LifeinAsia - 4:34 pm on Apr 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

presumably the manufacturers know more about their product than the reseller, so their descriptions are going to be better, right? if everyone has to rewrite them, then the standard is more likely to go down, not up.

The manufacturer may know absolutely nothing about marketing, knowledge that the sellers (presumably) do have. So I would expect that the standard would go up (at least as far as marketing copy).

If 10,000 sellers are using the exact same content as the manufacturer, in Google's eyes, why should ANY of the 10,000 sellers receive any type of "benefit" from just copying the manufacturer's content. The user can get the same information from the manufacturer's site. The sellers who make their own product descriptions are adding value (or they are at least making an effort to add value).