5 ms·

Yep, this is Content Marketing. People use SEO tools to gauge how good a blog post is going to rank, and the current sweet spot seems to be around 1000 words, s

by ratww 6y ago

Yep, this is Content Marketing. People use SEO tools to gauge how good a blog post is going to rank, and the current sweet spot seems to be around 1000 words, so they end up filling it with fluff. Some of those are even machine generated. The answer to the "can cats eat X", of course, can't be at the beginning or at the end. The reason is that the user must stay a long time and read the text, otherwise Google punishes the website for having a more than acceptable "bounce rate". Putting the answer in the title (what has been dubbed "Anti-clickbait") also makes the site "less clickable" and will make it drop from the results. Trust me, I tried. This is why we can't have nice things.

dmart 6y ago
I don't believe for a second that Google's algorithms are unable to identify and remove content marketing blogspam from the results. It must be profitable somehow for the majority of search results to be utterly useless.
- samatman 6y ago
  The point of content marketing blogspam is to pester the reader with AdWords and the occasional affiliate link. Old-school useful content is rarely monetized, just someone sharing their passion for something. Occasional affiliate link, with the obligatory apologetic "hey web servers cost money, so I included some affiliate links here!" The uselessness is just a side effect of Google directing you toward paying customers.
  - ratww 6y ago
    You're thinking of Content Farms. I think the current villain is Content Marketing, which is to attract people to your website without paying for AdSense, via an inane blog post. Like the Michelin guide or Guinness book did before the internet. The reason Google keeps those results near the top is because it drives up the cost of AdSense, since multiple competitors are fighting for the first page of organic results with those tactics, and AdSense is a way to "cut the line". The result for users is that the first page of most result pages is littered with advertisement, either via real AdSense or with those inane marketing blog posts.
- lordgrenville 6y ago
  > I don't believe for a second that Google's algorithms are unable to identify and remove content marketing blogspam. Easy for me to believe. They have to use some formula, and as soon as they change it, well, there's a massive industry dedicated to getting around it. If their algorithm is just "filter out what's useless", that's AGI.
  - Retric 6y ago
    Then what’s the point of using Google? In terms of AGI, we have that if Google where to say employ people to look at say the top million searches and heavily penalize junk they could make real headway. Personally, I swapped to DuckDuckGo in 2019 and have been consistently happier but Bing or whatnot is probably equally valid at this point.
    - tfehring 6y ago
      I use DuckDuckGo by default but I probably add !g to redirect to Google 2/3 of the time. DDG seems to be a little bit worse about rewarding user-hostile SEO spam [0], but honestly the main reason is that with Google I can use [1] to block those domains. DDG is also still noticeably worse for vague or complex queries IME. [0] When I search "postgres array_agg" on DDG - something I actually had to search for today - the Postgres documentation is the 6th hit (not even visible without scrolling down!), preceded by crap like https://archive.is/7JeSe https://archive.is/7JeSe. On Google it's the 2nd hit, also preceded by what seems like SEO spam. [1] https://github.com/wildskyf/personal-blocklist https://github.com/wildskyf/personal-blocklist
      - abryzak 6y ago
        I sometimes find myself going to Google for some complex queries or obscure error messages as well, but I'll usually try an alternative query first. In this case, DDG happens to have a bang shortcut for postgres which takes you directly to the search results on the PostgreSQL site if you query !postgres array_agg. There's a surprisingly large number of these which end up making it more useful than the generic web search results page overall.
- datavirtue 6y ago
  The sites are all packed with google ad spam. Why would they not promote them. Google benefits when people click fake download buttons too.
- bostonsre 6y ago
  If you need to click more links to find useful content, then google probably does benefit.
- mook 6y ago
  The other answers are probably the actual reason, but it's amusing to me to think that it's because giving you incorrect results drives up engagement on the search because you keep going back… it's also obviously the wedding metric to use in this case, but that has never stopped people before.
nonameiguess 6y ago
I use DuckDuckGo and haven't used Google in years, but searching "can cats eat asparagus" shows three answers above the fold just in the snippets without even needing to go to the page. Yes, they can, apparently, and it's perfectly safe. No ads in the results, either.
- sdefresne 6y ago
  I get the same thing using Google search. Three results with the answer in the snippet.
- ratww 6y ago
  The reason for that is that no professional Content company has made content for "can cats eat asparagus" yet. If this ever pops up on SEMRush or SEOMoz people will start making pages for it, and the results that don't get clicked will be driven to the second or third page.
dopidopHN 6y ago
I have a continued interest in the gopher on steroid that is the gemini protocol. It makes it hard or impossible to have non-static content, and css do not exists. navigation is a bliss, only or obedient bots are talking. try it here : ssh kiosk@gemini.circumlunar.space

by ratww 6y ago

dmart 6y ago

I don't believe for a second that Google's algorithms are unable to identify and remove content marketing blogspam from the results. It must be profitable somehow for the majority of search results to be utterly useless.

samatman 6y ago
The point of content marketing blogspam is to pester the reader with AdWords and the occasional affiliate link. Old-school useful content is rarely monetized, just someone sharing their passion for something. Occasional affiliate link, with the obligatory apologetic "hey web servers cost money, so I included some affiliate links here!" The uselessness is just a side effect of Google directing you toward paying customers.
- ratww 6y ago
  You're thinking of Content Farms. I think the current villain is Content Marketing, which is to attract people to your website without paying for AdSense, via an inane blog post. Like the Michelin guide or Guinness book did before the internet. The reason Google keeps those results near the top is because it drives up the cost of AdSense, since multiple competitors are fighting for the first page of organic results with those tactics, and AdSense is a way to "cut the line". The result for users is that the first page of most result pages is littered with advertisement, either via real AdSense or with those inane marketing blog posts.
lordgrenville 6y ago
> I don't believe for a second that Google's algorithms are unable to identify and remove content marketing blogspam. Easy for me to believe. They have to use some formula, and as soon as they change it, well, there's a massive industry dedicated to getting around it. If their algorithm is just "filter out what's useless", that's AGI.
- Retric 6y ago
  Then what’s the point of using Google? In terms of AGI, we have that if Google where to say employ people to look at say the top million searches and heavily penalize junk they could make real headway. Personally, I swapped to DuckDuckGo in 2019 and have been consistently happier but Bing or whatnot is probably equally valid at this point.
  - tfehring 6y ago
    I use DuckDuckGo by default but I probably add !g to redirect to Google 2/3 of the time. DDG seems to be a little bit worse about rewarding user-hostile SEO spam [0], but honestly the main reason is that with Google I can use [1] to block those domains. DDG is also still noticeably worse for vague or complex queries IME. [0] When I search "postgres array_agg" on DDG - something I actually had to search for today - the Postgres documentation is the 6th hit (not even visible without scrolling down!), preceded by crap like https://archive.is/7JeSe https://archive.is/7JeSe. On Google it's the 2nd hit, also preceded by what seems like SEO spam. [1] https://github.com/wildskyf/personal-blocklist https://github.com/wildskyf/personal-blocklist
    - abryzak 6y ago
      I sometimes find myself going to Google for some complex queries or obscure error messages as well, but I'll usually try an alternative query first. In this case, DDG happens to have a bang shortcut for postgres which takes you directly to the search results on the PostgreSQL site if you query !postgres array_agg. There's a surprisingly large number of these which end up making it more useful than the generic web search results page overall.
datavirtue 6y ago
The sites are all packed with google ad spam. Why would they not promote them. Google benefits when people click fake download buttons too.
bostonsre 6y ago
If you need to click more links to find useful content, then google probably does benefit.
mook 6y ago
The other answers are probably the actual reason, but it's amusing to me to think that it's because giving you incorrect results drives up engagement on the search because you keep going back… it's also obviously the wedding metric to use in this case, but that has never stopped people before.

nonameiguess 6y ago

I use DuckDuckGo and haven't used Google in years, but searching "can cats eat asparagus" shows three answers above the fold just in the snippets without even needing to go to the page. Yes, they can, apparently, and it's perfectly safe. No ads in the results, either.

sdefresne 6y ago
I get the same thing using Google search. Three results with the answer in the snippet.
ratww 6y ago
The reason for that is that no professional Content company has made content for "can cats eat asparagus" yet. If this ever pops up on SEMRush or SEOMoz people will start making pages for it, and the results that don't get clicked will be driven to the second or third page.

dopidopHN 6y ago

I have a continued interest in the gopher on steroid that is the gemini protocol. It makes it hard or impossible to have non-static content, and css do not exists. navigation is a bliss, only or obedient bots are talking. try it here : ssh kiosk@gemini.circumlunar.space