Post Panda the internet has changed quite a bit for SEOs. As marketers, SEOs need to know how to write Panda friendly articles instead of the normal spam articles or spun content they’ve gotten used to generating. Traditionally SEOs would use various free article spinning tools such as spin profit, to recreate articles just unique enough, to be deemed ‘original’ by search engines. Unique content is one of the primary criteria of search quality. Distinctive content adds value to the SERPs, while duplicate content reduces value. The purpose of a search engine is to present new knowledge and valuable information, so a user can enrich their knowledge, experience and lives. If Google is to survive amongst its competitors, it should reduce duplicate content and increase unique content for the user. It follows that spun articles should be removed from the index and their value restricted.
SEO Spinners
Spinners SEOs use, are based around Markov chain algorithms, whereby sentences and synonyms are rearranged to create upwards of ten, twenty or sometimes fifty articles. These articles would then get distributed to a blog network or guest post networks where they would link back to the target website, with a few keyword rich anchor text in the bio. SEOs would exploit this channeling of “link juice” from article directories and automate the syndication process either by using subscription based websites such as submit edge, or by using software such as submiteaze. It is thought that manual syndication lends to more “stickiness” of syndicated articles (actually get published) as it is likely automated tools have difficulty fulfilling html form requirements, such as private domain email addresses, instead of free accounts which can be exploited on Gmail or Yahoo or Hotmail.
Content Aggregators
Google will always have difficulty determining the quality of a content aggregator, because content has always been syndicated across the web, be it digg, yahoo, or redit. This is why article syndication still works, but will eventually move away from spun or spam articles to higher quality articles with synthetized social proof. Low grade articles will still work as part a larger mix, a strategy that covers bread and butter SEO tactics; PR distribution, social bookmarking, directory submission, but there will be a move away from creating the broadest distribution or spread of articles, to generating synthetic social approval for quality content with a narrow distribution. Although Google can ascertain unique content with relative ease (as it only has to pattern match words against it database cache), “quality” as a signifier, is a property that even humans have difficulty defining themselves.
Social Proof
What is content? Content is information that provides value. What is quality? Quality is excellence in relation to other things of that kind. Every website, thought leader, or expert is trying to produce quality content that attracts social proof naturally. This social proof, such as retweets, likes, digs, act as quality signifier for products or services, which Search Engines take into account when ranking a site. They “used” to do this through links, in future they will do this through social proof. Once more relative social proof has been attained, search engines will perceive quality. If the quality signals or social proof of a web page, article, press release, have been manipulated or synthesized with fake social profiles this could also convince people into perceiving quality with fake social proof, which is already a thriving marketplace. Will it be possible for Google to determine false social quality signals against real quality signals? Google will always have to determine algorithmically quality signals, due to the sheer scale of the job. Social spamming will be the new battleground for Google, a battle which will be more difficult to win, now that Facebook has armed Bing’s algorithms with social data.