Companies go to extreme lengths to optimize their web content so that their pages show up on Google search. Showing up on top 10 of a google search will dramatically increases the number of visitors to your site. While this is all goodness, there is some real stupidity in Google's algorithms. For example, if your URL contains the search term, Google will rank you higher. This means creation of funny URLs that match the search terms. Add Long Tail keywords to the mix, you have the internet full of web pages with horrible quality content, but using right keywords in the URL and the text.
Google would argue, if the content is not good, they would see a higher bounce rate. Thats not true, if the webpage has links to other pages that promise to tell you more about the subject or cleverly designed adwords. Overall, the bouncerate is not a reliable indicator of page quality.
We are at a point where the content on internet is becoming mostly useless ( some would argue that it has always been the case). What needs to change?
1. Google should change their algorithm, so the URL words do not have much importance
2. Have human editors, randomly look at the content and aggressively penalize sites that has made up content. Perhaps, Crowdsource this effort.
There is no good fix for this issue though, a better alternative might be emergence of an alternative search engine that has different ranking mechanisms. I would love to see Google lose its marketshare, so the search monopoly is not impacting the quality of the content on the internet.
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