Google doesn't care about content anymore?

[nakamura]

Just came across something and I can't really believe it. There is one website in my niche, which start to rank really well for many different keywords, but this whole website contains of basically ONE article, but the author is just copying the same article over and over again and changes the keywords only.

...and by the way...this website is in German, but the content is translated with a translator. It is unreadable, it doesn't make any sense. It is just random words next to each other without any context.

How can Google rank this kinda website? Why would they even consider this "content" relevant?

I thought duplicate content hurts the rankings, but how comes he can rank with EXACTLY the same content over and over again, but just changing the keywords?!

In moments like this SEO feels like a fucking joke. This guy is literally putting no effort, but copy pasting his rubbish content every single day, but he starts to outrank websites, which are written in proper german and provide great content.

EDIT: Just checked his backlink profile. ALL his backlinks are from websites linking to his IMAGES. All the websites have the same structure. Most of them are error 404. Wtf.

 

[jamie3000]

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-loopholes/278093/

That article might interest you.

I also have a website that is 95% machine generated content making me a nice little $1300pm. Google isn't as smart as everyone thinks.

 

[Zbigniew]

I have not seen the exact same thing, but similar.

In Sweden I've seen some sites in the health niche that are fully machine translated. They rank for good keywords and they compete with national magazines and some heavy websites.

Content is pure garbage, I can't imagine anyone reading even the headlines. But since their link profile is shared with the US version of the site, they still rank and bank.

Good evidence that content is not king, but links are.

 

[nakamura]

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-loopholes/278093/

I also have a website that is 95% machine generated content making me a nice little $1300pm. Google isn't as smart as everyone thinks.

But always the same content? And by the way...thanks for this great share. Had a laugh at "is Google broken?"

 

[vin42]

This might not work for sites with US traffic in english.....might work for other languages....means the algorithm is different for different geographies I think.

 

[TheVigilante]

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-loopholes/278093/

That article might interest you.

I also have a website that is 95% machine generated content making me a nice little $1300pm. Google isn't as smart as everyone thinks.

Time to create a similar website lol

Btw any chance you can create a case study around this site that is making you 1k+ monthly???

Obviously without revealing your niche...

 

[t2van]

I think they struggle with non-English ranking as no doubt rely on a machine translation to figure out what's going on, on the page to see how it all fits?

So I suspect having something duplicated a few 100 times or translated with a machine is going to be much the same as KW stuffing back in the day.

I did see some blog post or a video a while back saying if your traffic is getting over 15% from a non-English (i.e English isn't the first language) speaking country it was worth translating that blog post or page using google translate as chances are it would perform very well..

 

[saurabhunde]

This might not work for sites with US traffic in english.....might work for other languages....means the algorithm is different for different geographies I think.

I have seen people earning $5000 pm with basically one article, different pages, same article used in my niche. Welcome to google seo.

 

[nakamura]

Its definitely a punch in the face for every webmaster, who is spending hours of research and writing articles.

 

[Geasy]

Its definitely a punch in the face for every webmaster, who is spending hours of research and writing articles.

I don't think it is. They have much higher conversation rate than the sites that use spun content.

Of course there are some niches where you can get by with spun content(especially foreign sites), but on the majority niches, you need to invest in content.

 

[Stan Fox]

TOP for this site won't last long for sure man

 

[topakins]

This might not work for sites with US traffic in english.....might work for other languages....means the algorithm is different for different geographies I think.

I second this. Where I come from, you can rank for hundreds of keywords with garbage content

 

[xcodes]

Content really matters for better user engagement on website.But when i use to develop the niches i had my own built spinners synonyms which makes fetched content readable and unique aswell.
And for google adsenes approval google really doesn't matters your content but to earn you need better content

 

[nakamura]

I don't think it is. They have much higher conversation rate than the sites that use spun content.

Of course there are some niches where you can get by with spun content(especially foreign sites), but on the majority niches, you need to invest in content.

Absolutely correct, but they are also getting more traffic in the first place.

TOP for this site won't last long for sure man

I wouldn't wonder if not.

 

[kristjan]

Its because foreign seo is a still a joke. I put up a website and get second-page ranking (sometimes even front page) the next day or whenever Google index my site. Point a link or two and bam, spot no.1.
I guess google doesn't care about foreign language that much.
And some guys from "Social signals lab" (Steven Kang, Kyle Roof, etc) did a test where they rank "Rhinoplasty Reno" with only lorem ipsum content, so go figure

 

[LilMosey]

Sometimes it happens yes. For example, my friend got accepted by adsense within 6 hours. And he doesnt have a single article. His site is made in wordpress and is linking towards a lot of copyrighted content. You must be lucky to get accepted that way i guess

 

[MyLead]

Right now google AI on searching is not perfect and it's sensitive to small things. Content will have bigger impact in the future updates. Right now it's better spend time on links.

 

[intiims1132]

TOP for this site won't last long for sure man

Churn and burn

 

[sjrichard68]

I've run into the same type of thing recently, it's interesting to say the least.

 

[zcldeapple]

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-loopholes/278093/

That article might interest you.

I also have a website that is 95% machine generated content making me a nice little $1300pm. Google isn't as smart as everyone thinks.

great, 95%machine
can you build up more backlinks to drive many traffic,?