Matt Cutts and Curated Content -- something is confusing here...
-
Okay, I read an interview somewhere this week where Matt Cutts said he didn't care much for curated content. Today I searched on that subject and came up with the following video of his:
So, in the video he is going along and saying not to just grab content and repost it. And then at around minute 3:15 he says that, on the other hand, you can have a blog like DaringFireball.net and that's a good thing, because the blogger takes the time to pick and choose what he is posting.
I went to Daring Fireball to take a look, and I saw that he writes maybe one line of commentary, and then pastes in a big chunk of the curated content along with a link to the source.
This shocked me. How could Matt like that blog -- he keeps telling that he likes original not duplicate, curated content. So, the difference is that a blog can get away with this if they exercise discretion in what they choose to copy and paste? How the hell would the Google algorithm know what the intention of the blogger is?
And here I've been wasting my time writing up paragraphs and paragraphs to precede any excerpts I paste in, in fear of getting hit by Google.
I'd like to hear your comments on this.
-
DaringFireball.net must have very low time on site numbers though. There's nothing to read on that blog, and links take the user away from the site. It's just a weird example that he chose.
-
@ Bizzer - I don't disagree with what you're saying. The issue is more complex and isolating one factor (even a major factor such as duplicate content issues) is often very difficult to do if you are comparing small sites with very large ones such as Mashable of HuffPo. Mr. Cutts has avoided answering whether non-analytics data about time on site is a ranking factor. I believe it is. Many other factors favor larger "high authority" sites. Even if you select better material and make more useful editorial comments about it (as evidenced by better time on site), G is going to favor the larger sites.
-
Yes, that's the difference, but how does Google know unless they takes the time to read each site?
In a blog of mine, I'm taking care to rewrite my own take on various stories that appear on other sites, only sometimes even pasting in an excerpt. I discriminate in my selections. So, instead, is Matt Cutts saying that I could just save a ton of time by just making a sentence of commentary and then paste in an excerpt? I guess so. (Yes, I know my blog is better for readers if I do it as I am now, that's not the issue).
Still, he's contradicting himself on duplicate content. And I still think it's hilarious (and confusing) that Cutts used DaringFireball as an example of how to curate. I'd at least think he should have pulled a site as an example that maybe writes a couple paragraphs, then some excerpt and then maybe a closing paragraph.
-
I think the difference is making a site that just regurgitates content nondiscriminatory vs one that has staff or editors that pick through the best of the content and then re-post it.
Yahoo repost Mashable stuff all day long, Huffington post built their world off or regurgitated content. Whats more is most news sites pull content from the Associated Press, each organization then decides what to tell its viewers about or spin to their political or company agendas.
In this sense a News Corp, or Website is actively discriminating at what they post and wish to tell its viewers about.
That's about the only thing I can make of it.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is there harm in publishing too much content, at once?
We are working on catching up with some competition, who has done a much better job over the last few years with content creation. We normally publish 1 article a day but are looking at scaling that up to 3 to 4 articles a day so we can get our content out there to compete with the other websites, in keyword space we currently aren't in. Is there a negative impact on publishing too much content at once? Is there a negative impact on publishing too much content at once? Besides the probable inability to market all of it, I don't see any issues since we will be getting our articles indexed and out there for Google to start building value on them. However, some team members are apprehensive about doing too much at once. What are your thoughts Moz Community?
Content Development | | GoAbroadKP0 -
Content Writing - it should be for the main corporate site, blog or for social media?
Hi There, I have my main site : example.com and a related blog https://blog.example.com/ My management does not believe frequent content posting on the example.com My Queries 1- Will it help boost ranking of **example.com **if we share frequent content on our blog https://blog.example.com/? How much impact it has? 2- Every body says content is the king, Ok fine, but when you are not allowed to share it on the main corporate site, then where to share it? Blog and social media sites? please help. 3- We are in a business where clients do not bother to go on sites and read, so in this scenario is it correct to say that you hav to create the content for search engine consumption even when your clients dont need it/or have not in the habit of reading it? Hope somebody will enligten me caught in catch 22. Regards Tanveer
Content Development | | Sequelmed1 -
Ideas for content
Where do you get your ideas to create content for a blog? I have been using the new keyword planner and am not coming up with any ideas. We are an e-commerce site that deals with commercial equipment. It is hard for me to show anything interesting with products because the company does not own it.
Content Development | | EcommerceSite0 -
2 URLs pointing to exactly the same content
Hi guys As far as I know if you have 2 websites with exactly the same (100%) content with 2 URLs which are not pointing to any other URL should attract penalisation from google, right? well, there is such a case and it was online for long time but the bad guys are in top of organic search and it does not seem to bother google at all! I don't want to list them here; it is extremely annoying and frustrating as I worked hard to get in higher search but seeing this thing is extremely frustrating! any advice on this? thanks
Content Development | | photoion0 -
Duplicate content problem
Hi, i have a serious problem. I work in joomla and sometimes it can be annoying. When you set up a category, you need to give it a name and maybe this is a huge error on my part as i did not really think about the names beforehand. The situation i have now is, all my sections are in front page mode, but because you have to name the categories in order to write articles, i am now left with a load of blog sections such as http://www.in2town.co.uk/benidorm/benidorm-news Now i have a main section called Benidorm news so i have duplicate sections, i want to know if i can redirect the http://www.in2town.co.uk/benidorm/benidorm-news to go to the main benidorm section or if there is a better way of doing it. i have left this blod layout the way it is to show you, but the others i just have it where it shows the title and then goes to the article. I work in k2 and would be grateful if anyone can let me know the solution to this as semoz is showing that i have many duplicate titles and content many thanks
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Tools to Eval Blog Content - Rate your Fav tool
Ok, so I know that is has been covered in depth and at the risk of being sent to “google it!” (Which I have done with no success) I thought that I would ask your opinions on the topic. What are the best content marketing evaluation tools? By this I am specifically referring to tools that evaluate the content of Blogs, etc and not the performance of the blog, etc. I’m eager to hear your thoughts of what works and if you care to share what tools did not. Thanks
Content Development | | Questionmana0 -
WHAT IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE BUSINESS OF PRODUCING CONTENT
A lot of SEO is focusing on content these days and having unique blogs and articles. I understand how this would be great for a search engine, but doesn't that leave out businesses that are not there to make content but only want to advertise their services?
Content Development | | musillawfirm0 -
Content issue
Hi, Quick question; I have set up a micro site in which i was going to take some of the content from my reviews and recipes my customers have posted and have them placed on my other site. The site i currently have is a large site receiving over 200,00 visitors every day. Will this be affected as duplicate content if i was to do this as i do not want to affect my rankings. Any suggestions what i can do to get round this? Cheers
Content Development | | wazza19851