martinibuster - 12:28 am on Jan 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

There have been articles written suggesting this might be a threat to DemandMedia but I'm not sure about that. Outside of hand penalizing content farm domains, how can Google automate the process for identifying a well researched article published on a content farm?

Should well-researched content be targeted as spam?

How can Google tell the difference between non-authoritative well researched content written by a professional writer and trustworthy content written by someone with years of experience?

Links to an article on a content farm like DemandMedia cannot be used to determine the validity of the content. Articles posted on content farms are constantly linked to in forums because the articles are written in a straightforward and easy to understand manner, regardless of how valid the information is.

Wikipedia is a good example of a site with content of dubious quality that benefits from heavy linking.

I don't believe DemandMedia, AssociatedContent, or Wikipedia have anything to worry about.

Who are the content farms?
I think that sites that split adsense revenue on community generated content writtten by non-professional writers with an interest in generating AdSense ad clicks may have a problem. Not necessarily the bigger sites but the smaller sites whose publishers may not be as well connected.