For years I didn't care about the content I was putting out on the web but that has changed. In the wild wild west days of the internet it wasn't uncommon to use some plr articles and spin them or worse (borrow) content off a website that you thought would be quality and rank well. My theory on that stuff changed many years ago as a quick fix really didn't rank anyway and was really worthless in the long run.
What really got me thinking about content was an episode that happened a few weeks ago that changed the quality of the content that I place online. We were in the emergency room after Debbie complained about having chest pains. Debbie's bed was placed very close to the nurses/doctors station and being the curious guy I am I was paying attention to them the whole time. Making sure Debbie was getting proper attention was the main thing but I couldn't help but watch the doctors and how they interacted with everyone.
After we were there for two hours they had a shift change and we got new doctors and nurses. In a way this was a good thing as the new doctor was much more hands on and seemed to have a better knowledge about Debbie's health. We were in the emergency room for about 4 hours when I told the doctor that Debbie had not eaten in a while and he pointed to the food cart and told me to take something for her. The choices were slim and all that they had was macaroni and cheese and a high fructose punch drink. Not exactly the breakfast of champions for anyone, especially people in the CHEST Pain area of the emergency room. Why this stuff is even in a hospital in the first place is beyond me. That's a post for another day though.
As we were there waiting for test results I was listening to the doctor and the nurse talking. The doctor was on his computer and reading a website. I didn't think much of it until the nurse asked him if he was going for a refresher and when she said that I turned and glanced at his computer screen. It looked like he was on a medical site and he told her he took his refresher a few months back but he was just reading up on some stuff. I looked at the site a little closer and determined it was an affiliate site, it had the default thesis wordpress theme so it was pretty easy to spot. It really got me thinking and at the time I was also a little pissed off. Here is the doctor that is treating Debbie and he is getting his advice from a website that probably isn't really accountable as a medical authority.
It wasn't until a few days later that I really thought about the content on the internet and who is really reading it. Most of the time you don't really think about who is reading your content. It could be a doctor, it could be a mechanic, it could be someone that is using your info as if it was the Bible.
I keep thinking that if Debbie had been diagnosed wrong my lawyers would be confiscating the doctors computer to find out what website he was reading and then going after the owners of the website. Sounds harsh but its the way I would probably go about things. What are your thoughts?
LeaderABW says
My thoughts? Oh, so many! Where to start!? Blaming webmasters for an incompetent doctor who already forgot his refresher course that even the nurse thought he should know?? That’s ridiculous. It’s not some AdSense peddler’s fault that the doc you saw was so clueless that he had to resort to just reading whatever site did the best SEO.
The thinking displayed in your post is part of the problem. The doctor’s cluelessness is nobody’s fault besides his own. If he paid attention in the refresher course he supposedly took just “a few months ago,” he wouldn’t have been looking at that site. Also, it’s the DOCTOR’S responsibility and duty to be knowledgeable enough to know what site is a “medical authority” and which is not.
IMO the whole culture of catering to no-brained incompetence is despicable. Anyone who can’t tell an authority site from an MFA site has no more sense than a mindless search engine program. There should be no need for any disclaimers when a qualified human is viewing the material – and any doctor who can’t tell the difference without an explicit notice should have his license yanked. Suing the webmaster instead of the doctor is even worse! A doctor is supposed to already know what’s what, and blaming others for his failures only paints a veneer of justification on his failure!
Now, as to some particular other points:
1) Thankfully, the Internet is still the Wild West. Taming it would be a cultural travesty on many, many levels. We don’t need a “great firewall of China” with the government taking away our right to decide what site is worth reading and what isn’t.
2) Spun PLR can indeed rank. So can un-spun PLR for that matter. It’s all a matter of links. I notice that your opening paragraph never mentioned the key ingredient – “get a load of links.” No wonder you ended up finding it unrankable and worthless. I’d bet you gave up before even giving it a serious chance.
3) As for medical stuff, it’s quite possible that the site the doc was reading just copy/pasted what’s on government health sites and put it on a better template, like the person who sold me 2HeartDisease years ago. Or, that it’s plain opinion. As I said before, a QUALIFIED medical professional can tell the difference. If he can’t, he’s unqualified – it’s not the site’s fault.
3a) There is no point in suing some webmaster – to the degree that I think that you’re just wanting to bully someone. Your lawyer will be glad to take your money, and you deserve to be parted with it if you really have to resort to bullying random webmasters who are just trying to make a living.
3b) By promoting such fearmongering, you are backing up the “established medical profession” – an establishment that, on the whole, deserves to be utterly dismantled down to the last bolt and then thrown into a shredder! It is THAT establishment that produced the guy who had to look at an MFA site to get a clue, despite his apparently-wasted years of schooling.
It is the MFA site that gave the clue.
Obviously the MFA site is the only one in your scenario that actually deserves the title of “authority.”
Posts like yours make me thankful for the First Amendment.
Vinny says
Thanks for your very lengthy comment. I always respect your opinion.
Some things that my original article seemed to have missed was that I was not blaming the doctor. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. He would have been the one being sued and probably the hospital too. Yes the doctor would have been incompetent. I agree with you, it is his poor choice and maybe lack of common sense and that is what caused this whole situation. My post made it look like I was just going after the website and that is not what I was trying to write.
The webmaster was not going to get sued but I would given my last breath to see that the website was either taken down, changed, or out ranked so it couldn’t happen again to someone else. I guess in some ways that makes me the censor police (I am sure you love that term) Luckily it didn’t have to come down to this.
I am curious what you would have done in this same situation?
Now on to the spun PLR, yes I agree it can still rank with links like you said. I didn’t put the links part in there on purpose as I didn’t want to steer people down that road. That is not what I like to share on this site. I would rather have the readers focus on writing new quality content that ranks naturally instead of having to rely on an algorthym that can change and wipe out their business model in one shot.