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What it's like to write for content farms, from Brooklyn to the Philippines

hopesandfears.com

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Re: What it's like to write for content farms, from Brooklyn to the Philippines

#11

Post by sandworm101 »

benologist wrote: post #8
sandworm101 wrote: post #2

Who reads all this content-mill fluff? I regularly write for trade journals in the legal field and cannot conceive churning out worthwhile articles in less than a day, much less hours. Is it all clickbait junk? How many of the articles here on HN come from such mills?

Almost every startup blog we see on HN is a content farm packed with contrived content targeting this/similar communities and brought to us by accounts that only exist to promote themselves on HN. Some of them are regulars on the front page - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=githubengineering.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=fogcreek.com etc

That's it. HN is dead. I am glad to see most of those went away without comment, but am shocked to see so many be picked up.

Re: What it's like to write for content farms, from Brooklyn to the Philippines

#12

Post by DaveWalk »

benologist wrote: post #8
sandworm101 wrote: post #2

Who reads all this content-mill fluff? I regularly write for trade journals in the legal field and cannot conceive churning out worthwhile articles in less than a day, much less hours. Is it all clickbait junk? How many of the articles here on HN come from such mills?

Almost every startup blog we see on HN is a content farm packed with contrived content targeting this/similar communities and brought to us by accounts that only exist to promote themselves on HN. Some of them are regulars on the front page - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=githubengineering.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=fogcreek.com etc

Great find with plain evidence. Does HN have an official stance on promotional accounts? (Paging dang?)

Anecdotal experience makes me think this is a problem on any submission-driven site.

Re: What it's like to write for content farms, from Brooklyn to the Philippines

#13

Post by austenallred »

I haven't done it in a long time (thank heavens), but I used to write a lot of garbage as a way to afford vagabonding around China and generally avoiding real life. I would get paid $10 for 500 words of utter garbage, mostly for SEO purposes. It could be about almost anything, it just had to be well-written (no grammar errors), include a smattering of keywords in very specific locations, and had to meet a length requirement.

Eventually I started outsourcing my writing to stay-at-home moms with English degrees and one of my friends who would trip on acid and pound out three articles an hour.

On the surface it was good money; writing comes naturally to me and I could easily make $30/hour, which was good money for someone sitting on a train in China. But eventually it starts to wear on you. Especially knowing that you're not providing any real value and your entire purpose is basically to trick an algorithm, it just burns you out very quickly.

It's still not ideal for quality content, but at least now the algorithm we're all trying to trick is a mostly human one. I hate Buzzfeed clickbait as much as the next person, but it's still better than filling up the Internet with endless spam.

Re: What it's like to write for content farms, from Brooklyn to the Philippines

#14

Post by romaniv »

sparkzilla wrote: post #6

I think it's sad that so much of this is driven by SEO -- a desire to satisfy an algorithm -- rather than to make good quality human readable content in its own right. In a desire to get on the front page of Google so much useless content is being created, and the content itself is tainted by the inclusion of keywords. This is because, as the article mentions, Google's algorithm can't tell a quality article from one…

Your comment highlights the shift in perception of search engines between around a decade ago and now. In the past "search" was something people did, while search engine was a tool that helped them. Right now "search" is something Google does. Human, on the other hand, are seen more like a passive recipients of information.

My point is, Google's algorithms do not need to tell the difference between good and bad articles. They need to give users tools for effectively filtering out the garbage they don't want to see. As far as I can tell, Google does not even try to provide that. Instead, they have a mysterious algorithm that's supposed to feed you the "right" results if if it knows who you are.

Re: What it's like to write for content farms, from Brooklyn to the Philippines

#15

Post by stevesearer »

austenallred wrote: post #13

I haven't done it in a long time (thank heavens), but I used to write a lot of garbage as a way to afford vagabonding around China and generally avoiding real life. I would get paid $10 for 500 words of utter garbage, mostly for SEO purposes. It could be about almost anything, it just had to be well-written (no grammar errors), include a smattering of keywords in very specific locations, and had to meet a length requ…

Not adding value definitely wears on me too.

In the early years of my site, I would have people submit photos of offices to be published and then I'd riff on them for a few hundred words and add a title of "X Company's Amazing NYC Offices".

It all started sounding the same after hundreds of posts so I began requiring the architects to submit a brief explaining the project and found that what they wrote was 1000% more valuable that anything I could write. Post titles changed from being clickbaity fluff to 'Company Name - Location'. Instead of the actual content portion being the value I'm trying to add personally, my goal has been to have the value be in my curation skills.

Now that I've been at it for a long time, I can add value in other ways like adding new tools for readers to interact with the content as well as writing high-level trend pieces on what I'm seeing in the industry.

Re: What it's like to write for content farms, from Brooklyn to the Philippines

#16

Post by eevilspock »

austenallred wrote: post #13

I haven't done it in a long time (thank heavens), but I used to write a lot of garbage as a way to afford vagabonding around China and generally avoiding real life. I would get paid $10 for 500 words of utter garbage, mostly for SEO purposes. It could be about almost anything, it just had to be well-written (no grammar errors), include a smattering of keywords in very specific locations, and had to meet a length requ…

Just like the ecosystem and the economy and any other system, it's all about feedback loops.

Unfortunately the web today is dominated by a very sick feedback loop driven by perverse incentives. You were being paid to write garbage. You and whoever paid you profited by that. Clearly the incentives are wrong and the invisible hand of the free market is no where to be seen. Why? Because the free market works when consumers are the customers. Not when we are the product.

Re: What it's like to write for content farms, from Brooklyn to the Philippines

#17

Post by littletimmy »

austenallred wrote: post #13

I haven't done it in a long time (thank heavens), but I used to write a lot of garbage as a way to afford vagabonding around China and generally avoiding real life. I would get paid $10 for 500 words of utter garbage, mostly for SEO purposes. It could be about almost anything, it just had to be well-written (no grammar errors), include a smattering of keywords in very specific locations, and had to meet a length requ…

Not to pry, but how did you get into it? Where does one start?

I'd like to do something like that for some time.

Re: What it's like to write for content farms, from Brooklyn to the Philippines

#18

Post by vijayr »

stevesearer wrote: post #15
austenallred wrote: post #13

I haven't done it in a long time (thank heavens), but I used to write a lot of garbage as a way to afford vagabonding around China and generally avoiding real life. I would get paid $10 for 500 words of utter garbage, mostly for SEO purposes. It could be about almost anything, it just had to be well-written (no grammar errors), include a smattering of keywords in very specific locations, and had to meet a length requ…

Not adding value definitely wears on me too. In the early years of my site, I would have people submit photos of offices to be published and then I'd riff on them for a few hundred words and add a title of "X Company's Amazing NYC Offices". It all started sounding the same after hundreds of posts so I began requiring the architects to submit a brief explaining the project and found that what they wrote was 1000% more…

Your site is quite interesting. I don't understand one thing though - don't you need permission to post photos of someone's office?

Re: What it's like to write for content farms, from Brooklyn to the Philippines

#19

Post by austenallred »

littletimmy wrote: post #17
austenallred wrote: post #13

I haven't done it in a long time (thank heavens), but I used to write a lot of garbage as a way to afford vagabonding around China and generally avoiding real life. I would get paid $10 for 500 words of utter garbage, mostly for SEO purposes. It could be about almost anything, it just had to be well-written (no grammar errors), include a smattering of keywords in very specific locations, and had to meet a length requ…

Not to pry, but how did you get into it? Where does one start? I'd like to do something like that for some time.

I started out playing with eBay searches to be able to flip stuff (made really, really good money). That turned into SEO, but I didn't want to do "full stack" SEO and thought I wanted to be a writer. I'm not sure it's around or necessary anymore; Google is a little bit smarter. Now it's more manipulating social or creating linkbait.

Re: What it's like to write for content farms, from Brooklyn to the Philippines

#20

Post by stevesearer »

vijayr wrote: post #18
stevesearer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not adding value definitely wears on me too. In the early years of my site, I would have people submit photos of offices to be published and then I'd riff on them for a few hundred words and add a title of "X Company's Amazing NYC Offices". It all started sounding the same after hundreds of posts so I began requiring the architects to submit a brief explaining the project and found that what they wrote was 1000% more…

Your site is quite interesting. I don't understand one thing though - don't you need permission to post photos of someone's office?

The photos are taken by the architect or designer who have permission to share/publish them. They are oftwn taken after the construction is completed and before the company moves in fully.

That said there are many office design projects which are not allowed to be published and are photographed for internal use only.

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