What The Economist doesn't mention here, but should, is that content farms negatively impact both the experience of anyone who wants to buy something online and

What The Economist doesn't mention here, but should, is that content farms negatively impact both the experience of anyone who wants to buy something online and that of anyone who wants to sell online. Lots of small businesses succeed by creating "long-tail" content, and using it to get organic traffic. A ceramic mug company, for example, could have a blog that also told readers how to paint ceramic mugs. The Demand Media model is to outrank that content (of course), and then to monetize the ranking with contextual ads. So the article's content must be meaningful to search engines--but it can't be a complete answer to whatever the visitor was searching for. If it is, they'll bounce; if not, they'll keep clicking, ideally on an ad. Someone who controls the ad (and captures the profit from transactions) can have a more relevant and useful call to action. The article, for example, can end with "Ready to paint your ceramic mug? Order a mug painting kit now, and get 10% off!" Instead, the mug company will notice that their traffic is dropping since they can't rank for the same long-tail content. Instead, they'll start paying for traffic. And when they do, Demand Media gets the money for their next article.