Google Gets Gamed
September 2, 2010 | Tags: associated content, copywriting, Google, SEO, web design
Well, even Google nods from time to time.
From Salon.com’s Scott Rosenberg, a fairly hilarious case that’s bound to encourage all the worst in the phony-content-creation world.
Now, most folks with a conscience—and an understanding of how Google crawls the web—maximize their Google search ranking through good, clean code and substantial, regularly updated content.
Then there’s the so-called “content farms,” of which Associated Content is one of the most notorious: online sweatshops that churn out junk text all but unreadable by any actual human being, but loaded with keywords and search terms designed to capture high spots in Google search returns, i.e., to game the system.
Generally, Google’s very good at catching—and punishing—attempts to game the system. But not always.
Rosenberg described his amazement at Googling to read about the recent n-word-loaded primetime self-destruction of Dr. Laura Schlessinger.
Now, it may have been my choice of search term, or it may have been that the event is already more than a week old, but I was amazed to see, at the top of the Google News results, a story from Associated Content. … Gee, maybe Associated Content is getting better, I thought. Maybe it’s producing some decent stuff.
Naturally, he clicked through and read (errors preserved):
The Dr. Laura n-word backlash made her quit her radio show. It seems the Dr. Laura n-word controversy has made her pay the price, as the consequences of herbrought down her long-running program. But even if it ended her show, it may not end her career. Despite being labeled as a racist, and despite allegedly being tired of radio, the embattled doctor still seems set to fight on after she leaves. In fact, the Dr. Laura n-word scandal has made her more defiant than ever, despite quitting.
Rosenberg jumps to a pretty dire conclusion pretty quickly: that Google’s lost its touch for good:
I still feel lucky to be able to use Google a zillion times a day, and no, Bing is not much use as an alternative (Microsoft’s search engine kindly recommends two Associated Content stories in the first three results!). But when Google tells me that this drivel is the most relevant result, I can’t help thinking, the game’s up. The Wagner tubas are tuning up for Googledammerung: It’s the twilight of the bots.
That’s going far too far, for my money. More likely we’re at a temporary high tide of junk content in the endless ebb and flow of junk and control. There’s plenty of us out here hoping so. And none of us work for Associated Content.
For further reading, a great link Rosenberg passes along: “The Google Sewage Factory” by Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand.