Dishwashers, and How Google Eats Its Own Tail
Google has become a snake that too readily consumes its own keyword tail. Identify some words that show up in profitable searches — from appliances, to mesothelioma suits, to kayak lessons — churn out content cheaply and regularly, and you’re done. On the web, no-one knows you’re a content-grinder.
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Something has to give, but I wonder what will — the snake, its tail, or us?Posting empty BS at scale has never been without its cost to those of us who actually use Google for more than bootstraping a score of execrable income muses.
But, over the past year or two, the urine-to-potable-water ratio of our public well has gone totally out of whack.
The wink-wink, nudge-nudge tolerance for empty Google bait needs to stop. It’s no longer simply a matter of bringing unnecessary tragedy to an already-littered commons—we’re at risk of seeing our biggest public library turn into a pile of empty books whose flashy covers contain nothing but coupons for more empty books.
Maybe I’m somehow immune to this problem, but I don’t feel it. For example, I find every 200 or so TechCrunch posts worth reading, but only encounter them when people I trust come across them through TechMeme and decide to tweet them or put them on Tumblr. Two degrees of separation from the mill makes it work.
As far as Google search results go, solving the breaking news issue is where the biggest challenge resides. Adding real-time content into the mix from Twitter provides no additional value in practice since they haven’t figured out how to filter for credibility.
And, regarding non-newsworthy content online, search engines continue to do a pretty darn good job with that. Quality content generated by trusted sources tends to float to the top. It doesn’t really matter is there are 10 search results or 10,000,000 if the good stuff is on the first page (potable water).
One area where there does continue to be a weakness on the web is the small business / local business information scene. Not enough businesses in that category have gotten their acts together yet online, which makes it easier for content grinders to exploit the void.
