Matt Cutts, Principal Engineer at Google posted Google-Search-and Search-Engine-Spam on the Official Google Blog. The major thrust of his post seemed to acknowledge that although Google does not yet deliver perfect results for any given online search, it is dedicated to perfecting the art of online search. He closes by indicating that Google values the feedback of its users and wants to continue receiving it.
He identifies three sorts of challenges related to the results of a search engine. They consist of spammy individual pages, hacked sites and low quality pieces of content that originate from sites known as content farms. From Mr. Cutts commentary, it appears that Google is comfortable that it made significant strides in beating back the challenges from both spammy individual pages and hacked sites ranking high in its user’s searches. However, he seemed to indicate that moving forward, Google would target content farms that he refers to as, “low quality sites.”
What does this mean for a site such as Associated Content? Associated Content originally existed as a private company. Its President, Luke Beatty founded the company in 2004. However, on May 18, 2010 Yahoo! announced that it purchased Associated Content. Yahoo! now brands the site as Associated Content from Yahoo! and promotes it as a part of the Yahoo! Contributor Network.
However, when the site Associated Content is mentioned it is often referred to as a content or web farm. It is no secret that Yahoo! is a competitor of Google. Additionally, Google deploys its ads on content that is hosted on Yahoo sites. Currently, according to associatedcontent.com, “Associated Content is now the official digital library of the Yahoo! digital library and the world’s largest source of community created-content.” As of this writing, Associated Content offers over 2.6 million “articles, videos, audio clips and slide shows.” However, Mr. Cutts, indicates that Google ads provide sites no advantages from a Google search resulted perspective.
Now that Associated Content is a part of the Yahoo! Contributor Network it raises the question that if Associated Content is considered a content farm, how will Google implement a strategy of search and destroy “content farms” without seeing a decrease in the profitability from its ad placement on such sites.
Originally published on Associated Content / Yahoo! Contributor Network (Y!CN) on January 24, 2011
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Han Van Meegerin
