Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nice try, Ask.com employee.
What makes you think that he is an Ask.com employee?
Ironically, "Nice try, x" is a Reddit meme itself.
Ask.com buys About.com for $300M
31–40 of 42 posts
Re: Ask.com buys About.com for $300M
#32All this hate for about.com just goes to show how much of a bubble some of you guys' internet activity exists in. As far as "content farms" go, they are very good at what they do. The quality of their articles have always been very well done (for the information I was looking for). I never got the feeling of landing on an SEO spammer site when I landed about.com. Actually, I used to spend quite a lot of time on about…
Agreed. It's pretty much my go to web resource for entertaining. A fairly good curated selection of recipes, good explanations of flavor combinations, good crafts, theme ideas, and everything else. Lots of the sites with reader contribution end up being pretty awful.
Re: Ask.com buys About.com for $300M
#33All this hate for about.com just goes to show how much of a bubble some of you guys' internet activity exists in. As far as "content farms" go, they are very good at what they do. The quality of their articles have always been very well done (for the information I was looking for). I never got the feeling of landing on an SEO spammer site when I landed about.com. Actually, I used to spend quite a lot of time on about…
I agree. About.com has a lot of decent "here's the basics" and "how-to" type articles. I don't even understand why it's seen as a content farm, since their contributors are of better quality than say those who write articles on AOL.
About.com was nuked out of google serps, because it has terrible usability statistics:
- high bounce rate
- 90%+ search engine traffic vs direct visits
(even though they buy traffic from other (cheap) sources)
- very low time spent on site
- very low returning visitors ratio
Website called as "content farm" and poor usability stats, coincidence or..?
Re: Ask.com buys About.com for $300M
#34All this hate for about.com just goes to show how much of a bubble some of you guys' internet activity exists in. As far as "content farms" go, they are very good at what they do. The quality of their articles have always been very well done (for the information I was looking for). I never got the feeling of landing on an SEO spammer site when I landed about.com. Actually, I used to spend quite a lot of time on about…
>Think reddit without the childish memes and BS. I agree, however, for simple answers I've had some very good luck on r/explainlikeimfive. If anyone here hasn't seen that subreddit I suggest taking a look at it. There are plenty of things that I had no idea about and someone can explain it very simply in a very short paragraph, compared to a wall of text that other places might provide (assuming I just want a simple…
I didn't mean to imply any hate towards reddit in my original post. While the quality of some parts is questionable, reddit is undoubtedly a hub filled with great content and knowledgeable people. Amazingly interesting and insightful posts await those who are willing to dig for it. My reddit addition is just as strong as anyone's.
Re: Ask.com buys About.com for $300M
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. About.com has a lot of decent "here's the basics" and "how-to" type articles. I don't even understand why it's seen as a content farm, since their contributors are of better quality than say those who write articles on AOL.
About.com was nuked out of google serps, because it has terrible usability statistics: - high bounce rate - 90%+ search engine traffic vs direct visits (even though they buy traffic from other (cheap) sources) - very low time spent on site - very low returning visitors ratio Their website design is quite pretty, yet the awful usability stats. Website called as "content farm" and poor usability stats, coincidence or..…
Web analyst here. Those stats make About sound fantastic, as a matter of fact. There is no such thing as a universal "usability" metric, and everything is relative to the site and its goals and use cases. For About, those statistics are exactly what you would expect if the site is doing its job well.
The use case for About is you have a specific question, and you find a page that answers it. If the page actually answers your question (i.e., the site is doing its job), then you will have no need to view other pages, so your bounce rate will look high. If it answers the question succinctly and efficiently, your time spend on that page will be low. And if your problem is actually solved, you won't have to come back. And lo, that is actually what we see.
If About isn't doing its job, then there are two common "failure" scenarios. The first is they spend a bunch of time on the site, trying to find the info they're looking for. The second is that they exit the site and go back to Google. The first failure scenario has a higher "usability" score that the success scenario; the second failure scenario actually looks pretty much identical to the success scenario. Google could distinguish between the two by seeing whether users come back or not; you didn't provide that data, so I can't tell.
About.com is not a content site the same way as a news site or a blog. If you judge it by metrics suited for such a site, it will appear lacking. If you judge it by its own goal, it might actually be succeeding (but you need more data to tell for sure).
Re: Ask.com buys About.com for $300M
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
this is exactly my thoughts. I feel like they haven't been as prevalent as they were in results a while ago when searching.
About.com got hit pretty hard by the Panda algorithm change - they have definitely been less prevalent in search recently, although they still appear to be reasonably profitable. As far as content farms go, they're one of the better ones? (since they basically invented the space, and demand etc. took it to new depths of pathetic content)
machine generated "content" must be profitable, no suprise here
Re: Ask.com buys About.com for $300M
#37I am amazed Ask.Com is making enough money to fund a 300M purchase... who uses Ask.Com????
Re: Ask.com buys About.com for $300M
#38I am amazed Ask.Com is making enough money to fund a 300M purchase... who uses Ask.Com????
Oh just saw the other comments about the parent and its other subsidiaries.
Re: Ask.com buys About.com for $300M
#39Its funny when you think about it because you never realize how important that site is for many people who aren't as savvy as the rest of you all.
Gotta remember that for every person who uses the web, there is someone who knows even less about it.
There is a niche for everyone. Literally.
Re: Ask.com buys About.com for $300M
#40All this hate for about.com just goes to show how much of a bubble some of you guys' internet activity exists in. As far as "content farms" go, they are very good at what they do. The quality of their articles have always been very well done (for the information I was looking for). I never got the feeling of landing on an SEO spammer site when I landed about.com. Actually, I used to spend quite a lot of time on about…
I'd agree with this -- if I do a google search for something pretty general and get the typical array of search results, I'll always check out about.com result before any similar site.
Because they actually do their job and provide good answers a decent percentage of the time; and generally feel less spammy/scammy than most sites.