Share | Are we Spinning Ourselves into the Dumpster?

[bholas]

The internet is built on documents and the search engine is the machine that helps us find and categorize those documents. The SEs have defined a set of rules to help in this process. The internet is also all about visibility. Being on the first page and being first on the first page is the goal of every business, large and small. In the fight to get there, someone is always willing to twist, or break, the rules to their own advantage, usually at the expense of those who do not.

First we had keyword stuffing, then internal links, link exchanges, link farms, reciprocal linking, five pillar link exchanges and so on. Now we have spinning, blog exchanges and fake article directories. These are set up for no other purpose than to get around the rules on linking.

It is a never ending circle. The SEs establish new rules and algorithms. The black hats find a new way around the rules and make money telling others how to do the same. Again the SEs establish new rules and around it goes. The internet is all about getting seen and unfortunately there are only 10 slots on any search result that count. To top that off, there is only one number one and that number one spot controls 42% of the traffic from any one search. So the competition for the top spot is fierce and often cutthroat.

The search results are supposed to be based on relevance to the term being searched. Relevance, in turn, is based on the relevance of inbound links to the result page. The more links and the more highly weighted the links, the more relevant the search result. Or at least that is the idea. Please bear in mind that I am greatly simplifying a very complex algorithm. So please overlook the lack of precision. The end result is the same.

To get around the problems of people subverting the linking process, Google and others started weighting the relevance of content. “Content is King” became the watchword. And immediately the internet was swamped with content. Google wants content, they get content. No one said it had to be good content, just relevant.

First article directories emerged to provide an outlet for content. They are vital and still perform a great service. Most of us would be lost without them. They give us a chance to compete on an even basis with other more powerful competitors. They help establish reputations and they give us that all important ingredient to success: visibility. It didn’t take long for article directory templates to make it possible for any idiot to flood the marketplace with low grade article directories set up for no other reason than to provide a linking environment, a new form of link farm.

Then along came spinning. Spinning is the (usually automated) process of taking an article and substituting other words with the (supposedly) same meaning. The idea is to create many articles by writing just one, then making a copy and changing words in the copy so as to create a seemingly new article. To a limited extent, this can be done but the amount of change that can be accomplished and still retain a semblance of intelligence is very limited. Even though many words can be substituted and still be correct, we do not always use them the way the spinners put them together.

Our language has so many words to choose from for a reason. Each has a slightly different meaning or subtle nuance. Put them together correctly and you can create powerful images, sway the masses and create fame and fortune. Put the wrong set together, and you have confusing, stilted and mostly just incoherent gibberish. It is how our minds interpret the words that creates the images. No machine has been able to do that, at least not yet.

Spinning is done for no other purpose than building links. This is just another attempt to defeat the intent of providing quality information to the public. It adds nothing to the value of the original article. Neither does it add to the general knowledge, education or entertainment of the public.

Spinning is producing a web full of garbage. Some spinner vendors claim that they can produce hundreds of articles from the original. No doubt they can. They certainly don’t claim that any of them are readable.

Here is an example taken from an article found on a major article directory:

“…Speaking normally into the camera will result in a painfully flat, dull delivery lively you think you need to be, Pick key words in your script and fling them out whilst rolling yours, not quite looking to be a scenery chewing do need to over-egg the pud a simple trick is to put a big smile on to talk — it not only looks engaging, but face into a shape that makes re expressive too.”

Isn’t it refreshing to read a newly spun article? Access any article directory (except this one, of course) and you will find hundreds of examples like this. It took me all of three seconds to locate this article. It was the first I located under the ‘Marketing’ section. I don’t know about you, but I certainly would not feel proud of having my signature on the bottom of that. I guess I have always been plagued by the curse of integrity.

Article directories are getting stuffed with this ****. Even though many have humans review the articles before publication, the sheer volume of production limits how much can be done by hand. I have seen the most incredible things listed. It is certainly degrading the quality of the internet.

It is possible that the SEs already discount or even block links from fake directories or spun articles. I have noticed that most of the articles I see come from PR-0 pages. Or maybe that is just reflecting the quality of my articles. PR may not be much of an indicator these days, but it is the most visible measurement of success we have.

Are we spinning ourselves into the Dumpster? Hopefully not. In time I am sure the spinning era too will pass and we will have newer algorithms that can differentiate between an original article and one generated by artificial means. Hopefully it will not mean that we have a machine critiquing the quality of our articles. Makes one shudder to think of it.

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