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For context purposes: "I was referring to how Google should respond to content farms. Historically, Google has been willing to take manual action on webspam. W

For context purposes: "I was referring to how Google should respond to content farms. Historically, Google has been willing to take manual action on webspam. With the rest of search quality and ranking, Google tries to use algorithms as much as we can. So the distinction of whether something is spam vs. low-quality is an important one within Google." - Matt_Cutts Here's a good example, coming from eHow: http://www.ehow.com/how_5908881_tie-shoe-lace.html http://www.ehow.com/how_5908881_tie-shoe-lace.html http://www.ehow.com/how_5416121_tie-shoelace.html http://www.ehow.com/how_5416121_tie-shoelace.html http://www.ehow.com/how_2076874_tie-shoelaces.html http://www.ehow.com/how_2076874_tie-shoelaces.html I know you are probably asked to respond about specific spam cases constantly, so don't take this as me demanding an answer for this specific instance. However, eHow is clearly leveraging their domain authority here to scrounge up the traffic for each different long tail variation of the term "How to Tie Your Shoelaces". The reason they're targeting each of these phrases with a different page of content is because of the data Google gives them (and all of us) about who is searching for what and how many times per month, coupled with the fact that they have a mega powerful domain which, when a new page of content is added to it that uses an exact keyword in its title, that page will rank top 5 in Google almost every time. Therefore, the data that they're using to come up with these keywords to feed their gaggle of writers is the related keyphrases data provided by your keyword tool. Algorithmically, this should be easily detectable, as you guys have the list of related keyword data that they're using in the first place. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=How+to+Tie+your+shoe+lace http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&#3... http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=How+to+Tie+a+Shoelace http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&#3... http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=How+to+Tie+Shoelaces http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&#3... Why then, are they in the top 5 for each of these keywords? Are 3+ different guides on how to tie shoe laces really necessary? Shouldn't 1 page be ranking for all 3+ of these tight variations? Shouldn't dozens of related pages of content targeting minute keyword variations be something relatively easy to detect? Seeing multiple Adsense units on these obviously SEO-fueled pages I've linked to leads me to believe there's at least a little bit of truth to what you quoted me saying.

Matt_Cutts 16y ago
"Seeing multiple Adsense units on these obviously SEO-fueled pages I've linked to leads me to believe there's at least a little bit of truth to what you quoted me saying." Speaking as someone who has worked at Google for ~11 years at Google and worked on spam at Google for ~10 years, I can tell you that running AdSense doesn't get you any kind of special consideration in Google's rankings. You don't have to believe me, but it's true. :) By the way, I talked a bit about content farms and Google's take on them in November at a search conference. Here's a link that blogged about it a bit: http://blog.search-mojo.com/2010/11/10/live-from-pubcon-vegas-super-session-search-engines-and-webmasters/ http://blog.search-mojo.com/2010/11/10/live-from-pubcon-vega... . That person wrote up the discussion as "Question: What is Google doing to detect content farms? Matt: Google historically has tried to do most everything algorithmically. blekko does allow you to identify content farms, but blekko is more human based response. Google is having an active debate about this. If you can’t algorithmically identify a content farm, is it still ok to take action and remove a site?" The other relevant write-up was at http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/023229.html http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/023229.html and they transcribed the discussion as "5:22 Barry Schwartz: Q: Brian asked, what is google doing in terms of content farms? 5:22 Barry Schwartz: A: Matt fed this Q to Brian earlier ... hehhehe 5:24 Barry Schwartz: Tricky, Matt's team is in charge of web spam. If web spam doesn't last long in the index, what do they do? So a content farm is the bare min someone can do to get in to the index, but its borderline 5:24 Barry Schwartz: Some people in Google dont consider content farms as web spam 5:24 Barry Schwartz: They have been a little worried about people passing judgement on sites if it is a content farm a useful site. 5:24 Barry Schwartz: Think of Mahalo, Wikia, Blekko 5:24 Barry Schwartz: Those sites provide a curated experience 5:25 Barry Schwartz: It is a really interesting tension here, they don't want to bring Humans into the mix... They will let computers do it 5:25 Barry Schwartz: This is an active debate 5:25 Barry Schwartz: May Day, at least partially, was a first pass at this. 5:25 Barry Schwartz: If you can't algorithmically detect content farms, then do you take manual action? 5:25 Barry Schwartz: This is the problem they are thinking 5:26 Barry Schwartz: So if they do anything on this, they will update their guidelines 5:26 Barry Schwartz: This is an active debate in Google and we will see where we go 5:26 Barry Schwartz: Someone asked, Matt, what side are you on? 5:26 Brian Ussery (@beussery): Matt says users are angry with content farms 5:26 Barry Schwartz: Matt said, users are not happy with content farms so he wants them out of the index."

Matt_Cutts 16y ago

"Seeing multiple Adsense units on these obviously SEO-fueled pages I've linked to leads me to believe there's at least a little bit of truth to what you quoted me saying." Speaking as someone who has worked at Google for ~11 years at Google and worked on spam at Google for ~10 years, I can tell you that running AdSense doesn't get you any kind of special consideration in Google's rankings. You don't have to believe me, but it's true. :) By the way, I talked a bit about content farms and Google's take on them in November at a search conference. Here's a link that blogged about it a bit: http://blog.search-mojo.com/2010/11/10/live-from-pubcon-vegas-super-session-search-engines-and-webmasters/ http://blog.search-mojo.com/2010/11/10/live-from-pubcon-vega... . That person wrote up the discussion as "Question: What is Google doing to detect content farms? Matt: Google historically has tried to do most everything algorithmically. blekko does allow you to identify content farms, but blekko is more human based response. Google is having an active debate about this. If you can’t algorithmically identify a content farm, is it still ok to take action and remove a site?" The other relevant write-up was at http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/023229.html http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/023229.html and they transcribed the discussion as "5:22 Barry Schwartz: Q: Brian asked, what is google doing in terms of content farms? 5:22 Barry Schwartz: A: Matt fed this Q to Brian earlier ... hehhehe 5:24 Barry Schwartz: Tricky, Matt's team is in charge of web spam. If web spam doesn't last long in the index, what do they do? So a content farm is the bare min someone can do to get in to the index, but its borderline 5:24 Barry Schwartz: Some people in Google dont consider content farms as web spam 5:24 Barry Schwartz: They have been a little worried about people passing judgement on sites if it is a content farm a useful site. 5:24 Barry Schwartz: Think of Mahalo, Wikia, Blekko 5:24 Barry Schwartz: Those sites provide a curated experience 5:25 Barry Schwartz: It is a really interesting tension here, they don't want to bring Humans into the mix... They will let computers do it 5:25 Barry Schwartz: This is an active debate 5:25 Barry Schwartz: May Day, at least partially, was a first pass at this. 5:25 Barry Schwartz: If you can't algorithmically detect content farms, then do you take manual action? 5:25 Barry Schwartz: This is the problem they are thinking 5:26 Barry Schwartz: So if they do anything on this, they will update their guidelines 5:26 Barry Schwartz: This is an active debate in Google and we will see where we go 5:26 Barry Schwartz: Someone asked, Matt, what side are you on? 5:26 Brian Ussery (@beussery): Matt says users are angry with content farms 5:26 Barry Schwartz: Matt said, users are not happy with content farms so he wants them out of the index."