Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
We went the "high quality" route - as although it costs more, and takes more time - we believed it was less vulnerable to getting dropped by the search engines than producing "scraper sites", auto-generated rubbish, or black hat SEO. So in the long term we would win by adding real value to the net - and being recognised for quality.
The downside is that traffic builds more slowly and sites cost more to build than for people who scrape content, or use aggressive SEO tactics. Our upside has always been that our sites don't get dropped from the search engines when the algo changes.
But recently, something has changed which I think threatens this business model:
Yes - we've had one of our small sites rankings vanish from Google overnight. In itself this is no big deal - rankings come and go - we all know that. What worries me is not the loss of a site (it wasn't our main one - so financial implications are limited) - but that it's part of a bigger trend. There are lots of reports in the Google forum about quality sites being dropped.
I've also seen a major competitor's high quality site lose 50% of its traffic overnight. That's not a cause for celebration for me - it's a good site - great content, no dodgy SEO - just randomly picked off. It could just as easily have been my main site - and I don't know what to do to stop it being my site next time.
Google (with its overwhelming market share) appears to be dropping sites more or less at random - regardless of quality. And usually with no way back.
This post isn't intended as a moan: I want to spark a discussion on the bigger issue - what does this mean for publishing quality content as a viable business model?
As far as I can see - creation of quality content is only viable if it offers protection against being zapped by Google.
If scrapers and quality content are equally vulnerable - quality content becomes too expensive to produce.
The dark side beckons... But I really don't want to go down that road, after years of adding real value to the net.
Unless Google starts to be more consistant, or loses market share, or provides some form of "human review" channel as a way back for sites mistakenly pruned by the algo's mistakes I'm worried about the future of quality content publishing online.
What do you think?
And usually with no way back.
In my experience permanent bans or penalties from Google are rare unless you've done something overtly egregious. There is almost always a way back, it just isn't always obvious.
Also, I strongly believe that for a genuine content site, paying quality attention to SEO really does pay. Optimizing content-rich websites is every SEO professional's ideal scenario. Why? Because it's easier than the usual crap thrown at them.
And by this, I'm not recommending spending huge $$$ on 'professional' SEO firms. Contrary to popular belief, SEO is no voodoo AT ALL and can be learned and applied successfully by anyone with a half-way decent number of brain-cells, period.
So in short, hang in there, don't panic -- and assign somebody to learn and apply the SEO best practises to your websites -- for a fraction of the cost that SEO firms charge.
Hope this helps,
-Lucifer
But I think you've lost focus. Your post seems to suggest that you're most concerned about your search engine rankings, as if that's what is worrying you the most.
Listen, if your search engine rankings are worrying you, then you should be publishing scraper sites, and spam sites.
On the other hand, if you're concerned about building up a loyal vistor base, attracting inbound links from other websites, getting word-of-mouth advertising, and improving your reputation in the niche, then you should be publishing quality, original content.
The reason why people publish quality, original content, is so that they can market their website based on its own merits, instead of becoming dependent on search engine referrals. It sounds like you're trying to leverage high quality content for the wrong purpose.
1: You are who you link to
Let's face it, most people who buy advertising are aggressive, and many of those have websites you would not link to under any circumstances except for cash.
If you are who you link to, then it follows that your website may be interpreted as trash if you are linking to trash. Think about that a second.
2: Quality content is just one part of the equation
In every update, people with "good content" complain that Google favors spam over "good content." But this phenomenom is never across the board, so there are other reasons to account for losing one's rankings, regardless of how good your content is. We really must step back and hunt down the other reasons accounting for a loss in rankings. Good content will not defeat shortfalls in other areas of site development.
For instance, a respected member of WebmasterWorld with quality content recently lost his rankings but it wasn't because Google was turning away from quality content. It was due to a technical issue related to someone who was linking to him.
Assuming it was Google's fault would not have solved his problem. I urge anyone with quality content who has lost rankings to review their site with fresh eyes to see what may be accounting for a loss in ranking.
3: There is no such thing as quality content
Additionally, people's definition of "quality content" is so loose that in terms of posting it here on WebmasterWorld, the phrase has lost all meaning.
I've inspected many "quality content" sites that were nothing more than an affiliate feed or one page duplicate content pages. What people honestly believe is "quality content" makes me wonder what the hell people are smoking. So this is yet another reason why I recommend to take reports of quality content sites getting shafted with a dose of skepticism.
Quality sites do lose their ranks, but it is not because of their content. There are other things in play that you must investigate.
4: The Google update isn't over
The knobs are still getting turned.
5: Are Content Sites Still a Viable Business Model?
Hell yeah. I know about some search engines that nobody else knows about that send me loads of traffic. One is called Yahoo and the other is called MSN. Shhh. Keep it to yourself.
- original (new? rare? hard to find?)
- copyrighted by you and not stolen from other web sites
- well written
- focused on what the user is searching for
but as for anything else is not this the main issue but the whole markeeting-mix (content, layout, customer support, etc etc)
the best way is to make content that can NOT be stolen easily like for instance photos of a specific niche which nobody else host in big numbers or with the same high standards as you do.
try for instance searching for a good site about city #*$!x, you'll find 1000s of web sites but usually only 1 or 2 which hosts lots of PRO content, and believe me, they're usually bad ranked by G but present in all the link section of the authority sites about photography.
the reason is simple and will give them a long-time lots of visitors without using SEO many tricks.
ask yourself : in the next 10 yrs will that site still alive?
i could say the same for many IT news websites :
the CMS sucks, the layout sucks, everything sucks, but the content is good and they have an enormous archive of past articles, they have a famous brand etc etc
yes i could do better but it would take years to be like them and in the meantime i would spens lots of $ with a high risk of seeing nothing back.
one example : theregister.co.uk!
one of the ugliest layout on the web, yet they're almost the bible for hundreds of thousands of readers.
same apply for Slashdot, it looks like a blog, ugly colors, ugly interface, ugly forum, but everybody love it :(
