Google have been busy slapping hundreds of black hat SEO types and a stack of white hats, too. Basically SEO as they knew it is dead. Now the focus is on the content and that needs to be quality content, not poorly written rubbish of 200 words or less, stuffed with keywords and basically making no sense to anyone, even the poor schlep who wrote it for a buck or less.

I feel for the writers of developing countries like Pakistan, India, the Philippines, Nigeria, Alabama and so on as the gravy train for them is coming off the rails. No longer can second rate composition and poor grammar be offered as an ‘article’. No more the scrapers and the blog networks set up solely to raise the ranking of sites at the expense of the reader. For all those SEO gurus who just wanted tons of content to fill out a place to advertise and sell from, the game is over.

Content must not only be of a decent standard, it also has to be relevant. Google and other search engines are ranking differently now. They are presenting searchers with results based on relevancy, not just how many back links the site has bought or how many times the keyword is stuffed in the text. I feel vindicated as I have always railed against those spinner programs. I have understood that there is a market for poorly written articles which keep ESL writers in rice and curry and feed their families- they have a right to earn a living too and we in the developed world need to adjust. Still, it is time now for good content providers to say this is what we can write for you and this is what we charge.

So how much do we charge? That is an entirely different blog, perhaps even a page of its own. Stay tuned. Hit the RSS icon and grab the feed.