Content used to be a Bad Word

No one was expecting me. We were a dozen or so new employees. After orientation, I was dropped off at my department. The manager and the lead dev were having a squabble, walking back and forth, cursing and yelling. In a row of cubicles, each dev buried his face between double screens and headphones, pretending to be deaf to the noise. And conveniently ignoring me. I stood awkwardly, the tension thicker than a keyword-stuffed article. Until the manager walked towards me and found me in his path.

“Hi, I think I’m supposed to work in this department. I’m the new guy.” I introduced myself. His answer baffled me.

“No shit. Hey Joe, you got a new guy.” The manager said without missing a step. Joe, the lead dev, finally turned and saw me. “Ugh no. No no no no no. Not today.”

I sat in the empty cubicle and twiddled my fingers. I thought about my life choices that lead me to this awkward moment in my career. If you are wondering why all this hostility, let me assure you that I didn’t commit any crimes. It just happened to be February of 2011, the peak of SEO’s dark ages.

Websites choked on low-quality "content" churned out by content farms. Quantity trumped quality. Articles were optimized for search engines, not humans. You'd click on a search link, expecting an answer, but instead get a labyrinthine text prison with ads at every turn.

Content truly was a bad word. Then in February 2011, moments before I walked into my new job, Google's Panda Update was released. A digital panda exterminating low-quality articles. Websites like those produced by my new employer, built on thin content, got clobbered. Traffic plummeted from millions to… well, crickets.

Users hated this "content" as much as Google did. You clicked on Google search for an answer, not a journey through someone's monetization strategy. Google came in and saved the day by obliterating low quality content, torpedoing my new job.

Fast forward today, Google is a fierce advocate for “content creators.”

When I search on Google how to turn the damned water heater back on, I groan, clicking on a video promising an answer, only to be greeted by a sponsor intro, a life story, and enough foreshadowing to rival a Shakespearean tragedy. The water heater mystery remains unsolved, but hey, I had an "unforgettable journey" thanks to NordVPN (who definitely paid for this video).

This time however, the user is frustrated, but Google isn’t fazed. Google is happy to continue promoting this “content” because it aligns with their core business as an ad network. High quality in depth content no longer has priority on search results because it doesn’t keep you on a google product. In fact, google would rather show you an AI generated result that you consume on google.com rather than take you to the source.

Content was a curse word. Now, it is back to being a monetization strategy.

Side note: The company recovered from the Panda Update. We found tricks to continue ranking higher, but every couple months we were flagged again and had to go back to the drawing board. The company was purchased for 1.1 billion dollars and owns some of the worst websites that continue to appear on search results above everything else.

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