Google is looking for ways in which to improve the quality of their searches. That means filtering out content spam. This brings up some issues about content which includes addressing issues about content scraping, republishing or copying of content and content farms.
Reducing Search Engine Spam
Matt Cutts gave an update on his blog regarding algorithm changes that is being implemented to reduce search engine spam.
It's Google's hope to decrease spam. The site(s) that Google is trying to take aim at are the sites that copy others' content, as well as, sites that have low levels of original content. These changes will affect those who scrape, republish or copy others content. Why? In some cases, the website that is scraping another's content has ranked higher than the original sources.
For those blogs or websites who rely on content, you may find in the near future that your content will become more valuable. Why? If you have the original content you will not be out-ranked by other sites republishing your content (with or without your permission).
Content Farms
There has also been quite a buzz about content farms. For those who are not familiar with what a content farm is, let me give you a quick definition. A content farm has many authors writing content on different topics, and in some cases, giving the author a portion of their Adsense revenue. Both the company and the author can benefit, (more so the company) if the content is a good draw in the search engines. Yes, Content is good, but many of the content farms has a tendency to ignore the quality of the content and instead emphasize popular keywords to get the article to the top.
Google Baby Step to Content Farm Control
What is Google doing about content farms? Google has introduced an extension to Google's Chrome browser that is called the "Personal Blocklist". The software will allow you to remove a site from future searches. How is this done? Personal Blocklist will let you click a small link that is below each search result. This will remove the site from any of your future searches. After you have made those blocks, anytime you do a search you will only see those sites momentarily before Personal Blocklist removes them from your view. You will then see a message by Personal Blocklist stating that some of the results were removed.
You can recover those blocked links by clicking a "show" link next to the message or by clicking a red icon, with a hand facing outwards in a "stop" gesture, in Chrome's toolbar. You may be thinking that this baby step is counterproductive and not helping remove content that is not helpful. This is not true. According to Matt Cutts:
"If installed, the extension also sends blocked site information to Google, and we will study the resulting feedback and explore using it as a potential ranking signal for our search results."
Could this mean trouble for content farms? Maybe, maybe not. I've read many comments regarding content farms. Some people state that, "no it won't hit sites like Demand Media, because Google is only looking to remove shallow or low-quality content". Other states, "yes, it may help improve the quality of the searches".
My take on the issue is relatively simple. People can define content farms in any way or form they want in order to soothe their troubling soul and their worry about lost income. But the bottom line is clear, it's only Google definition and their algorithm that will matter in the end.
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