If you’re writing articles for content farms and similar, 2011 promises to be an interesting year, and not in a good way. Once Google’s algorithm change hits, buyers of your services will be looking for original content.
This article is interesting, Google changes search algorithm to favor original content as crowd-sourced content explodes. It reports:
“New figures from online outsourcing marketplace Freelancer show the number of jobs for writing or rewriting content increased five-fold during 2010. The number of jobs writing articles leapt from 7,031 to 38,853, while the number of jobs re-writing articles jumped from 2,131 to 20,129.”
Whew… No wonder Google’s concerned about junk. And Freelancer’s just one outsourcing site…
The sheer number of these “writing and rewriting” jobs means that people are making money from the content. Until Google drops the hammer, of course. It will be even more interesting to see how many of these jobs are offered three months from now.
I’ve been harping on about writing quality material for years. It’s just good business sense. Quality sells. Yes, finding writing jobs which demand quality (and pay for it) takes a little more effort. Alternatively, you need to develop your own blogs.
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Hi Angela, in this article you mention that we will need to wait “to see how many of these jobs are offered three months from now.” How has the situation changed?
Also, what is considered “original content” as far as Google is concerned, and how do you create that original content if you (like most others) are doing the majority of your research on the Internet?
Of course, if you are an expert in the field you are writing about, you can come up with some original content, but how many full-time writers are constantly creating that type of “original content”?
Hi John
Thanks for commenting.
Re “how has the situation changed”.
Very little as far as I can see. People are always slow to catch on. In other words, if something WAS working, and suddenly stops working, they’ll keep hammering it in the hope it will suddenly start working again.
That said, I’ve heard from some writers that they’re not making as much as they were, when writing for the content factories. They never were making much, of course.
This is a good thing — it encourages writers to branch out.
You won’t learn anything working at a content factory. Once you learn how to post stuff online, that’s it. You’ve learned as much as you’re going to, so move on…
Re Google. Google’s search algorithm is software. You can fool software, and that’s what the people who want “rewritten” content aim to do. They want Google to look at their rewritten cr*p as fresh new content.
In order to do that, they need to link to the cr*p. They can’t get genuine backlinks, so they buy links…
This is why they pay such low rates to writers.
Re “original content”, and “how do you create that original content if you (like most others) are doing the majority of your research on the Internet?”
That’s the key, right there. If you’re writing original content for which buyers will pay well, you either reference your own experience or the experience of others. That is, you do your own primary research. (Talk to people.)
Re “how many full-time writers are constantly creating that type of “original content”?”
ALL full-time writers who are making money do that.
Check the content on a reputable site which hires good writers, against the content on any one of the content factories. There’s a big, big difference.
Good writers don’t just collect ideas and write them up as their own. They assess the worth of those ideas, and then come to a conclusion based on their own assessment and insight.
Great questions, John. Thanks again for the comment.
I may write this up as a blog post.