Google’s Game of Whack-A-Mole

Google’s problem with content spam and pollution of its search results has been going on for many years. The recent Google Panda and Farmer initiatives are just another battle in the war. Since Google’s business model depends, for the most part, on using content to drive searchers to ads and click-thrus, then they have the source of the disease in their own DNA.

Anyway, I thought that this great infographic highlighted the wars on content pollution in one major consumer search engine and could serve as a starting point in end-user training for a discussion of the major differences between licensed library databases and the consumer search option(s):

Infographic: Google’s Search Result Quality War
by Douglas Karr in Infographic, Search Engine Marketing

Read more here.

Two of the major content spam engines are interesting polar opposites as investments. AOL / Huffington Post are tanking lately in the stock market and Demand Media is holding its own. Interesting. I wonder what investors know?

And this is just in time for the start of the academic year!

UPDATE:

Why Google Panda slapped quality sites
Posted by Mark Nunney on 17 August 2011

“Google’s Panda update is aimed at low quality sites like content farms. So why is it hurting so many established high quality content sites? Mark Nunney explains why he thinks this happening, what to do about it and what we can all learn from it. This article is about quality sites getting Panda slapped. For a wider look at Panda see the Google Panda update survival guide.”

Google Panda Algorithm Update

UPDATE: (Aug 25)

Google Epic Fail: Is Google’s Panda a Revenue-Making Machine for Google Itself?

“Is Google’s search for quality content a ruse for a massive diversion of cash to its own sites?
By Tom Foremski
Summary: Google’s search for quality content has harmed huge numbers of quality web sites. But it’s been great for Google’s surging revenues… What’s going on?”

How Google makes improvements to its search algorithm

Stephen