Why Kelkoo entrepreneur kills his content farm project

[Whitey]

Google Panda is the result of many years of struggle, with Google trying to eliminate go-between services like news aggregators and specialized search engines,” explains Chappaz. “Why? Because Google’s revenues for the broad search platform are slowing down.Google needs to eat in its own ecosystem to keep its revenues flowing. So running a B to C news aggregator is just impossible these days, because most of your traffic is coming from Google. I realized that 2 years ago.

Last week, Pierre Chappaz killed his last project, Wikio and Wikio Experts, a news aggregator and a content farm built on the model of Demand Media. Wikio is a Google Panda victim, as Google’s new algorithm was conceived to kick out content farms and news aggregators from search results. After Panda’s arrival, most content farms tried to adapt, some trying to cheat around Google’s new rules. Chappaz didn’t.
[forbes.com...]

A clear cut business decision to go in a different direction. Will others be forced to follow?

[wheel]

Google needs to eat in its own ecosystem to keep its revenues flowing

This.

I give it five years before 1 of two things happens.
1) we're all screwed because Google owns our niche
2) We have a new Google that's not Google.

[Whitey]

Nevertheless, Pierre Chappaz decided last year to run a new project: Wikio Experts, a content farm website, where you pay bloggers a low rate to produce “Google-friendly” content. At that time content farm sustainability was very controversial. “I made a mistake,” Chappaz agrees. “But I don’t regret it. I think that some of the ideas that sustain the content farms model are still good.” According to Chappaz, the idea of trying to match your content to what people are looking for (in search engines or social media) can really help media companies improve their traffic and revenues. “But we undoubtedly made a mistake by launching this content farm project.” Mostly because the quality was not there. “The Revshare model is a better model than having a fixed rate to improve the quality of content. We didn’t make that choice. It was a mistake. Most of all: managing and editing content was not in our ADN. We’re not a media company.”

With quality content he seems to say that he could have succeeded and admits his mistake.

2) We have a new Google that's not Google.

That seems to be the direction Google's moving - primarily a publisher controlling it's key media properties ( or a strategic publishing partner ) and secondarily a search engine. I guess if you remove all the crap, similar and duplicate content there's not a lot left in the major verticals that feed it's sustainable revenues either.

But I'm heartened by his positive observation on quality.

[seoskunk]

This is very interesting. I think any society needs a informative press to ensure accountability of democracy. The internet is dissolving traditional press and that in itself presents a danger. The jury is still out on whether a free press can operate on the internet that is both informative and investigative. Content Farm or a potential new media player either way its clear the site was never given the chance to evolve and thats a sad thing.

[walkman]

This.
I give it five years before 1 of two things happens.
1) we're all screwed because Google owns our niche
2) We have a new Google that's not Google.

Ummmm...as long as they are a monopoly they should be be 'asked' to behave responsibly.

Google needs to eat in its own ecosystem to keep its revenues flowing

Only the most brainwashed fanboys and /or those with financial interest didn't see this happen (or made believe they didn't). It has been obvious for a while, Google's second quarter earnings proved it.

Next time Google misses earnings their stock will crash and then you'll see a slew of negative stories as a has-been, and people will focus on everything they do. Google is very vulnerable and they know it. You cannot underestimate what the Android battle and anti-trust is doing to them, their credibility is being destroyed little by little.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I won't follow, though I may move in another direction. By that I mean that existing projects are going NOWHERE but my new projects may keep Google's panda-isms in mind. In fact I am strongly considering disallowing Google from crawling or gathering information from ANY site it allows Panda to downgrade, period.

Take any site I work on as it is Google and rank it fairly or stay the heck away from it entirely. Who needs hundreds or thousands of googlebot crawls per day when Google won't rank the pages well no matter what's on them?

Why? because the other search engines aren't having the same issues with my years of content generating efforts and they will be most welcome to continue associating my content with their more stable search results.

[kidder]

For the first time ever I'm developing a website that has pretty much zero SEO considerations. Our traffic strategy is more related to developing a brand and a great user tool... It will probably get fantastic search rankings :)

Wheel, I'm with you all the way... Google auto, Google real estate, Google dating, Google finance, they won't be happy until they have it all.

[superclown2]

Wheel, I'm with you all the way... Google auto, Google real estate, Google dating, Google finance, they won't be happy until they have it all.

Don't I remember Yahoo going this way a while back and failing? Google has the expertise to run a search engine profitably. It's track record with anything else is not good.

[rlange]

kidder wrote:
Wheel, I'm with you all the way... Google auto, Google real estate, Google dating, Google finance, they won't be happy until they have it all.

Google Finance [google.com]. ;o)

--
Ryan

[gehrlekrona]

I think, maybe, that you could look at best paying AdSense/AdWords keywords and where most traffic goes on the Internet and figure out what Google is going to assimilate.

[edited by: tedster at 3:13 pm (utc) on Oct 8, 2011]

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Google auto, Google real estate, Google dating, Google finance, they won't be happy until they have it all.

They are working on Google Friends now too, might be a dating service? For now .com/friends redirects to google.com if you're in the wrong IP range.

edit: Google.com/finance has absolutely ZERO original content, it's pure mashup, which is something Google buries other sites for... hypocritical dontcha think?