recent development in google search where article farm websites ranked much lower. is totally, totally, a great thing.

why? look here.

i google and came to this article.

http://www.opensource-news.co.cc/14155/googles-android-app-inventor-help-or-hindrance/

at least it linked to the "article" it farmed. which is here.

http://www.entirelyopensource.com/Software/Googles-Android-App-Inventor-Help-or-Hindrance

now this is dubious, since it says click Full Story

only to be redirected here:

http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/70397.html?wlc=1305618182

just to read a single article.... why does sites is going this? not to mention blog that steal articles, blogs that copy paste articles (those two usually advert based). maybe because they know not many people want to go through the hassle of reporting (specially for blogs). everybody want to blog, but nobody want to write their own articles. gahhhh.....

so yeah, i agree when google decided to lower the rank of 'article farm'. sites.

I guess GDNet's rank will drop now too ;P

[edit]This post contains jocular content poking fun at the fact that the original news content has been replaced by an automatic aggregation. Do not use this post for predictive purposes. Your mileage may vary. No refunds.[/edit]

Why are people doing this? Because, as you noticed, they can have prominence in search results. They then gain ad-views (read: money) in return for very little effort and no generation of original content.

Why are people doing this? Because, as you noticed, they can have prominence in search results. They then gain ad-views (read: money) in return for very little effort and no generation of original content.

The opposite side of the coin, article farms are good if you have a small blog that has interesting content but no audience. Google should definitely prioritize the source, but article farms definitely have a good reason to be around. Though I don't particularly like N4G, it can take a lot of credit for hip hop gamer being successful, though I don't particularly like him either. They can be very convenient for readers who like to browse.

I guess GDNet's rank will drop now too ;P

doubtful. practically all the externally-linked resources we have are dead links now and the news stream is like a micro-fraction of our daily content. Those are the only two areas of the site I would come close to calling "farms"