Measuring Content Value

Local news sites and Top 10 roundup sites are really pushing the envelope on who can include the least content and the most bullshit on a single page.

If you can create the content for most of your site without any actual expertise or technology beyond Google or a camera phone, it’s probably not that useful. Presumably, this is why Google prioritizes long-form content in search results, but longer content isn’t necessarily better content. Google may actually be encouraging bullshit rather than minimizing it.

We need a better algorithm for measuring content value. “Did this actually help you?” may be the most crucial question in the next 10 years of search.