4 ms·
"real, meaningful value to users" only helps with part of the problem. The other part, depending on the whims of a big player for your traffic which is a big i
by larrys 13y ago
"real, meaningful value to users" only helps with part of the problem.
The other part, depending on the whims of a big player for your traffic which is a big issue even if there is value.
After all the chance of a site going down in rankings enough to impact profits is much greater than the chance that anyone is going to complain (as a group) to get that previous ranking restored. Or certainly the site operator can go in most cases and pound sand.
So let's say you are "perlanswers.com" (arbitrary for example name not even registered) and you currently rank near the top. Then all the sudden you don't rank near the top and you fall to #8 or #15 which greatly hurts traffic. You can't complain and even if you have a loyal customer base "meaningful value" they really aren't going to be able to do much either. Right?
Of course if you have a large group of people typing in perlanswers.com that's a different story. But how many times does that happen as opposed to the "other" way people tend to get answers?
- wpietri 13y agoIf you have something that's of real, meaningful value to users, I think big players are less of a problem. If I'm selling a better mousetrap and suddenly Walmart won't distribute it, there are a lot of other ways to sell mousetraps. If I have valuable content, search is one way I can get people to it, but it's far from the only way. The mistake Demand Media made was creating a lot of crappy content. They weren't delivering much user value; their real skill was search-driven eyeball arbitrage. When Google tuned their search engine to deliver more value to their users, Demand got squeezed out and had nothing to fall back on.
- benologist 13y agoThe mistake Demand Media made was not creating their shitty content under a veil of legitimacy - AOL calls their giant content farm "news" and their cheap writers "journalists".
- wpietri 13y agoI don't disagree about AOL, but I think Demand Media's mistake goes deeper. Most purveyors of shitty news know that they have to build an audience. Thus, we have long-lived tripe like the Daily Mail or the National Enquirer. Demand Media's plan was to force one via search engine ranking.
- larrys 13y ago"shitty news" is definitely different than shitty content (of the type that Demand produced). "shitty news" has entertainment value. People read shitty news because it's entertaining. If it's not accurate that is not the same problem as crappy instructions on how to fix a leaky roof (where the goal is to solve a problem not be entertained.)
- larrys 13y ago"and suddenly Walmart won't distribute it, there are a lot of other ways to sell mousetraps" You are forgetting though (in this Walmart example) that Walmart provides volume. And volume drives down your costs. A big customer may very well be a necessary evil that you can't avoid. Manufacturers are also known for selling the same (or slightly different or even inferior) product through multiple channels in order to drive down costs. (And example might be Sears private labeling washing machines manufacturered by Westinghouse). "Demand Media made was creating a lot of crappy content" Agree with that.