The volume of rubbish content on the World Wide Web is increasing and I believe it is mostly the fault of SEO consultants, and DIY marketers.

Not all DIYers and SEO experts of course, but there are a number of practitioners who are producing content simply as a vehicle to get their keywords and backlinks out there – regardless of the quality of the content.

As a result we are inundated with millions of pieces of junk writing that are cluttering the World Wide Web, a bit like the millions of plastic bags in the ocean.
Image by PopSci Blog

The problem is that the grammar is often poor; the information is overtly commercial and vacuous. Essentially it’s valueless.

All this poor content does is irritate people looking for real information, and it harms the brand that the SEO expert is working for. I have come across numerous examples that have left me irritated with, and contemptuous of, the brand that is being represented.

I believe that widespread laziness and the desire to do things on the cheap is resulting in this poor quality.

Laziness? Yes, because anybody with a copy of Strunk and White and the spell checker on their computer can do a reasonable job.

There are also hundreds of operations offering writing at slave rates (often done by people living in third world countries, and for whom English is a second language).

These are nothing more than sweat shops, which are being used be some SEO practitioners to produce large volumes of keyword rich content on the cheap (and yet many of us have the cheek to point fingers at the likes of Nike and Apple over their Chinese operations).

This is not a tantrum from a writer. I fully support people charging low prices – too many copywriters charge too much for mediocre work – but I do not condone conning people with bad content.

At the moment, Google is unable to tell whether grammar is bad, or if the content is rubbish. It relies on humans to provide the quality control, by simply leaving that page.

It does mean that quality searches are taking longer and longer to achieve, and we run the risk of damaging any fledgling credibility that web content may have.

Hopefully the machine intelligence that is required to detect poor grammar and bad spelling isn’t far off.