♪ [music] ♪ Welcome back to the series
Sustainable Monetized Websites, a series for online content creators and content managers who also handle monetization. I'm Aurora. I work in Policy Education
for Publishers at Google. These are my two cohosts, – Organica…
– Organica. …and Monetized. In this episode, we will talk about why it is important to have good, quality content. Let me start by saying: provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason
to regularly visit your site. Google may classify pages
that have thin content with little or no added value as low quality. I'll talk about four types
of low-quality content that will impact how your site does, both in your organic search as well as in your monetization strategy. First, automatically generated
or auto-generated content. This is programmatically
generated content. In cases where its intention
is to manipulate search rankings and not help users, Google may take algorithmic
or even manual actions on it.
Organica, give us some examples. Text that makes no sense to the reader but that contains search keywords, low-quality translations
by automated tools with no curation before publishing, stitching or combining content from different web pages without adding any sufficient value. Second, thin affiliate pages. There are many great sites
monetized with affiliate links that add value. For example, by offering
original product reviews, ratings, or product comparisons. If you participate
in an affiliate program, make sure you differentiate
your site from the rest. Unique, high-quality, and relevant content provides value to users and distinguishes your site from others, making it more likely to rank well in Google Search results.
However, thin affiliate websites do not provide additional value for users. These sites are often templates with replicated or similar content. Thin affiliates create
a frustrating user experience, and they're not useful for our users. Thin affiliate sites
consisting of content that appears in many other places on the web may be negatively perceived
by search engines and users alike. What can you do
to help your site stand out and differentiate from others? Ask yourself: Why would a user want
to visit my site first rather than visiting
the original merchant directly? Make sure your site adds value beyond simply republishing content from the original merchant.
Avoid making the affiliate program the central part
of the content of your site. Move your unique and exciting features into the foreground, such as information about price
or product category. Ensure your affiliate program matches the product category
of your audience. The story goes this way: the better the affiliate program
fits your site's content, the more value it will add, and thus, the more likely you will be to make money from the program. Use your website to build a community among your users. Regularly create unique
and valuable content that your frequent users will care about; this will help build a loyal readership and can also create
a source of information on the subject you're writing about. Keep your content updated and relevant. Fresh, on-topic information is more useful to users and, in turn, is compelling
for search engines to keep up to date
in their search results, too. A third type of low-quality content is replicated content from other sources. You can learn more about it on the replicated or duplicated content and what to do with it episode in this series. Fourth, doorway pages. These are sites or pages
created with minimal unique content meant to focus on specific keywords.
They're bad for users because they don't provide unique value and end up taking the user
to essentially the same destination. Sometimes, they also lead users
to intermediate pages that are not as useful
as the final destination. They're made just for search engines with little or no original content. Search de-prioritizes them. Publisher networks, such as AdSense, have policies requiring original content, and they're generally
a waste of everybody's time, including the publisher's time. Organica, give us some examples
of doorway pages, please. Having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page; pages generated to funnel visitors into the actual, usable,
or relevant portion of your site or sites.
So remember, make sure your site provides unique and relevant content to your users. Although monetized and organic content work in different ways, sites that don't meet the monetization
and organic search guidelines may be removed from the Search index and have their ads disabled. In the next episode, we will deep dive
into user-generated content and building your community. Subscribe to this channel so that you don't miss anything. Don't forget to like and share this video, and leave a comment if you have any cool topic suggestions for future episodes.
Until the next time. Goodbye. ♪ [music] ♪ [Aurora] Good?.
