Mashable: Google declares war on content farms

To be fair, pretty sure that's almost everyone's business model right now. At least anyone with decent SEO direction.

 

There's a difference between writing headlines that front-load with key search terms and writing crappy stories based on what's trending.

 

The beginning of this will seem obvious, but I'm going somewhere with it. Stay with me.

With the state of the industry today, we all spend a lot of time complaining about "giving the product away or free". As of now, driving hits and subsequent advertising to our web sites seems like the next, big source of revenue.

Our staff has complained about content farms as well, but we're a bottom-line business. We have to give people what they want. Nobody reads stories about city council meetings. That's just a reality. What our readers want -- and this is just in our case -- is whatever is hot today. They crave it.

Under my guidance, our paper (a small, midwestern daily) has had success with Google optimization, dashing off content to match the hot topics. Our Charlie Sheen content today brought on a 22-percent spike in unique visitors.

I understand the complaints, but at the end of the day, it's all about making money, and the better we are at that, the more we can avoid furloughs and layoffs. In the end, isn't that the most important thing?

 

Let's get this straight before this discussion turns to crap.

SEO optimization as a strategy, and Google algorithm manipulation as a business model, are two completely different things.

If you need further explanation, just ask.

 

Dear God, no, it's not supposed to be all about making money at the end of the day. Not in this business. It's supposed to be about checking the government as the Fourth Estate, not checking out Charlie Sheen's twit pics.

Do we need to find ways to get creative and remain relevant and stay in business, even if we have to occasionally throw them some of the junk? Hell,yes. Are those ways by selling out the very principles that drew people to this wallet-emptying, mentally draining business in the hopes of serving as watchdogs who contribute to something beyond a pair of lustful eyeballs or our own needs? #)#@( no.

And if more people would recognize that, maybe we wouldn't be in as bad shape. Maybe part of the reason we can't get people to care about what we do is that we stopped doing what they cared about and just began blending in with the rest of the Jersey Shore.

If you're a small, midwestern daily, go serve your readers' freaking interests and needs, not just their base desires. Sure, throw some of the junk in too because you have to, but don't boast about it while dismissing the elements that your readers need -- even if they don't always know it. Even if they complain and bitch and we groan about them here. And have some fun with stories -- get creative with graphics, play with blogs, use social media -- but do it in a responsible, journalistic way. Don't fall into old staid habits, but do adhere to valuable principles as you adapt.

Go dig and find stories that matter to them. Stop taking so much time throwing up the next bit of crap without going through the old standard basic decent aspects of fact-checking and reporting, not regurgitating. And guess what? The reporters will have time to find REAL stories. Stories that matter to people because those city council meetings matter if you don't just sit there and snore, but have reporters who sift through the sludge and go out and FIND a story. A real story. Don't bail on city council meetings because people don't want to read them. Go find the stories in there that people will recognize they need to know, whether it's a nugget you uncover or an enterprise idea.

There's plenty of them getting missed these days while folks think they're innovative and serving their readers by "giving them what they want." They want to see a pair of naked women humping a one-legged midget sometimes. Go ahead and give them that while you're at it, because it's all about unique visitors and clicks.

Charlie Sheen. Bottom line. Give me a break.

The bottom line is the country is facing some of its greatest challenges and the people who are supposed to provide vital information to help people make strong decisions are falling into the mud instead of helping to clear it. The bottom line in this business is not about money and it never has been.

It just needs enough to make it survive. Find a way to do that without selling out your damn soul or go find a business where the people busting their ass for no money don't give a damn either.

 

You'll never become PublisherOscar with an attitude like that.

 

That was kinda inspiring but can you fit it down to 140 characters for a tweet?

 

Sell the press. Sell all the rolls of paper. Keep the mainframe. Forget the cops, courts, city council, county supervisors and the all-important junior varsity swimming beats. Have your reporters hang out in every bar in town and see who's going home with whom, especially at closing time. If Charlie Sheen is a bigger priority to you than what's going on in your community, may as well be honest about it and go all gossip, all the time. Readers will be happy ... until a year or so later when they find out the council voted themselves huge raises, they're all driving city-owned luxury cars and have "council retreats" in Maui every other month, and they just hiked taxes and cut police officers to pay for it. Then they'll wonder where the heck the paper was ... why, covering Charlie Sheen, of course, because that's what readers wanted!

 

I'm sure PublisherPam's reporters are glad they went to college and work their tales off for your paper, only to be topped by hicks wanting more Charlie Sheen gossip.

 

The problem with this kind of reporting is that they don't give me the information that I want.

They do the exact opposite. They make it harder for me to find what I want.

They contain no original reporting. Maybe that doesn't matter much on a story like Charlie Sheen, where everyone is recapping his TMZ interview, but I want to get the news from legitimate sources. I want to read original reporting. I want to read a story written by a reporter, not a stenographer.

When I read about an event, I want to read about it from someone who was there and covered the event. I want to read an article from someone who talked to the participants in the event.

I wish Google had a "Like" or or "dislike" button/tab like Pandora or Tivo.

When I click on an article from the Examiner or Bleacher Report that gives me nothing, I want to rank that article so that the next time I do a search, those websites don't come up towards the top.

Similarly, I'd like to be able to rank articles by the New York Times, Washington Post[/i], etc. so that they do come up towards the top.

With all of Google's programming, I don't see why that would be so hard.

 

It hasn't been a "big source of revenue" for 15 years. What makes you think that will change? Makes me think you're somewhat clueless on the revenue side, which is scary if you're a publisher.

And oscaroscaroscar's post is Post of the Year material. Bravo, sir.

 

Not totally the same, but perhaps an early version. In the Chrome store, there's no an extension that allows you to block searches from certain domains/hosts.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef?hl=en-US