Why I Think Google’s Algorithm Changes = Dumbass

Ok by now everybody should know that Google has recently changed some of its algorithms, thus affecting (they say) some 10-12% of the sites they rank.

Of the changes they’ve made, the one that’s made the biggest splash (or at least caused the most talk) in the IM world is the one that more or less puts the hammer down on what they perceive to be “content farms” – or basically sites full of content not attributable to the owner of the site, and have been pulled from other sources where it was originally published.

Simple explanation – say you put up a blog or site about gardening because you found some awesome products to promote in that niche, and you wanna make some affiliate commissions. Cool, right? Problem is, is that you know jack shit about gardening. So, instead of coming up with some sorta half-assed articles about something you don’t know anything about, or paying some outsourcer (who also likely knows crap about gardening) a few bucks to crank out some articles for you, you just cut to the chase and go to the experts.

Either automatically (via autobloggins software and RSS feeds) or manually, you hit up articles directories and other such pools of info for good, informative, well-written articles on gardening. You post them to your site, and give proper attribution to the original author – i.e. keep the original resource box in tact. (More on this in a second.) You then publish the articles to your site, and promote it.

If you’ve got a site like this, “Big G” wants to (as The Rock might say) “lay the smack down on your candy ass”!

WTF for?

In principle, what Google wants to do is a good idea. See, there are people out there that steal content from articles directories, other websites, or wherever and then call it their own – they don’t acknowledge the original author or link back to wherever they want links pointing back to. Or, worse yet, they’ve got some sorta automated spinning software that goes out, grabs an article, spins (rewrites) it into some unreadable hunk of crap, and then publishes it automatically on their blog.

I can see kicking these kinds of sites out to the boondocks of Google’s rankings so nobody can ever find them. They’re thieves and not providing any real content to the reader.

Problem is, is that there are also A TON of people that put out good, quality sites that are getting smacked. People that attribute the original author and keep their resource box in tact.

(And as a side note…if you post an article to an articles directory you fully know that you’re giving others the right to republish your work as long as said resource box is kept in tact…and that must be cool with you, or else you wouldn’t have posted it there in the first place. So if you don’t give a damn, why does google?)

These are folks that are doing things the *right* way when it comes republishing content…giving credit where credit is due…providing value to their readers…putting out a quality site. And they’re the ones this is affecting the most! Hell, I’ve heard some accounts of people’s incomes due to affiliate promotions and/or adsense dropping 40% almost overnight.

Thanks, Google.

But here’s the real rub…Google algo changes don’t make any sense when you stop and think about them for a minute.

Basically, Google is saying they don’t wanna see content published in more than one spot. Well if that’s the case, then why not just enforce the much talked about and dreaded “duplicate content penalty”? (Which, by the way, we all know is a myth…) Doesn’t make any sense.

And if Google doesn’t want content in more than one spot…doesn’t that pretty much just take the whole idea of an articles directory and kneecap it in the first place? I mean, what would be the point of even having one? Aren’t they just one giant content farm?

Going down that same road, it looks like they’re feeling the effects of the algo changes as well, as reports by people who I trust and pay attention to this kinda thing (because I don’t – LOL) are saying that the Ezine Articles (EZA), the granddaddy of all the articles directories, has seen enough of a drop in their own viewership that they’re pulling back on some of their advertising and adsense because their revenues are going down.

Way to go, Google.

Quick sidebar…I’ve also heard that EZA is soon to switch to “no-follow” links in their resource boxes, meaning you’ll no longer get the awesome link juice back to your site (and helping it rank in Google) when you publish articles there. Now can anybody explain *that* one to me? The three main reasons to post to EZA were:

1 – getting your content syndicated from there out to other sites
2 – the SEO benefits of getting EZA backlinks
3 – your article actually ranking in Google from EZA

(There’s also the idea that your article might get additional reads from being in the “most viewed” sections of EZA, but IMO, that’s a pretty distant fourth to the above.)

Well, if Google wants to stop #1, and EZA itself wants to hamstring #2, then is #3 alone worth continuing to post to EZA in the first place?

But I digress…

Here’s the big issue I see with the whole algo change:

If Google had their way, sites they see as “content farms” would quit just pulling their content from other sources and republishing it. Instead, they’d go out and create new, valuable content, or outsource having good, quality content created for them.

Sounds great in theory, but there ain’t no way.

Instead, you know what’s gonna happen? People are gonna create their own content…but it will completely suck. Or, worse yet, because it’s cheaper overall, they’ll go out and buy one of these shitbag automatic spinner software things, pull the same content they were pulling anyway, then spin it from being something good and valuable to another unreadable hunk of shit.

Either way, the quality of their site just went down, the reader doesn’t find good content they otherwise might not (likely wouldn’t?) find, and Google’s overall stated goal of providing the best overall service and experience to their readers/users just took a massive nose-dive.

Call me crazy, but this just couldn’t have been that tough to forsee if anybody actually talked this out ahead of time. I might be wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google making changes to their changes in fairly short order if enough people keep bitching about it. We’ll see.

The next few months could get interesting.

By the way, my buddy Bill Davis of Internet Marketing Muscle just put up a really good rant video over on his IMM Facebook fan page…and it resulted in some pretty good discussion, too. Go check it out =>CLICK HERE.

Tags: articles directories, content farm, eza, ezine articles, google, google algorithm, google algorithm change