It’s fascinating to see Demand Media’s replies to Google’s adjusting of their algorithm in order to lower “content farm” content in their search results.
Demand Media has come out and claimed that they are “very white-hat”. Now, this is interesting. Because let’s say they are. Let’s say they’re following the rules, and that they’re just better at the game than the rest of us. Does Google have the right to manually adjust their search algorithm to punish Demand Media?
Of course they do. It’s their company. It’s their site. This isn’t no-man’s land out there. Google has a vested interest in causing Google to be the premier search engine for helping find the information they’re looking for. And if they believe that Demand Media simply isn’t the best possible resource for that, they should do whatever it takes to lower Demand Media’s rankings.
Because that’s been the rule all along. Google has always said, if you worry about making the content great, you won’t have to worry too much about anything else. By worrying about everything else, Demand Media has made an enemy out of their most needed ally.