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Thomas Brunt -> Content (5/26/2004 20:05:06)

I've been accused many times of self-righteous pontification. I usually try to avoid that, but I apparently have a wild hair this evening. It's just an opinion. Lots of folks who disagree have had much success. I guess I'm trying to say that there's more than 1 way to skin a cat.

The following is my response to a recent claim that search engine spiders (Google in particular) cannot tell the difference between good content and junk.

"I do believe strongly that Google can often tell the difference between quality content and junk. I beleive that fact is the only reason why I'm able to make a living with OutFront. Yahoo carried me in the early days precisely because it used humans to decide what sites were worth looking at. Google succeeded (to a significant degree) in automating that process. It's popularity is the proof of that. Now Google carries me.

It's certainly possible to fool a bot, but you're actually working with or against humans (not bots) in the long run. Humans (really really really smart ones) program the bots. If you fund a company with millions of dollars for the purpose of developing a bot that can tell if a site's content is worth reading then you're likely to wind up with something close to that if you hire the right people. That's why so many people use Google -- because the results are often (certainly not always) exactly what they're looking for.

Google is dedicated to finding sites that are worth the searchers time to read. It seems pretty logical to me that the best strategy for pleasing Google would be to try to make the words on your site actually worth reading. I understand that lots of folks don't want to bother with that. They're looking for easy alternatives. They may or may not succeed. But I have not found a site with quality content that doesn't also have high pagerank and good search engine traffic in general. Have you?

Webmasters link to good sites often without being asked -- very often. It's pretty hard to manufacture unusually high page rank. I have never worked on it ever, and outfront.net has a pr of 8. That was easy to acheive precisely because I focused on working with the search engines instead of working against them. I guessed that they wanted me to place quality content on my site. I tried my best to do that. I've been rewarded.

The only way I know of to work WITH the search engines is to consistently produce quality content. Any other way of trying to gain search engine popularity is (in effect) an attempt to work against the search engines. The folks at Google are pretty darn smart. You can probably beat them today if you try very hard, but I don't think you can beat them in the long rung. Why not join them? They're looking for quality content. Why not give it to them? It often doesn't take any more effort than SEO, and it's way cheaper than pay-per-click."

Free advice. Hope it's worth more than you payed for it.

t



jaybee -> RE: Content (5/26/2004 20:12:29)

Good advice Tom. Content is King.

The other thing that seems to help enormously is keeping the content fresh. Whilst monitoring rankings for my sites I have watched others slowly losing their places as they haven't been touched in months.



Shamanusavet -> RE: Content (5/26/2004 22:38:30)

quote:

I've been accused many times of self-righteous pontification. I usually try to avoid that, but I apparently have a wild hair this evening. It's just an opinion.
When your right YOUR RIGHT- Google Yahoo and DMOZ have always made me improve my content and has improve my web sites ranking. Great advice and those that try to go around the ranking process need to have their nose rubbed in it..



Mojo -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 1:08:52)

quote:

and those that try to go around the ranking process need to have their nose rubbed in it..

Waaaaaaaaaaa

Content is king, but if everyone is using good content, what are the search engines using to rank sites?

Keeping ahead of the pack is what seperates the quick from the dead.



clum1 -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 4:47:55)

Just a thought; I always find Outfront an excellent place to search for answers, usually to ASP stuff, but have noticed that it rarely features high up the list in Google searches for the same subjects; usually 4GusfromRolla, experts-exchange etc come up first. In terms of useability and legibility, the forum style used by Outfront has always been far and above others, so why would this be?

clum1



Thomas Brunt -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 9:49:31)

Quite often I will copy/paste a term or short phrase from a thread here into Google. We come up number #1 a very high percentage of the time. We also get a lot of traffic from Google.

4guys is likely to do better on scripting and database terms because they have more content geared towards that and because they've been around forever.

t



lois wakeman -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 11:06:33)

Mojo, I think the last atom in the universe will have stopped wobbling long before every web site has good content! The web may be getting slightly better on average, but by working on it, good web copywriters and content designers will always be able to stay near the top, IMO.



dpf -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 11:36:41)

but mojo didnt say EVERY site.... his point is well taken, if you have very good content and so do 50 others, you could be on page 4 or 5......to get to page 1, you have to try harder.

While I agree with Thomas to a point, that Google's spider's can assess content, I think its limited. Judging the "quality of content" is a truly subjective matter. Think not? read 20 movie critics on the same film and you will see.

Googles underlying premise ( good sites will be linked TO ; bad ones wont) is initially appealing but doesn bear up under scrutiny as a perfect solution. You could built the definitive site today and it might take years for others to find it and link to it. Seniority is a factor in that scheme.



Thomas Brunt -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 12:58:26)

Not sure what Internet you're searching Mojo. I sure see a lot of stale and useless content out there.

t



Mojo -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 13:35:38)

quote:

Not sure what Internet you're searching Mojo. I sure see a lot of stale and useless content out there.


And...?

Actually, I resemble that comment. How is it ranking?



Thomas Brunt -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 17:43:19)

And what? How is what ranking?

outfront.net has a pr of 8. frontpagewebmaster.com has a pr of 7.

Apparently you're saying that content has nothing to do with that. Perhaps so. My theory is that content has a lot to do with it, and I feel entitled to have an opinion.

I began my post by saying that there is more than 1 way to skin a cat. I haven't seen anything posted here that would change my mind on the proposition that 1 valid way to approach search engine popularity would be to consistently develop content that people would actually want to read.

I certainly can't argue with you about alternatives to that approach. I'm aware of lots of successful sites out there that care about nothing beyond taking your money. That route is almost certain to make you more money this week, this month, and probably even this year.

When I think about that kind of approach in the long run, however, with so many smart people working overtime against it, I'm not convinced it's the best way to go -- at least not for a dummy like me.

t



Mojo -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 19:24:42)

quote:

Perhaps so. My theory is that content has a lot to do with it, and I feel entitled to have an opinion


Only in a round about way. OF has a lot to offer so people link to your site. Those links create the PR, not content. Opinions don't matter as Googles PR is well documented.

quote:

And what? How is what ranking?


How is the "stale and useless content" you mentioned ranking? I hope mine will continue to rank well, but it really does not matter if I get nuked or not.

In my first post on this thread, I agree that content is king, *but* -- and that is a significant 'but' -- For those of us *not* running forums, in competitive areas, content alone will not put you in the top 5. Even content with natural links will not rank you for money phrases....

Also, I am sure there are more smart people working to crack SE algos than there are working for the SE's. That has always been a problem for SEs and will always be a problem.



Thomas Brunt -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 21:13:34)

All points well taken.

The single issue I would have with anything in the above post is this. You say OF has "a lot to offer." I consider the things OF has to offer to be content. That's at least as much the relationships as it is the words, but I see all that as content. People link to OF because it "has a lot to offer." In a way, that's how Google is trying to use public opinion of the content on a given site to determine whether or not its content is good.

My initial point was that it's easier to get sites to link to you by having "a lot to offer" than it is by asking them 1 at a time or via some automated service.

I'm not necessarily saying Google's methodology is an accurate way to determine content quality. I'm just saying that it's a somewhat accurate way in many circumstances. Again, the proof of that is that so many folks use Google. So many folks use it because it quite often returns very high quality content for the search term submitted.

Is that way of looking at content quality weighted too heavily in favor of forums like this? I couldn't argue against it, but I certainly do quite often land on good quality sites that don't use forums when I search on Google. The system works pretty well, and I think the odds are that it will work better in the future.

t



Mojo -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 21:52:04)

quote:

My initial point was that it's easier to get sites to link to you by having "a lot to offer" than it is by asking them 1 at a time or via some automated service.

Absolutely.

quote:

The system works pretty well, and I think the odds are that it will work better in the future.

I agree for the most part, but I think Google has mindshare now that can't be shaken unless the SERPS are terrible for a while. I don' t push off topic content to the top of unrelated (although, it is possible), rather I push on topic content that normally does not stand a chance to reach the top.

Most people don't have the patience, skill and time that you had with OF. When I launch a site I need to turn a profit that evening. I don't have the time to work within the capricious boundaries the SE's set and I have a feeling most visitors to OF are in that same position.

I think your correct that content is King in the current environment - that could change- but for now content rules (as long as you have the votes = backlinks). But it should be noted that it is possible to usurp the King now > add content later > and emerge as a content driven site... of sorts.

Edit: typo
Edit: Spooky - Added SERPS Acronym ... which didnt work [:@]



Spooky -> RE: Content (5/27/2004 22:33:23)

Just to clarify - SERPS is Search Engine Results Pages [:)]

Hmm - acronym works for my post [;)]



erinatkins -> RE: Content (5/28/2004 9:44:50)

quote:

Apparently you're saying that content has nothing to do with that. Perhaps so. My theory is that content has a lot to do with it, and I feel entitled to have an opinion.


I agree with you Tom. I know that sites the I work with on SEO with do better when content is relevant & keywords are repeated in a non spam manner. When there is a drop & I research it - it seems that a site has "keyword" mentioned more.

This is just my opinion & my experience.

Erin



captrich@ptd.net -> RE: Content (5/31/2004 12:02:51)

Hi all,
I'm in complete agreement with the Big O on this one.
The "artificial intelligence" if you will of the algorithms ability to examine page content and separate out the pages designed for the serps as apposed to the visitors will continue to evolve into something we can all hardly even imagine right now. Backlinks from relevant sites will continue to paly a roll in PR for the foreseeable future but as someone said...Content is King. I think one of the next big shakeups we may see sometime in the near future is the relevance of the links coming in being given greater importance and the sites that have engaged in reciprocal linking from large amounts of sites with completely unrelated content being zapped in a big way[sm=theyareontome.gif]
Then again....I could be wrong[sm=tongue.gif]



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