drop in the SERPS for that site, I’m hoping that all the article spammers will move onto something else.
I have also noticed that some of my competition in the serps have dropped off – I guess they posted a lot in these type of directories. So haha to them for not having a decent back-linking campaign.
Personally I like any update that makes it harder for the blackhat “cheat and eventually lose” community. So far none of my clients have seen a drop, but thats because we did it properly!
Great move as there has been lots of copy & paste materials circulating,the works of lazy marketers trying to copy contents from well ranking sites,Bravo to Google
I started republishing content from friends’ blogs with introductions and backlinks to their blogs, thinking that this would add variety to my blog while giving my readers a chance to discover other blogs that I enjoy. I always did this with the permission of the person that wrote the piece. I was doing this once a week and got positive feedback because it was adding additional voices to my blog. Now I’m worried . . .
very informative post. thnx a lot
I think this is nice move as now are going to promote original people instead of the splogs.
[...] Stamoulis von der SEO Agentur Brick Marketing gibt seinen Kunden und Kollegen auf seinem Blog den guten Rat, in der nächsten Zeit das Content Marketing etwas zurückzudrehen, einmal die Entwicklungen [...]
Too many people are writing articles and spinning them to hundreds of times.. Useless content .. Ezine Articles should not be surprised that they have been hit by google
Well, believe it or not, Google only does things for their own advantage! “Do no evil” is questionable, and does not really speak to a higher moral plane.
I personally would like to see a switch so that I could eliminate from my searches any website that has “ads by google”. That is why google shows a picture with the “ads by google” in it, rather than just text, so we can’t eliminate the insidious revenue collection of affiliated websites. Content farms are “quasi-content” in any event, and their purge would improve the world at the expense of quiet spammers.
[...] engage in tactics that will allow our website to rank well in the search engine’s results pages. Google’s recent algorithm change that targets “content farms”, or content sites that are of low-quality, impacts nearly 12% of [...]
Am thinking…the main reason as to why you would submit your article to article sites is for you to get backlinks which in turn help your own site to move up in the SERPS!!! Nobody would love an ezine article to rank above your site for the article which you wrote yourself and gave to ezine.
This is what google is doing. It understands that the article written is meant to help you move up in the SERPS, meaning, your site should rank higher than the article sites!!!
Conclusion, DON’T STOP ARTICLE MARKETING!!!
[...] were affected from that update. To learn more about the original Panda update, check out this Search Engine Optimization Journal post from early [...]
I’ve been frustrated by looking for quality content and ending up with a page full of ads and no clear navigation… not to mention a HORRIBLE user experience. The black hatters always make quality content difficult to find so, in that sense, I’m glad Google is improving its algorithm. Some good sites are going to suffer, which sucks because they’re paying for other people trying to game the system.
[...] 1.0 (aka the Farmer Update) on February 24th Panda 2.0 on April 11th or so. (Panda impacts all English speaking countries) [...]
So exactly how is anyone able to startup a new website these days? It feels like Google is out-right branding news sites with a death stamp.