Ask HN: What Is the Purpose of Publishing a Nonsense CG Article?

#1

Post by soupysoupysoup » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:51 AM UTC

A "recent news" article referencing the defunct "Sports Authority" caught my attention today. The entire text appears to be computer generated nonsense. Is there a business case for publishing this?

Article for reference: https://medium.com/@f3eulca622/15-reasons-why-you-shouldnt-ignore-baltimore-ravens-super-bowl-apparel-at-sports-authority-cheap-2b1a1166dc60

Re: Ask HN: What Is the Purpose of Publishing a Nonsense CG Article?

#2

Post by MattGaiser » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 11:00 AM UTC

I am guessing that it is mostly SEO spam? to get people to go to the jersey websites?

Re: Ask HN: What Is the Purpose of Publishing a Nonsense CG Article?

#3

Post by jamil7 » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 11:04 AM UTC

Welcome to modern "content marketing". It's just the latest way to game SEO, pump out semi-automated or completely automated "content" and backlink to your site.

Re: Ask HN: What Is the Purpose of Publishing a Nonsense CG Article?

#4

Post by indoorskier » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 11:25 AM UTC

As others have said, this is all for SEO - quick "content marketing". With the advance of AI this is only going to get worse. There's a whole cottage industry of companies that generate posts and even entire youtube videos given a few keywords or a paragraph of text. They will probably be the only real winners from this.

Re: Ask HN: What Is the Purpose of Publishing a Nonsense CG Article?

#5

Post by liberia » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

There are private tools people use to do content marketing en masse. This has been going on for some time. Yet the best content is handmade and doesn’t use automated tools.