Buyers who don't care about junk and why those attitudes will change...
A few entries back, I discussed the issue of plagiarism and how buyers could protect themselves from receiving stolen content from self-proclaimed writers who rely a little too much on Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V while "composing."
In response, I received a comment that states:
"The buyers who buy not 100% original articles don't care that they're not original. They're using them for SEO purposes to drive traffic to their site and get ads clicked on. They don't care if the content is decent, they want to build a site w/ tons of 'unique' content as cheap as possible and get the quickest return on investment possible. "
My first reaction is that if a buyer doesn't give a hoot if the material is original, the burden falls on the writer/provider to be ethical. Of course, as we know too well, that isn't always going to happen.
I do disagree, at least a little bit, with idea that the buyers don't care at all if the content is not original. If they merely wanted to fill their pages with "something" they could acquire it quite easily without going through the charade of hiring a content writer. Now, they might expect some cheating and/or be willing to run articles without first checking them in order to retain some level of blissful ignorance in case of misappropriation, but that's a little different.
The commenter is right in that there are plenty of people who are just after a bulk text supply that will serve up the right Adsense blocks. There's no doubt about that.
However, I think the heyday of building tons of lousy "content sites" for the sake of generating Adsense revenues has passed. The technique may still be working, but it's a short-term strategy that will eventually (and as fast as online business moves, probably soon) bottom out.
New perspectives on search engine optimization (see recent post re: McDougall and "VEO"), indications that Google will be doing a beetter job with their duplicate content filter and will be rewarding unique content (see recent post re: Potash and "Orwell Report"), and a host of other factors make me think some of the current strategies are on their way out.
I personally think the popularity of those "toss up ten million pages of complete garbage" strategies is going to be what kills the golden goose for some of those Adsense earners. There's so much search engine gaming because of the potential to turn bucks off of Adsense that it is adversely impact search results. When that happens, Google reacts.
As it turns out, contextual advertising isn't just making Google money. It is also smoking out the ways people can "artificially enhance" their placement in results. That might create more work for G on the search engine side, but the end result will probably be a series of algorithm alterations to separate those with tricky moves from those with good content.
Everyone already knows the potential value of great content. It's the best way for anyone not interested in trying desperately to stay one step in front of the search engines to get the job done. As the engines get smarter and faster, more and more people are going to tire of that race.
Honest writers who produce unique content will be waiting for them once they change their outlooks.
