Online, everybody and their dog is a publisher. Some 700 million retailers, brand owners, corporate bloggers, media, and private users who want to reach online users as friends or as customers publish digital content. The resulting content explosion creates an intense competition for online visibility. In their quest to be visible on line, publishers have no choice but to produce more and more spam-like content optimized to meet the ranking criteria of leading traffic gateways: the few traffic drivers that dominate their category such as Google, Bing, the AppStore, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Amazon. This creates a rampant content inflation, a massive input of low-value-added content that worsens the content explosion. Optimized content can easily displace, and could even ultimately outgrow original content. I show concrete examples of how pervasive ranking-optimized content is and how difficult it is to draw the line between optimization and straightforward spam. On the contrary, optimization blends in. We must learn to live with it – which for businesses means having a real content strategy. Agenda Why publishers are force to (sort of) spam How they go about it - Publish or perish - Content farming - Too frequent updates - Social Hyperactivity - Spinning Unique Content - Automated Content The resulting content inflation Learning to live with it

1. FACING CONTENT INFLATION
Therese Torris
August 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

2. 700 MILLION ONLINE PUBLISHERS ARE
FORCED INTO (SOME FORM OF) SPAMMING
http://return-on-clicks.com

3. AGENDA
• Why publishers are forced to (sort of) spam
• How they go about it
• The resulting content inflation
• Learning to live with it
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

4. 1 IN 10 PEOPLE WW IS A PUBLISHER
• 200 million Web sites
• 170 million blogs
• 1 million eBooks on the Kindle
• 500 000 applications on the US AppStore
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
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5. PRODUCING MORE AND MORE CONTENT
15 billion new pages in Google’s index in 3 months
Source: Worldwidewebsize.com 2011
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
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6. RICHER CONTENT
More text, more pictures, sounds & video
Data source: WebSiteOptimization.com , 2011
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
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7. FASTER
• 60 million blog posts per day
• 140 million tweets per day
• 70 million hours of video uploaded
on YouTube per day
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
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8. USERS ARE OVERWHELMED
Consuming
content is like
drinking from
a fire hose
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

9. USERS RELY ON GATEWAYS TO FILTER, SORT & RANK
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
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10. LEADING GATEWAYS TAKE IT ALL
Network effects reinforce
Bing
the domination of a few 3,6%
Baidu
• Search engines
4,6%
Yahoo
6,2%
• App stores
• Social networks Google
83,6%
• Content Portals
• Marketplaces Global Search Market Share
Source: Source: marketshare.hitslink.com July 2011
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

11. TOP RANKINGS TAKES IT ALL
No traffic from gateways beyond the top rankings:
• First pages 36,4%
• Top 10
• Top 100
• Best sellers
8,9%
1,4%
• Top news 1st position First page Second page
on 1st page
Average Click-Through Rates On Search Result Pages
Source: Optify.net, April 20011
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

12. CONTENT VISIBILITY IS SQUEEZED
• Listed, or not
• Sorted into index’s
categories/taxonomy PageRank
EdgeRank
• Matched to Bestsellers
Top
• Search interpretation news
…
• Suggestion &
recommendation engines
• Ranked by algorithm
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

13. PUBLISHERS STRUGGLE FOR VISIBILITY
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com
acme.com me.com
acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com
Rakuten
acme.comacme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
Google
acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com
Amazon
acme.com
acme.com
acme.com
acme.comacme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.comacme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com
TwitterBaidu
acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com
Facebook
acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.comacme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com
blogspotiMDB
acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
eBay
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com
acme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com
acme.com
Yahoo! Aol LinkedIn
acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com
acme.comacme.com
acme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com
Wikipedia
acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com
acme.com acme.com acme.com
acme.com
Microsoft
acme.com
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
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14. PUBLISHERS HAVE NO CHOICE
BUT TO CREATE CONTENT « OPTIMIZED »
FOR GATEWAY RANKINGS
http://return-on-clicks.com

15. OPTIMIZATION VS SPAM : A FINE LINE
• Publish or perish
• More
• More often
• Richer content
• Archive more
• Ubiquitous content farming
• Too frequent updates
• Social hyperactivity
• Spinning unique content
• Automated content
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

16. Publish or Perish
“If you want to remain top of mind you have to
find a way to converse much more frequently
than when you have big news.”
A. Handley & C. Chapman, Content Rules, 2010
http://return-on-clicks.com

17. Content Farming
“Content is Marketing. Adding customized
high-quality content from Demand Media is an
efficient way to drive growth for your website.”
www.demandmedia.com
http://return-on-clicks.com

18. Ubiquitous Content Farming
SEO changed the newsroom:
“Almost all of our posts are written, or should be
written with SEO in mind….”
Quote from HuffPost. Sources: niemanlab.com,
somescribblings.com, outspokenmedia.com
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19. Too Frequent Updates
Let’s make the list !
 New
 Last updated
 Most recent
 Top news
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20. Social Hyperactivity
“Keep engaging with others, and continue
creating engaging content to see your Klout
Score rise.”
www.klout.com
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21. Spinning Unique Content
“Quickly Generate Hundreds Of
Unique Versions of Your Articles
Using This Revolutionary Software!”
www.thebestspinner.com
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22. Automated Content
 Content curation
 Optimization
 Autopost
www.posterous.com
http://return-on-clicks.com

23. THE RESULTING CONTENT INFLATION
A chronic inflation
of spam-like, ranking-
driven content Ranking-driven
content
Original content
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

24. HASTENS OVERALL CONTENT GROWTH
Ranking-driven content
blends into content creation
and speeds the content
explosion
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

25. A VICIOUS GROWTH SPIRAL
• The more “optimized”
content,
the less effective
• The less effective it becomes,
the more is produced
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

26. OUT OF CONTROL
Optimized, ranking-driven content
• outsmarts controls such as Panda
• sucks up resources
• stifles creativity
• displaces and outgrows truly original content
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

27. EMAIL: DOMINATED BY SPAM
88%
Spam = 7.5 times
legitimate email
12%
Abusive emails Unaltered delivered email
Data Source Q4 2010 http://www.maawg.org/email_metrics_report.
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

28. CONTENT DOMINATED BY ‘OPTIMIZATION’?
10 x n billions of
visible pages
How soon could this
happen?
n billions
of visible pages
Spam-like, ranking-driven Original
content content
return-on-clicks.com 2011
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

29. DERIVATIVES CAN OUTGROW THE ORIGINAL
$680 290
financial derivatives
=10 times the real
economy
$65 610
$53 510
Financial Derivatives World Capital Base Gross World Product
(BIS est.) (CIA est.) (CIA est.)
Financial data from The Crushing Potential of Financial Derivatives, D. Haas, Oct. 2008,
www.themarketoracle.co.uk
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

30. LIVING WITH CONTENT INFLATION
http://return-on-clicks.com

31. FOUR STEPS
1. Stop fiddling around
‐ Ditch the blog and start a real content strategy
2. Manage your digital content assets
- Inventory your texts, sounds, videos
- Assess their customer engagement value
3. Reconcile content tactics and strategy
- Optimizing content for rankings
- Investing in longer term customer engagement
4. Empower your people
- Your marketing/content people -- not interns, not the agency
- Give them tools
- Let them set ROI targets & metrics
return-on-clicks.com, September 2011
http://return-on-clicks.com

32. Parting words:
Content was king. Now it’s
a tyrant who knows no mercy.
Therese Torris
return-on-clicks.com
ttorris@return-on-clicks.com