4 ms·

> There are no longer "organic" content on the internet There is plenty of "organic" content, probably more than ever before. But there is also 100x more junk

by donio 5y ago

> There are no longer "organic" content on the internet There is plenty of "organic" content, probably more than ever before. But there is also 100x more junk and Google is no longer good at surfacing the right stuff. Even for something as seemingly obvious as github issues it will often prefer spammified versions of the same.

mrtksn 5y ago
Everything is measured and optimised by some simple metrics like profit, growth, reach or fame as far as I am aware. Can you give some examples of great, contemporary organic content that Google fails to surface?
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  Maybe not failing to surface, but definitely obscuring... Stack Overflow? The fact that Google is showing these blatant scam sites that mirror questions is absolutely mind boggling to me. You'd think Google would just manually derank them for being absolute garbage. At best they're horribly mangled versions of the real site, at worst they're portals for malware infested ads.
anonymous9023u 5y ago
> spammified versions of the same Seriously. What's up with these websites that are copies of Github/stackoverflow with a different UI? Cash grab for ad pennies?
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  I've wondered this too, sometimes I land on one without ads and its a very high turnover, it's almost like there's a college course out there with the final project: "scrape and clone stackoverflow, grades will be proportional to web traffic you capture"
- sparkling 5y ago
  > Cash grab for ad pennies? It costs almost nothing to run a crawler and host these mostly static clone pages. So yeah, if there is a $100 profit in this, someone will do it. Keep in mind there are still plenty of countries out there where the average wage is well bellow $1k. For many people, the "ad pennies" are worth it.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  I don't understand why Google's engineers haven't figured out a solution to these. Other search engines, like Bing, do a better job. It can't be that they don't see the problem themselves. I have trouble believing they're OK working on such a shoddy product or that they're told to leave it so shoddy (when they could probably work anywhere else). Maybe there is some technical challenge I'm missing.
Skylyz 5y ago
I'm pretty sure there is less organic content in proportion today than before, first because monetization wasn't in fashion, it was less common/accessible, but also because people who make organic content are fighting with SEO focused people who monopolize attention time / steal & rewrite organic content very efficiently. Less people viewing your organic content = less motivation to spend time on it. If only we could send all these money obsessed intermediaries & creators to an island somewhere, left to scalp & scam & plagiarize each other out.

by donio 5y ago

mrtksn 5y ago

Everything is measured and optimised by some simple metrics like profit, growth, reach or fame as far as I am aware. Can you give some examples of great, contemporary organic content that Google fails to surface?

BoorishBears 5y ago
Maybe not failing to surface, but definitely obscuring... Stack Overflow? The fact that Google is showing these blatant scam sites that mirror questions is absolutely mind boggling to me. You'd think Google would just manually derank them for being absolute garbage. At best they're horribly mangled versions of the real site, at worst they're portals for malware infested ads.

anonymous9023u 5y ago

> spammified versions of the same Seriously. What's up with these websites that are copies of Github/stackoverflow with a different UI? Cash grab for ad pennies?

jazzyjackson 5y ago
I've wondered this too, sometimes I land on one without ads and its a very high turnover, it's almost like there's a college course out there with the final project: "scrape and clone stackoverflow, grades will be proportional to web traffic you capture"
sparkling 5y ago
> Cash grab for ad pennies? It costs almost nothing to run a crawler and host these mostly static clone pages. So yeah, if there is a $100 profit in this, someone will do it. Keep in mind there are still plenty of countries out there where the average wage is well bellow $1k. For many people, the "ad pennies" are worth it.
notreallyserio 5y ago
I don't understand why Google's engineers haven't figured out a solution to these. Other search engines, like Bing, do a better job. It can't be that they don't see the problem themselves. I have trouble believing they're OK working on such a shoddy product or that they're told to leave it so shoddy (when they could probably work anywhere else). Maybe there is some technical challenge I'm missing.

Skylyz 5y ago

I'm pretty sure there is less organic content in proportion today than before, first because monetization wasn't in fashion, it was less common/accessible, but also because people who make organic content are fighting with SEO focused people who monopolize attention time / steal & rewrite organic content very efficiently. Less people viewing your organic content = less motivation to spend time on it. If only we could send all these money obsessed intermediaries & creators to an island somewhere, left to scalp & scam & plagiarize each other out.