1 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,800 Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 2 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:14,720 Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 3 00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:17,720 Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, 4 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:23,680 Speaker 1: and how the tech area for today's text stuff tidbits. 5 00:00:23,880 --> 00:00:25,680 Speaker 1: That's the new thing I'm doing on Wednesdays where I 6 00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:29,240 Speaker 1: do a shorter topic. I thought I would talk a 7 00:00:29,240 --> 00:00:32,760 Speaker 1: little bit about content farms and click bait, and I 8 00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:36,320 Speaker 1: think of these as kind of like cousins. So we'll 9 00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:41,040 Speaker 1: start with the concept of content farms. Now, to understand 10 00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:44,680 Speaker 1: how content farms became a thing, it's necessary to talk 11 00:00:44,720 --> 00:00:48,440 Speaker 1: about web advertising and search engines because those are the 12 00:00:48,520 --> 00:00:53,320 Speaker 1: two components that made content farms a viable business idea. 13 00:00:53,800 --> 00:00:58,880 Speaker 1: So here's the super short version of web advertising. Obviously, 14 00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:03,240 Speaker 1: it involves making deal with some sort of advertising entity 15 00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:07,280 Speaker 1: where that entity will give you money in exchange for 16 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:11,119 Speaker 1: allowing the entity to put up advertising on your site 17 00:01:11,160 --> 00:01:15,000 Speaker 1: in some way. Now, usually that money is actually contingent 18 00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:18,600 Speaker 1: upon some other criteria, not just that you allow them 19 00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:23,200 Speaker 1: to take up landscape, because that's just not good enough. 20 00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:25,840 Speaker 1: If no one ever goes to your web page, then 21 00:01:25,959 --> 00:01:28,319 Speaker 1: the ad is doing nothing. It's it's like if you 22 00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:31,400 Speaker 1: put a billboard up in the middle of the Sahara 23 00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:36,920 Speaker 1: desert where nobody goes. So web advertising quickly adopted a 24 00:01:36,959 --> 00:01:40,720 Speaker 1: few different models, and I'll give a few examples. So 25 00:01:40,800 --> 00:01:44,760 Speaker 1: one was just based on page views, so the advertiser 26 00:01:44,959 --> 00:01:48,200 Speaker 1: would get data about how many people had visited that 27 00:01:48,280 --> 00:01:51,280 Speaker 1: web page in a given amount of time, and they 28 00:01:51,360 --> 00:01:53,320 Speaker 1: might also get a little more data such as, you know, 29 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:56,600 Speaker 1: how much time the average person spent on the page. 30 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:00,600 Speaker 1: And generally speaking, the more people who visit, the longer 31 00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:03,480 Speaker 1: that they stay on a page, the more valuable the 32 00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:06,800 Speaker 1: page is uh and the more likely they are, obviously 33 00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:12,120 Speaker 1: to encounter or even perhaps act upon advertising. So you've 34 00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:14,239 Speaker 1: got a lot of different concepts wrapped up in here. 35 00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:18,760 Speaker 1: You would typically have a uh, you know, a per 36 00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:23,320 Speaker 1: thousand deal for views. So you might say like, okay, 37 00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:26,640 Speaker 1: well we'll pay you five dollars per thousand views this 38 00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:30,240 Speaker 1: web page gets, because that means one thousand times people 39 00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:34,240 Speaker 1: saw are at You also had the concept of how 40 00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:37,600 Speaker 1: much you could demand for those thousand views, right if 41 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:40,079 Speaker 1: people you know, if you could show that people come 42 00:02:40,120 --> 00:02:42,920 Speaker 1: to your page and they spend twenty minutes on it, 43 00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:45,839 Speaker 1: that would be phenomenal. That would be an incredibly long 44 00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:48,840 Speaker 1: time for someone to spend on a web page that's 45 00:02:48,880 --> 00:02:53,359 Speaker 1: not say a social network platform or something like YouTube. 46 00:02:54,280 --> 00:02:58,080 Speaker 1: Then you could demand higher prices for those thousand views, 47 00:02:58,120 --> 00:03:00,959 Speaker 1: whereas if people you would come to your page and 48 00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:04,440 Speaker 1: then almost immediately bounce, you would probably only be able 49 00:03:04,480 --> 00:03:07,400 Speaker 1: to get a small amount per a thousand views. So 50 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:10,040 Speaker 1: all of that factors in right. And of course there 51 00:03:10,080 --> 00:03:13,960 Speaker 1: are other advertising models as well, uh, such as ones 52 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,520 Speaker 1: that pay out not on page views but on user 53 00:03:17,600 --> 00:03:21,000 Speaker 1: actions such as clicking through the ad to go to 54 00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:24,840 Speaker 1: a related product or service page, or in some cases, 55 00:03:24,919 --> 00:03:30,160 Speaker 1: actually making a purchase following such an action, So like, 56 00:03:30,880 --> 00:03:33,040 Speaker 1: not only did they click through the ad, they bought something, 57 00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:38,080 Speaker 1: and that's where the revenue comes from for the person 58 00:03:38,120 --> 00:03:41,160 Speaker 1: who's allowing the ad to be on their page. So 59 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:47,360 Speaker 1: that forms the basis of making revenue on the web 60 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:50,800 Speaker 1: at that basic level. There are obviously many other ways 61 00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:54,680 Speaker 1: to do it, but generally speaking, the web advertisement side 62 00:03:55,040 --> 00:03:59,120 Speaker 1: is the revenue side. The search engine bit that's the 63 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:03,680 Speaker 1: discovery side, that's the opportunity, that's how you get the 64 00:04:03,720 --> 00:04:08,040 Speaker 1: people to your stuff. And if we get meta and 65 00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:11,440 Speaker 1: we start looking at web traffic, we can actually start 66 00:04:11,520 --> 00:04:15,240 Speaker 1: to see what people are looking for. And if you 67 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:18,320 Speaker 1: know what folks are looking for, then you can try 68 00:04:18,360 --> 00:04:20,680 Speaker 1: and meet that need. So there are a lot of 69 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:23,039 Speaker 1: web analytics out there where you can actually find things 70 00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:26,280 Speaker 1: like how many people searched for a certain term, Like 71 00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:29,440 Speaker 1: there's Google trends right where you can look and see 72 00:04:29,480 --> 00:04:31,680 Speaker 1: what people are looking for. And if a lot of 73 00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:34,279 Speaker 1: people are looking for something and there aren't a lot 74 00:04:34,320 --> 00:04:38,279 Speaker 1: of great options to go to to see that something, 75 00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:42,400 Speaker 1: there's an opportunity there. Well, this is interesting because you know, 76 00:04:42,480 --> 00:04:45,559 Speaker 1: I you can call me a content creator. I actually 77 00:04:45,640 --> 00:04:47,960 Speaker 1: don't like that term. I know a lot of people 78 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:53,440 Speaker 1: use it, but it seems so like, uh, robotic to me, 79 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:56,600 Speaker 1: Like there's no there's no humanity in the in the 80 00:04:56,720 --> 00:04:59,080 Speaker 1: terms content creator as far as I can tell. But 81 00:04:59,400 --> 00:05:03,520 Speaker 1: maybe I'm just projecting too much. Anyway, if you think 82 00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:08,200 Speaker 1: of someone who creates stuff on the web, they might 83 00:05:08,279 --> 00:05:11,119 Speaker 1: come at that from one of many different ways. Maybe 84 00:05:11,160 --> 00:05:13,240 Speaker 1: they they're doing it because they have a true passion 85 00:05:13,279 --> 00:05:16,520 Speaker 1: for whatever it is they do, and they just follow 86 00:05:16,600 --> 00:05:20,120 Speaker 1: that passion and that's why they're creating the thing they create. Uh, 87 00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:23,320 Speaker 1: that to me feels really you know, pure and lovely 88 00:05:23,640 --> 00:05:26,359 Speaker 1: and I love seeing those kinds of people on the 89 00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:29,719 Speaker 1: web and I love seeing them flourish. There are others 90 00:05:30,400 --> 00:05:33,480 Speaker 1: who they want to create. They don't have a specific 91 00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:35,720 Speaker 1: passion they want to follow, but they want to create 92 00:05:35,760 --> 00:05:38,159 Speaker 1: because they think think that's the way they want to 93 00:05:38,160 --> 00:05:40,040 Speaker 1: make a living. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm 94 00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:43,359 Speaker 1: not I'm not saying that this is lesser than So 95 00:05:43,760 --> 00:05:47,560 Speaker 1: they're not necessarily following their passion for any particular topic. Rather, 96 00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:50,760 Speaker 1: they are looking to see what topics are people interested in, 97 00:05:51,240 --> 00:05:54,200 Speaker 1: and then they go out to cover those topics in 98 00:05:54,320 --> 00:05:58,240 Speaker 1: order to meet that need. Like they think, well, why 99 00:05:58,279 --> 00:06:00,640 Speaker 1: can't I be the person to create this thing that 100 00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:05,360 Speaker 1: people want to see? And again, there's nothing wrong with that. Um, 101 00:06:05,400 --> 00:06:08,040 Speaker 1: it's just a different method of going about it. And 102 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:11,640 Speaker 1: I also don't know. I don't know. I consider myself 103 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:13,920 Speaker 1: more of the first category than the second category. I 104 00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:16,400 Speaker 1: don't know how sustainable that is over the long run, right, 105 00:06:16,440 --> 00:06:19,520 Speaker 1: I don't know if you would burn out faster if 106 00:06:19,560 --> 00:06:23,479 Speaker 1: you were just constantly trying to meet the the needs 107 00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:28,080 Speaker 1: of your identified audience. Anyway, this would mean that sites 108 00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:31,360 Speaker 1: what could do things like, uh, look around at analytics 109 00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:34,200 Speaker 1: and see that maybe people are looking for information about 110 00:06:34,200 --> 00:06:36,520 Speaker 1: how to, I don't know, hook up a toe hitch 111 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:39,880 Speaker 1: to a truck. I'm not giving that example for any 112 00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:42,839 Speaker 1: specific reason, but if you ask me about it in person, 113 00:06:42,839 --> 00:06:47,720 Speaker 1: I'll tell you the specific reason. Anyway, you then decide 114 00:06:47,720 --> 00:06:50,800 Speaker 1: you're gonna make a dash for creating an online resource 115 00:06:50,839 --> 00:06:53,880 Speaker 1: that at least claims to show how to hook up 116 00:06:53,920 --> 00:06:56,520 Speaker 1: a toe hitch to a truck. And you know that 117 00:06:56,600 --> 00:06:58,920 Speaker 1: since people are searching for it, they're bound to find 118 00:06:59,080 --> 00:07:02,320 Speaker 1: yours because you already saw that there's actually a lack 119 00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:06,640 Speaker 1: of resources out there. Now, remember this is like, you know, 120 00:07:06,920 --> 00:07:10,400 Speaker 1: more than a decade ago at this point, But creating 121 00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:14,680 Speaker 1: the piece not isn't that necessarily enough on its own? 122 00:07:14,760 --> 00:07:16,560 Speaker 1: Like that, you know, just because you wrote something doesn't 123 00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:19,960 Speaker 1: mean it's going to rank well. So you also need 124 00:07:20,040 --> 00:07:22,840 Speaker 1: to make sure that piece shows up pretty high up 125 00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:26,360 Speaker 1: in search results. So you practice something called search engine 126 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:30,320 Speaker 1: optimization or SEO, and you use a bunch of different 127 00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:33,160 Speaker 1: strategies to give your page a good chance to rank 128 00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:37,119 Speaker 1: high on search results on engines like Google. In fact, 129 00:07:37,400 --> 00:07:40,840 Speaker 1: you would probably only focus on Google because so much 130 00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:44,560 Speaker 1: search traffic goes through the Google engine. If the majority 131 00:07:44,680 --> 00:07:48,080 Speaker 1: of the people are using Google to search stuff, then 132 00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:50,480 Speaker 1: it just makes sense to focus your efforts there. You 133 00:07:50,520 --> 00:07:53,680 Speaker 1: wouldn't want to go and focus on smaller search engines 134 00:07:54,040 --> 00:07:56,400 Speaker 1: because even if you did well, you'd still only be 135 00:07:56,400 --> 00:07:59,240 Speaker 1: getting a fraction of the traffic that Google could send you. 136 00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:03,120 Speaker 1: So you focus on Google. Back in the day, Google 137 00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:07,240 Speaker 1: was actually you know, easy to gamify, easy, being in 138 00:08:07,320 --> 00:08:11,000 Speaker 1: quotation marks easier, I guess I should say, and uh. 139 00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:13,920 Speaker 1: And you know, most folks don't ever bother to go 140 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:16,600 Speaker 1: beyond the first page of search results. In fact, a 141 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:19,280 Speaker 1: lot of people never bother to scroll down below what 142 00:08:19,480 --> 00:08:22,600 Speaker 1: is called the fold. So if you know, whatever you 143 00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:26,040 Speaker 1: see on your on your page when you first do 144 00:08:26,080 --> 00:08:29,320 Speaker 1: a search result, anything below the bottom of the screen 145 00:08:29,360 --> 00:08:31,680 Speaker 1: that's called below the fold, it would require you to 146 00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:34,200 Speaker 1: scroll down to see it. A lot of people don't 147 00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:36,280 Speaker 1: even bother to do that. So you definitely want to 148 00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:39,200 Speaker 1: be in those first couple of results. If you can 149 00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:41,400 Speaker 1: get your article about toe hitches to rank up there, 150 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:44,480 Speaker 1: you're almost guaranteed to capture a ton of traffic from 151 00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:47,560 Speaker 1: the people who are looking that information up and through 152 00:08:47,600 --> 00:08:51,400 Speaker 1: web advertisements on your page about toe hitches, you can 153 00:08:51,520 --> 00:08:54,880 Speaker 1: generate revenue as more and more people come to the page. Now, 154 00:08:54,920 --> 00:08:57,800 Speaker 1: that's just one little topic. Obviously you couldn't make a 155 00:08:57,880 --> 00:08:59,880 Speaker 1: living off of that. But what if you could scale 156 00:09:00,480 --> 00:09:04,120 Speaker 1: that operation up like big time, Like what if you 157 00:09:04,160 --> 00:09:08,280 Speaker 1: were to hire dozens of writers at a pretty low 158 00:09:08,520 --> 00:09:12,120 Speaker 1: rate of pay. In fact, some content farms would outsource 159 00:09:12,240 --> 00:09:15,600 Speaker 1: articles to writers in countries like the Philippines, where it 160 00:09:15,640 --> 00:09:18,640 Speaker 1: wasn't uncommon for folks to make just a dollar an hour. 161 00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:22,200 Speaker 1: One person said she averaged between five and ten dollars 162 00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:26,000 Speaker 1: an hour writing articles and managed on average to have 163 00:09:26,040 --> 00:09:29,640 Speaker 1: an output of about one article per hour. But then 164 00:09:29,679 --> 00:09:32,000 Speaker 1: there are other content farms that would pay more by 165 00:09:32,040 --> 00:09:35,240 Speaker 1: the word, and that could range like three to five 166 00:09:35,320 --> 00:09:38,240 Speaker 1: cents a word, and that would be for the higher 167 00:09:38,280 --> 00:09:41,200 Speaker 1: paid writers. Of others who were entry level, they might 168 00:09:41,200 --> 00:09:43,360 Speaker 1: be getting a little bit of like a penny and 169 00:09:43,400 --> 00:09:47,480 Speaker 1: a fraction per word. So there is an incentive to 170 00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:50,079 Speaker 1: generate a lot of words, right, because that's how you're 171 00:09:50,080 --> 00:09:53,079 Speaker 1: getting paid. If that's the metric. So some would do 172 00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:55,960 Speaker 1: a per article basis, some would do an hourly basis, 173 00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:59,400 Speaker 1: some would do per word basis. In the United States, 174 00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:05,040 Speaker 1: in two simply hired the average content writer makes around 175 00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:09,240 Speaker 1: thirty four thousand dollars per year today. Uh. Now, keep 176 00:10:09,280 --> 00:10:12,240 Speaker 1: in mind we're also talking about era where content farms 177 00:10:12,280 --> 00:10:15,520 Speaker 1: are not nearly the thing they were a decade ago. 178 00:10:16,360 --> 00:10:19,360 Speaker 1: Thirty four thousand dollars is a hair under the annual 179 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:22,840 Speaker 1: median personal income for folks in America, so it means 180 00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:27,640 Speaker 1: you would actually be below the median for income. However, 181 00:10:27,679 --> 00:10:30,080 Speaker 1: I should add that this is from again a post 182 00:10:30,080 --> 00:10:34,120 Speaker 1: content farm perspective. Back in the content farm days, the 183 00:10:34,320 --> 00:10:38,800 Speaker 1: content writer average was probably a little bit lower. All right, 184 00:10:38,840 --> 00:10:41,640 Speaker 1: So let's say you can hire a bunch of writers 185 00:10:41,720 --> 00:10:46,360 Speaker 1: for really low wages, so you have a fairly low overhead, 186 00:10:46,679 --> 00:10:48,640 Speaker 1: and you know, maybe they make money on a per 187 00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:52,080 Speaker 1: article basis. Maybe part of their compensation is related to 188 00:10:52,120 --> 00:10:54,760 Speaker 1: revenue generated by the article, so that they get essentially 189 00:10:54,800 --> 00:10:59,240 Speaker 1: residuals if the article is really popular. That did happen 190 00:10:59,480 --> 00:11:02,679 Speaker 1: in the cont farm days, at least in some content farms. 191 00:11:02,760 --> 00:11:06,679 Speaker 1: It wasn't applicable to every writer for every content farm, 192 00:11:06,920 --> 00:11:09,640 Speaker 1: but it did happen. So folks who you know, managed 193 00:11:09,640 --> 00:11:12,080 Speaker 1: to hit on something that really did well, they could 194 00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:14,920 Speaker 1: actually potentially make money. A sort of a long tail 195 00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:18,680 Speaker 1: kind of revenue generator where over time they would get 196 00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:22,040 Speaker 1: residual checks, usually not a lot per article, but if 197 00:11:22,040 --> 00:11:23,880 Speaker 1: you write a lot of articles and several of them 198 00:11:23,880 --> 00:11:28,200 Speaker 1: are hits, it could be a nice little source of money. Well, 199 00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:31,479 Speaker 1: the goal is to build out a very large operation 200 00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:35,600 Speaker 1: with relatively low overhead, and you just churn out articles 201 00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:38,920 Speaker 1: based upon web traffic patterns. So it's not that you're 202 00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:41,800 Speaker 1: a website that has a focus, right. That would be 203 00:11:41,800 --> 00:11:45,720 Speaker 1: the the antithesis of a content farm, Like you wouldn't 204 00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:48,959 Speaker 1: typically find a content farm about a specific topic. No, 205 00:11:49,200 --> 00:11:54,040 Speaker 1: content farms would tackle anything and everything largely based upon 206 00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:57,560 Speaker 1: analysis of web traffic. They would flood the Internet with 207 00:11:57,679 --> 00:12:01,439 Speaker 1: tons of articles about stuff where there was a perceived 208 00:12:01,520 --> 00:12:06,360 Speaker 1: gap of information, which again represented an opportunity. The term 209 00:12:06,440 --> 00:12:10,960 Speaker 1: content farm frequently implies that the actual content on the 210 00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:15,000 Speaker 1: site in question is of inferior quality, that, in an 211 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:19,880 Speaker 1: effort to minimize costs while maximizing effect, writers spew out 212 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:24,840 Speaker 1: hastily written pieces, perhaps poorly researched, or even just playing 213 00:12:24,880 --> 00:12:29,760 Speaker 1: wrong or useless. Because the goal isn't to produce good work, 214 00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:33,040 Speaker 1: The goal is just to fill those niches in search 215 00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:37,079 Speaker 1: results in order to capture the traffic. This was all 216 00:12:37,120 --> 00:12:40,400 Speaker 1: about pouncing on opportunities that opened up through search, and 217 00:12:40,600 --> 00:12:43,400 Speaker 1: for the writers, particularly those who were paid on a 218 00:12:43,559 --> 00:12:47,679 Speaker 1: per article basis, the motivation was to write more assignments 219 00:12:47,720 --> 00:12:51,640 Speaker 1: to make more money. It was a machine for generating 220 00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:55,040 Speaker 1: substandard work. That's not to say that every piece written 221 00:12:55,080 --> 00:12:57,520 Speaker 1: for a content farm was bad, or that the people 222 00:12:57,720 --> 00:13:01,400 Speaker 1: writing for content farms were ad or sloppy writers. A 223 00:13:01,400 --> 00:13:04,319 Speaker 1: lot of them are quite good. But rather I mean 224 00:13:04,360 --> 00:13:07,079 Speaker 1: to say the nature of the business put very little 225 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:12,680 Speaker 1: emphasis on quality and a whole lot more emphasis on quantity. 226 00:13:13,120 --> 00:13:14,760 Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna take a quick break, and when 227 00:13:14,760 --> 00:13:17,200 Speaker 1: we come back, we will talk a little bit more 228 00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:27,840 Speaker 1: about content farms and then click bait. One thing I 229 00:13:27,840 --> 00:13:30,920 Speaker 1: didn't mention before the break is something else the content 230 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:35,400 Speaker 1: farms became notorious for, which was stealing content from other sites. 231 00:13:36,160 --> 00:13:39,160 Speaker 1: I mean, what's cheaper than paying someone to write an article, 232 00:13:39,400 --> 00:13:43,280 Speaker 1: taking someone else's article, stripping it of some details, and 233 00:13:43,280 --> 00:13:45,040 Speaker 1: then putting it up on your site. In fact, on 234 00:13:45,080 --> 00:13:47,520 Speaker 1: more than one occasion, I would come across one of 235 00:13:47,520 --> 00:13:50,200 Speaker 1: my own articles that I had written for house stuff 236 00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:53,079 Speaker 1: works dot com and I would see that my name 237 00:13:53,160 --> 00:13:55,880 Speaker 1: had been taken off the article, but it was definitely 238 00:13:55,920 --> 00:13:59,559 Speaker 1: my article, like word for word, not even you know, paraphrase, 239 00:13:59,640 --> 00:14:03,400 Speaker 1: but literally just copy and pasted and would even include 240 00:14:03,800 --> 00:14:07,600 Speaker 1: in many cases illustrations that came out of our office. 241 00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:11,079 Speaker 1: We had artists working in our office who would make illustrations, 242 00:14:11,360 --> 00:14:14,400 Speaker 1: and you would even see like how stuff works written 243 00:14:14,559 --> 00:14:19,560 Speaker 1: on the illustrations. In some cases, it was a blatant 244 00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:24,760 Speaker 1: case of plagiarism, and that in itself was difficult to 245 00:14:24,760 --> 00:14:26,960 Speaker 1: deal with because it was popping up all over the place, 246 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:28,680 Speaker 1: like it was popping up faster than you could take 247 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:33,600 Speaker 1: action on it. Now, this whole content farm strategy worked 248 00:14:33,640 --> 00:14:36,800 Speaker 1: for as long as ranking and search could be gamified. 249 00:14:36,880 --> 00:14:40,880 Speaker 1: As long as you could reliably get into those top 250 00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:46,120 Speaker 1: search results, then this was open season. Rushing to fill 251 00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:48,360 Speaker 1: the voids would pay off, with some sites ballooning to 252 00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:52,400 Speaker 1: thousands or hundreds of thousands of articles, and dozens of 253 00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:54,800 Speaker 1: new articles would launch every single day, all in an 254 00:14:54,800 --> 00:14:58,600 Speaker 1: effort to dominate search. There was no there's no even 255 00:14:58,680 --> 00:15:01,640 Speaker 1: pretense that these were sites that were trying to get 256 00:15:01,640 --> 00:15:04,520 Speaker 1: people to go to the site on their own and 257 00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:08,000 Speaker 1: then just kind of browse around. Everything on the site 258 00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:11,560 Speaker 1: was engineered to be something that would show up in search, 259 00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:16,840 Speaker 1: and that's how they would get their traffic. Now, I 260 00:15:16,840 --> 00:15:18,760 Speaker 1: want to also say this, when I work for How 261 00:15:18,840 --> 00:15:21,760 Speaker 1: Stuff Works, a lot of our traffic came in through search. 262 00:15:22,120 --> 00:15:24,240 Speaker 1: It turned out that a lot of people were finding 263 00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:28,640 Speaker 1: our articles through search, so we were benefiting from the 264 00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:32,560 Speaker 1: search stuff just like content farms were. We weren't operating 265 00:15:32,560 --> 00:15:36,720 Speaker 1: like a content farm. Heck, I would write when I started, 266 00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:40,720 Speaker 1: I think I wrote one article every two weeks because 267 00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:44,680 Speaker 1: I would have one full week to research and right 268 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:46,880 Speaker 1: a draft of the article, and I would turn it 269 00:15:46,880 --> 00:15:48,720 Speaker 1: in on a Friday, and I would have the following 270 00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:51,320 Speaker 1: week to revise that article, while I would start a 271 00:15:51,360 --> 00:15:54,840 Speaker 1: second article like the next new one. Uh and on 272 00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:57,920 Speaker 1: the second Friday that's when the article I had been 273 00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:02,040 Speaker 1: working on would go live on the site. So that's 274 00:16:02,040 --> 00:16:04,920 Speaker 1: not a content farm. Like a content farm is churning 275 00:16:04,920 --> 00:16:09,320 Speaker 1: out articles way faster with very little regard to the 276 00:16:09,440 --> 00:16:14,480 Speaker 1: quality of the work. This was great in the short 277 00:16:14,560 --> 00:16:17,320 Speaker 1: term for content farms that you know they were able 278 00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:21,360 Speaker 1: to to get this much traffic, like the fact that 279 00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:24,520 Speaker 1: they were able to gamify the system and to get 280 00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:27,880 Speaker 1: a bunch of writers to create hundreds of articles in 281 00:16:27,880 --> 00:16:30,560 Speaker 1: a short amount of time. It was a great way 282 00:16:30,560 --> 00:16:33,720 Speaker 1: to make money. Uh, it wasn't great, but it could 283 00:16:33,760 --> 00:16:37,440 Speaker 1: be good for the writers, depending upon you know which 284 00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:40,440 Speaker 1: outlets they were working for and what their pay rates 285 00:16:40,440 --> 00:16:43,560 Speaker 1: were for those are outlets. Uh. And it was not 286 00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:46,880 Speaker 1: great for everybody else because it would mean that you know, 287 00:16:46,920 --> 00:16:48,840 Speaker 1: you would be searching for something and you might land 288 00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:51,000 Speaker 1: on a page that, more likely than not, isn't a 289 00:16:51,080 --> 00:16:53,200 Speaker 1: very good quality for whatever it was that you were 290 00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:58,400 Speaker 1: searching for. And it was really really not great for 291 00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:01,160 Speaker 1: Google because Google was having to deal with the fact 292 00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:05,720 Speaker 1: the users were getting disenchanted after encountering so many garbage 293 00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:09,240 Speaker 1: articles that were ranking in Google Search. It was it 294 00:17:09,320 --> 00:17:13,040 Speaker 1: was making Google Search appeared to be unreliable because the 295 00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:18,080 Speaker 1: destinations you were going to we're pretty crappy. So in fact, 296 00:17:18,280 --> 00:17:20,760 Speaker 1: I guess I can talk about this now. Um way 297 00:17:20,840 --> 00:17:23,440 Speaker 1: back in the day, who I was still a writer 298 00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:26,320 Speaker 1: for how stuff works dot com, there was a point 299 00:17:26,320 --> 00:17:30,240 Speaker 1: where Google representatives actually reached out to me asking if 300 00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:34,359 Speaker 1: how Stuff Works might produce articles in specific areas because 301 00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:38,040 Speaker 1: the search engine needed to direct people to higher quality articles. 302 00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:42,760 Speaker 1: So they actually handed me a list of topics that 303 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:46,280 Speaker 1: they said we need we need better version articles out 304 00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:48,600 Speaker 1: there because the ones that people are finding are terrible. 305 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:52,080 Speaker 1: While the articles on how stuff works dot Com were 306 00:17:52,119 --> 00:17:55,560 Speaker 1: and are heavily researched, and the writing staff, like I 307 00:17:55,600 --> 00:17:59,520 Speaker 1: said that, you know, we mainly came from English degrees, right, 308 00:17:59,680 --> 00:18:03,639 Speaker 1: We all studied English lit or or something along those lines, 309 00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:06,639 Speaker 1: you know, and we all had backgrounds in research and 310 00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:09,600 Speaker 1: writing papers with citations and all that kind of fun stuff. 311 00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:12,320 Speaker 1: So Google is trying to push back a bit against 312 00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:16,439 Speaker 1: content farms and to touch base with more respected sites 313 00:18:16,800 --> 00:18:19,600 Speaker 1: to provide higher quality articles that wouldn't be such a 314 00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:23,120 Speaker 1: dragged land on when someone searched for those terms. Now, 315 00:18:23,160 --> 00:18:26,240 Speaker 1: that was potentially an incredibly valuable thing for me to 316 00:18:26,320 --> 00:18:29,760 Speaker 1: receive as someone who produces content. Uh, I mean for 317 00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:32,400 Speaker 1: a search engine to actually say, hey, just so you know, 318 00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:35,760 Speaker 1: folks are really looking for articles about this stuff, but 319 00:18:35,840 --> 00:18:38,760 Speaker 1: they're finding trash. That meant that there was this huge 320 00:18:38,800 --> 00:18:41,920 Speaker 1: opportunity to write better stuff. However, I have to say 321 00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:44,000 Speaker 1: a lot of the topics Google handed to us just 322 00:18:44,080 --> 00:18:47,199 Speaker 1: weren't really how stuff works material. I don't mean they 323 00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:50,160 Speaker 1: were like salacious or anything like that, just that they 324 00:18:50,160 --> 00:18:53,240 Speaker 1: were a bit too niche and mundane and like, there'd 325 00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:55,479 Speaker 1: be no reason to write a how stuff works style 326 00:18:55,640 --> 00:18:59,960 Speaker 1: article on most of those topics. So while it represents 327 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:04,680 Speaker 1: it an opportunity, we didn't actually really take advantage of it. Anyway. 328 00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:08,240 Speaker 1: Google would later revise its search algorithm to really deal 329 00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:11,520 Speaker 1: with this issue of junk articles more directly. Uh, this 330 00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:13,840 Speaker 1: was more than a decade ago. Like, in my mind 331 00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:16,280 Speaker 1: this happened maybe five years ago, but it's because I 332 00:19:16,320 --> 00:19:18,840 Speaker 1: have lost all concept of time. But no, it happened 333 00:19:18,840 --> 00:19:22,439 Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven when Google launched the Panda algorithm, 334 00:19:22,520 --> 00:19:26,080 Speaker 1: actually named after one of the Google engineers. Uh. The 335 00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:29,840 Speaker 1: purpose of the Panda algorithm was to promote high quality 336 00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:34,439 Speaker 1: sites over junk sites. So if you did a search 337 00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:38,440 Speaker 1: and results were coming up, the search algorithm would now 338 00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:43,239 Speaker 1: UH promote the higher quality sites over the lower quality ones. 339 00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:46,480 Speaker 1: They would rank higher in search. So if you look 340 00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:49,720 Speaker 1: for an article about I don't know chicken salad, whichever 341 00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:53,560 Speaker 1: site Google considered to be the most high quality would 342 00:19:53,600 --> 00:19:57,399 Speaker 1: rank highest. Sites Google identified as hosting thousands of low 343 00:19:57,480 --> 00:20:01,280 Speaker 1: quality articles would get punished by the algorithm UM, often 344 00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:05,639 Speaker 1: totally site wide. So even if that site hosted a 345 00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:08,439 Speaker 1: few really good articles and a lot of content farms 346 00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:12,440 Speaker 1: had really good articles. Even if it had really good articles, 347 00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:16,840 Speaker 1: if the site was mostly filled up with junk articles, 348 00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:20,320 Speaker 1: it was gonna get dinged across the board. So this 349 00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:24,800 Speaker 1: was a huge blow to content farms. Google also released 350 00:20:24,840 --> 00:20:27,800 Speaker 1: a blog post about the algorithm, explaining the criteria that 351 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:31,320 Speaker 1: they used to determine if a site merits the designation 352 00:20:31,320 --> 00:20:34,000 Speaker 1: of high quality, and it was stuff like, if you 353 00:20:34,040 --> 00:20:36,920 Speaker 1: went to the site and you read the article, would 354 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:39,520 Speaker 1: you feel like you could trust what the article had 355 00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:42,919 Speaker 1: to say or would the content and presentation of the 356 00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:47,480 Speaker 1: information make you distrust the article. It also looked into 357 00:20:47,520 --> 00:20:51,480 Speaker 1: stuff like whether or not experts or highly qualified writers 358 00:20:51,520 --> 00:20:54,280 Speaker 1: were contributing to the piece. A lot of content farms 359 00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:57,159 Speaker 1: gave little to no information about the people who are 360 00:20:57,160 --> 00:20:59,520 Speaker 1: actually writing the articles, so that would be a blow 361 00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:03,040 Speaker 1: against them. If the site contained a lot of duplicate 362 00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:07,320 Speaker 1: or overlapping article topics where you know, you're just blasting 363 00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:12,320 Speaker 1: maybe a hundred articles about towing, uh, that could ding 364 00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:17,359 Speaker 1: you pretty bad. Now. The Penguin algorithm would follow in 365 00:21:17,440 --> 00:21:20,199 Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, and that algorithm aimed at sites that 366 00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:24,399 Speaker 1: created what we're called unnatural back links. Now, I'm not 367 00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:26,280 Speaker 1: going to get into all of that, except to say 368 00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:30,520 Speaker 1: one of the factors that Google's search algorithm would take 369 00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:34,880 Speaker 1: into account back in the day was how many links 370 00:21:35,080 --> 00:21:38,840 Speaker 1: are aiming at a particular web page that pops up 371 00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:42,639 Speaker 1: for a particular search query. So again, let's say the 372 00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:47,960 Speaker 1: search queries chicken salad, and the Google algorithm starts crawling 373 00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:51,000 Speaker 1: the web and pulling all the different hits that relate 374 00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:53,640 Speaker 1: to chicken salad. One of the things that would look 375 00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:56,479 Speaker 1: at is say, how many other sites linked to this 376 00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:59,080 Speaker 1: page about chicken salad. If a lot of sites are 377 00:21:59,119 --> 00:22:01,840 Speaker 1: linking to this page age, then that seems to indicate 378 00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:04,360 Speaker 1: that it's a good page, that it's it's good enough 379 00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:06,720 Speaker 1: to convince other people, Hey, I'm gonna link to this 380 00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:11,280 Speaker 1: because it's worthwhile. And thus Google would draw the conclusion, 381 00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:13,600 Speaker 1: or rather the algorithm would draw the conclusion that this 382 00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:18,200 Speaker 1: must be a better result because a lot of people 383 00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:20,840 Speaker 1: are linking to it. But you could gamify that. You 384 00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:25,160 Speaker 1: can just create tons of back links to your individual pages, 385 00:22:25,800 --> 00:22:30,520 Speaker 1: and by linking to everything, you would appear to boost 386 00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:35,160 Speaker 1: this metric, and Google Search would then say, oh, this 387 00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:37,520 Speaker 1: must be a good article because look at how many 388 00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:41,040 Speaker 1: links are aiming into it. Penguin was meant to fight 389 00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:43,960 Speaker 1: against that. Penguin, as far as I know, was not 390 00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:48,240 Speaker 1: named after the Google engineer like Panda was, and eventually 391 00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:52,199 Speaker 1: both Panda and Penguin were mostly made moot when Google 392 00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:57,400 Speaker 1: launched Hummingbird. Now Penguin and Panda were kind of like 393 00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:03,040 Speaker 1: patching the search algorithm. Hummingbird was a total overhaul to 394 00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:07,040 Speaker 1: Google's search algorithm, and this was also the era where 395 00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:10,560 Speaker 1: you would hear about sites really taking a big hit 396 00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:14,000 Speaker 1: because they had been so dependent upon search traffic, and 397 00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:19,760 Speaker 1: when Google changed the way it handled search results, even 398 00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:24,439 Speaker 1: sites that were considered respectable and high quality ended up 399 00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:28,359 Speaker 1: seeing an enormous change in their traffic from search. And 400 00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:33,119 Speaker 1: when that's how you've based your entire mode of operations 401 00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:37,960 Speaker 1: for years, it's incredibly disruptive. It's also one of the 402 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:42,520 Speaker 1: reasons why people who have been in content creation for 403 00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:46,040 Speaker 1: a very long time stress the importance that you don't 404 00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:48,879 Speaker 1: put all of your eggs in one basket, right Like, 405 00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:54,159 Speaker 1: you don't put everything that you work on and have 406 00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:57,960 Speaker 1: it depend upon YouTube, because if you did, and Google 407 00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:03,480 Speaker 1: changes the YouTube algorithm and stops suggesting your videos to people, 408 00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,760 Speaker 1: who are interested in stuff that you cover. Well, then 409 00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:10,400 Speaker 1: suddenly you your videos just starting getting views anymore. Your 410 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:13,680 Speaker 1: traffic just dies. This has happened time and time again. 411 00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:18,719 Speaker 1: In fact, it happens almost cyclically. So this was kind 412 00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:22,240 Speaker 1: of a big reminder here the Google search changes. That 413 00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:26,679 Speaker 1: was a big reminder that depending upon a different party 414 00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:33,240 Speaker 1: and their performance to make your business work is incredibly 415 00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:36,000 Speaker 1: risky because if that other party goes out of business 416 00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:38,639 Speaker 1: or changes the way it does things, that has a 417 00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:42,720 Speaker 1: direct impact on you. It's crazy to me how many 418 00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:45,840 Speaker 1: businesses went through that and did not appear to learn 419 00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:49,600 Speaker 1: from that lesson. But anyway, Okay, we've got a little 420 00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:52,919 Speaker 1: bit more to say about content farms and than clickbait. 421 00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:54,880 Speaker 1: But before I get into all that, let's take another 422 00:24:54,960 --> 00:25:06,520 Speaker 1: quick break. Alright. So Google makes these changes to its 423 00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:12,240 Speaker 1: search algorithm, and immediately there's an enormous impact. Traffic to 424 00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:18,320 Speaker 1: sites like content farms dropped dramatically. For one UH company 425 00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:21,520 Speaker 1: that was known for making content farms also sometimes called 426 00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:26,879 Speaker 1: content mills, they saw drop in traffic across all their sites, 427 00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:32,840 Speaker 1: pretty pretty dramatic. Most people just weren't navigating to sites 428 00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:36,520 Speaker 1: like ehal and browsing. I mean again, like it showed 429 00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:40,760 Speaker 1: that the sites were not destinations on their own. Nobody 430 00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:44,280 Speaker 1: was typing in ehal dot com and going to it. 431 00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:47,600 Speaker 1: They were finding stuff through search, and when search stopped 432 00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:50,879 Speaker 1: suggesting it, the traffic really died out. So a lot 433 00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:54,159 Speaker 1: of those sites ended up shutting down. Not Ehal that 434 00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:58,439 Speaker 1: one's stuck around, but again their traffic was hurt pretty badly. 435 00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:02,760 Speaker 1: Now you don't here quite as much about content farms 436 00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:06,920 Speaker 1: these days, though you could argue they still exist, they 437 00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:12,120 Speaker 1: just evolved. Um, but you do hear about clickbait. That 438 00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:15,400 Speaker 1: term originated from a blog post written by a guy 439 00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:18,399 Speaker 1: named Jay Geiger back in two thousand six, and the 440 00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:20,320 Speaker 1: name pretty much tells you everything you need to know 441 00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:24,800 Speaker 1: about what clickbait is. It's something that you see that 442 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,359 Speaker 1: tempts you to click on it. It lures you in 443 00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:33,800 Speaker 1: like bait does on a on a hook. Now, maybe 444 00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:37,119 Speaker 1: that clickbait comes in the form of a provocative thumbnail 445 00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:42,959 Speaker 1: for a YouTube video, usually coupled with an equally provocative title. 446 00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:47,600 Speaker 1: Maybe it's just an outlandish headline for a news article. 447 00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,480 Speaker 1: Maybe it appears to answer a question that you could 448 00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:54,200 Speaker 1: have sworn has no answer, and the concept of clickbait 449 00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:57,240 Speaker 1: is of course, way way older than the Internet. The 450 00:26:57,280 --> 00:26:59,960 Speaker 1: same basic idea was used more than a century ago, 451 00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:04,680 Speaker 1: when various newspapers, most of which we're having some sort 452 00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:09,680 Speaker 1: of dubious reputation, would rely upon sensationalized headlines in order 453 00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:13,400 Speaker 1: to sell papers. So this was the era of yellow journalism. 454 00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:15,479 Speaker 1: And of course, back then the goal was to convince 455 00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:17,720 Speaker 1: people to hand over some of their money to buy 456 00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,240 Speaker 1: a paper. But the basics remain the same. You use 457 00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,959 Speaker 1: tried and true methods to convince folks to take an action, 458 00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:27,960 Speaker 1: even if that action, in this case is just clicking 459 00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:32,280 Speaker 1: through a link. This typically involves appealing to some pretty 460 00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:36,399 Speaker 1: basic human traits. Frequently I see clickbait used in the 461 00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:40,160 Speaker 1: context of a sort of bait and switch, that being 462 00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,760 Speaker 1: it's a thing that lures you in, and it turns 463 00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:46,280 Speaker 1: out that the thing that lured you in isn't actually 464 00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:50,359 Speaker 1: present in the thing you really encounter. Golly, I've seen 465 00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:52,920 Speaker 1: bait and switches a lot these days, and in fact, 466 00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:58,000 Speaker 1: they pop up in my Google alerts, which is really frustrating. 467 00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:01,439 Speaker 1: I've got an Android phone and I a little notifications 468 00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:04,000 Speaker 1: about stuff that I might be interested in. Those of 469 00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:07,359 Speaker 1: you who have listened to large Nerdroun Collider know that 470 00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:11,639 Speaker 1: I do a podcast about geeky pop culture stuff, so 471 00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:13,680 Speaker 1: I get a lot of geeky pop culture headlines that 472 00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:18,159 Speaker 1: pop up, including a ton that try to push me 473 00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:22,199 Speaker 1: towards sites that aren't actually news sites. There's one in 474 00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:28,680 Speaker 1: particular that's a YouTube channel that supposedly has trailers for 475 00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:32,760 Speaker 1: stuff well before anyone else does. Except they're not real trailers. 476 00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:36,800 Speaker 1: They're fake trailers. They're trailers that are cobbled together from 477 00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:40,520 Speaker 1: footage from other stuff and presented as if it's a 478 00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:46,720 Speaker 1: legit trailer for some either upcoming or even unannounced project. Uh, 479 00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:49,480 Speaker 1: and that's popping up in my notifications. That's definitely a 480 00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:53,680 Speaker 1: bait and switch. I've also seen things where people have 481 00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:55,640 Speaker 1: kind of taken a click bade approach to stuff like 482 00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:58,200 Speaker 1: a SMR videos. Now I've been watching a SMR videos 483 00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:00,800 Speaker 1: for a really long time. Law of time listeners will 484 00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:05,360 Speaker 1: remember I once interviewed a s MR artist, Heather Feather, 485 00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:08,400 Speaker 1: who hasn't been active in a few years, but was 486 00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,880 Speaker 1: one of the pioneers really in the a s m 487 00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:15,320 Speaker 1: R field back in the day. Well, a lot of 488 00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:19,360 Speaker 1: those videos now have thumbnails that are meant to be 489 00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:23,280 Speaker 1: extremely provocative in some way or another. Uh, some of 490 00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:26,800 Speaker 1: which are kind of sexualized, some of which appear to 491 00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:31,360 Speaker 1: suggest violence. It's kind of crazy when you think that 492 00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:34,720 Speaker 1: a SMR is really supposed to be about like relaxing 493 00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:39,960 Speaker 1: and and chilling out, and I see these videos like this. 494 00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:42,040 Speaker 1: This doesn't seem to be sending the message of chilling 495 00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,560 Speaker 1: out to me. But whatever. Anyway, a lot of that 496 00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,560 Speaker 1: just means that these artists are following one of are 497 00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:51,160 Speaker 1: seen to be best practices. They are the way to 498 00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:55,000 Speaker 1: get people to click. So it's not necessarily that they 499 00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:57,240 Speaker 1: want to do this, or at least not that they, 500 00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:00,240 Speaker 1: you know, set out to do this, but rather this 501 00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:02,479 Speaker 1: is one of the ways where you stand out and 502 00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:05,320 Speaker 1: you get people to click on your work and hopefully 503 00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:10,760 Speaker 1: enjoy it, even though the work may not be reflective 504 00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:13,320 Speaker 1: of whatever you use to lure them in the first place. 505 00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:16,720 Speaker 1: That's the danger, right If you feel that the thing 506 00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:20,040 Speaker 1: you are served is not the same thing you were promised, 507 00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:23,760 Speaker 1: you're likely to be a little upset. But I get it. 508 00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:26,560 Speaker 1: You know, traffic amounts to revenue, so you've got to 509 00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:28,880 Speaker 1: get folks in the door, and the Internet is a 510 00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:33,040 Speaker 1: vast treasure trove of content. Some of that content is 511 00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:37,200 Speaker 1: good or even really good, a lot of it's mediocre, 512 00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,560 Speaker 1: and some of it is really bad, and it could 513 00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:42,320 Speaker 1: be stuff. It would be really tough to stand out, 514 00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:45,480 Speaker 1: even if you are putting out great, great content, so 515 00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:47,480 Speaker 1: you've got to use all the tricks you can. It's 516 00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,400 Speaker 1: something I've never been particularly good at. Now. There are 517 00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:53,040 Speaker 1: a few other related things we can chat about briefly 518 00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:56,960 Speaker 1: that kind of fall into these content buckets, whether it's 519 00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,560 Speaker 1: content farm or click bait. A big one of those, 520 00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:03,600 Speaker 1: at least in my mind, are quizzes and galleries. You 521 00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:06,320 Speaker 1: don't see that as often. There's still some sites that 522 00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:09,280 Speaker 1: take the gallery approach, and I hate it, but I 523 00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:13,000 Speaker 1: understand why it's happening, just like I understand why quizzes 524 00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:18,600 Speaker 1: are so popular. So the reason why quizzes and galleries 525 00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:25,640 Speaker 1: are beloved by content farm like entities is that they 526 00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:29,960 Speaker 1: represent a potentially large number of clicks for a potentially 527 00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:33,720 Speaker 1: low investment. Like let's talk about a quiz. Let's say 528 00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:36,400 Speaker 1: a quiz is twenty questions long, but the way you 529 00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,160 Speaker 1: make the quiz is that each question is its own 530 00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:42,440 Speaker 1: little web page, and you choose like maybe it's a 531 00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:45,000 Speaker 1: multiple choice answer. You choose your multiple choice answer, you 532 00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:49,120 Speaker 1: hit next, and then you get the next question. Now, 533 00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,680 Speaker 1: in your experience, what you're doing is you're just answering 534 00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:55,360 Speaker 1: questions and getting the next one. But what's going on, 535 00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:59,000 Speaker 1: you know, from a business perspective, is that every single 536 00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:01,240 Speaker 1: time you're answering a question, jen you're loading a new 537 00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:03,320 Speaker 1: web page. Every time you load a new web page, 538 00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:06,560 Speaker 1: that's an opportunity to serve you and add and every 539 00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:10,120 Speaker 1: time you keep on going through those quizzes, uh, then 540 00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:12,720 Speaker 1: you start ranking up those page views. It's a great 541 00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:17,160 Speaker 1: way for page views to go through the roof very quickly. 542 00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,480 Speaker 1: If you write really good quizzes, and by good I 543 00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:24,560 Speaker 1: mean sticky, like people want to answer them. They'll go 544 00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:27,160 Speaker 1: on and they'll start taking the next quiz after they 545 00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:30,200 Speaker 1: get the first one, and they'll just keep on going 546 00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,480 Speaker 1: and those numbers keep on going up. So that is 547 00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:40,000 Speaker 1: incredibly attractive to websites that that host a lot of content. 548 00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:42,520 Speaker 1: It means that they, you know, if they're getting their 549 00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:46,280 Speaker 1: web advertising based on page views, then that's a way 550 00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:48,800 Speaker 1: to really drive those page views up. Same with galleries, 551 00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:51,240 Speaker 1: where it would be like a slide show where you've 552 00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,080 Speaker 1: got a picture and then you hit next. Well, it's 553 00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:56,680 Speaker 1: not just that it's reloading a new picture, right, You're 554 00:32:56,720 --> 00:32:59,640 Speaker 1: not just getting a new photo. That's actually counting as 555 00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:04,120 Speaker 1: a whole new page view. So from an advertising perspective, 556 00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:07,440 Speaker 1: you just went from someone who gave one page view 557 00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:09,680 Speaker 1: to two page views, and you keep clicking through those 558 00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:12,040 Speaker 1: page views goes up, go up and up. A lot 559 00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:15,400 Speaker 1: of content companies out there present their articles in a 560 00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:20,320 Speaker 1: slide show approach, which gets a little gross. Back at 561 00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:23,800 Speaker 1: how stuff works, we did galleries and we did quizzes 562 00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,960 Speaker 1: toward the end of my time at how stuff works, 563 00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:28,760 Speaker 1: not so much in the beginning. And the beginning it 564 00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:32,280 Speaker 1: was more articles. But even then we would arrange our 565 00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:36,320 Speaker 1: articles in pages. Uh. The idea being that it would 566 00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:40,360 Speaker 1: get kind of intimidating if the article was all in 567 00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,680 Speaker 1: one unbroken page, because you'd just be scrolling and scrolling 568 00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:47,640 Speaker 1: and scrolling, particularly for really dense topics. So we would 569 00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:52,600 Speaker 1: organize our our material by pages and we'd say, all right, 570 00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:55,880 Speaker 1: well we're gonna talk about one specific thing about this, 571 00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:59,560 Speaker 1: you know, in my case technology, I'm going to dedicate 572 00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:01,720 Speaker 1: a whole page each to this, and then the next 573 00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:04,320 Speaker 1: page will be the next part about this and the 574 00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:07,520 Speaker 1: pages were you know, they were long. They weren't. It 575 00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:11,400 Speaker 1: wasn't like a paragraph. Um. But we also gave the 576 00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:15,919 Speaker 1: opportunity for people to use the print article feature, which 577 00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,120 Speaker 1: wouldn't immediately send it to the printer, but it would 578 00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:22,080 Speaker 1: give you the full article in one page view and 579 00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:25,000 Speaker 1: you wouldn't, you know, click next page, next page, next page. 580 00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:28,480 Speaker 1: So we did give people that option. Um. But yeah, 581 00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:32,279 Speaker 1: like as we started doing things like introducing quizzes and galleries, 582 00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:34,680 Speaker 1: I got a little squeaked out by that because I 583 00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:36,399 Speaker 1: felt like it was almost like we were trying to 584 00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,440 Speaker 1: trick page views out of folks. I mean, they were 585 00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:43,280 Speaker 1: getting stuff too, like they were getting an experience as well, 586 00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,479 Speaker 1: but it never felt like it was in the same 587 00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:49,560 Speaker 1: spirit as the articles were. So I always felt uneasy 588 00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:54,160 Speaker 1: about it. Anyway. That's the whole story around content farms 589 00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:58,320 Speaker 1: and click bait from that conceptual level why they exist. Uh, 590 00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:00,920 Speaker 1: they can get really exasperating and you're a user, When 591 00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:04,960 Speaker 1: you're a consumer and you're just trying to find something good, Uh, 592 00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:09,239 Speaker 1: they get really frustrating. There are entire YouTube channels that 593 00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:13,040 Speaker 1: are just dedicated to churning out video after video after 594 00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:18,279 Speaker 1: video of crap content, sometimes misleading content, like it'll be 595 00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:23,680 Speaker 1: something that is fake but not expressed that it's fate, 596 00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:27,320 Speaker 1: so it's presented as true to the audience. I'm thinking 597 00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:29,960 Speaker 1: of a lot of cooking videos actually fall into that category. 598 00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:34,120 Speaker 1: In fact, how to Cook channel is fantastic because the 599 00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:37,840 Speaker 1: host of that channel, she takes time to go through 600 00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:41,080 Speaker 1: some of the viral videos in the cooking field and 601 00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:45,520 Speaker 1: talk about how those are misrepresenting what you can and 602 00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:48,520 Speaker 1: can't do with food. It's a fantastic channel, great for 603 00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:52,040 Speaker 1: critical thinkers. So I hope you enjoyed this. It was 604 00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:54,640 Speaker 1: gonna be a tidbit, but now I'm looking at my 605 00:35:54,719 --> 00:35:57,680 Speaker 1: recording and I'm already up to like thirty six minutes, 606 00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:00,239 Speaker 1: So this was a longer tidbit than I thought. It 607 00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:03,680 Speaker 1: just shows that I'm a chatter box. However, we'll be 608 00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,080 Speaker 1: back with more episodes of tech stuff throughout the week. 609 00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:08,439 Speaker 1: Tomorrow we should have a new news episode, and then 610 00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:10,960 Speaker 1: we'll have some new episodes next week. If you have 611 00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:13,600 Speaker 1: suggestions for topics I should cover on tech stuff, whether 612 00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:16,040 Speaker 1: it's a tidbit, maybe it's a topic in tech that 613 00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:19,160 Speaker 1: doesn't merit a full episode, but you're just curious about it, 614 00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:21,680 Speaker 1: you want to hear my thoughts, let me know. Or 615 00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:25,560 Speaker 1: if there's some trend in technology or specific company or 616 00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:28,480 Speaker 1: specific type of tech, anything like that that you want 617 00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:30,919 Speaker 1: to know about, you can let me know that as well. 618 00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:32,640 Speaker 1: The best way to get in touch with me is 619 00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:35,480 Speaker 1: over on Twitter. The handle for the show is text 620 00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,920 Speaker 1: stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again 621 00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:47,800 Speaker 1: really soon. Tech Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. 622 00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:50,840 Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i 623 00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:54,200 Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 624 00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:55,160 Speaker 1: your favorite shows.