Nutch robotsImage via WikipediaWe all know that there is a content explosion on the web. Everyone can publish content on the web today, search engines reward fresh and quality content but as a SEO strategy every Tom, Dick and Harry is adding content to their blog, website, posting comments and gettinginvolved in discussions.
Some do this with a focus on quality information and knowledge which is the main purpose but sometimes content is just added for the sake of getting SEO benefit i.e only for spiders not for users. That is where the problem of junk content arises. Due to this content explosion we see search engines also tightenting their noose on quality standards for content and we have the Panda updates. This cat and mouse chase will be an ongoing process, as the content and websites go on mushrooming on the web. So, where does the searcher get relevant, quality search results for what he is finding on the web. He does not have the time nor the inclination to search and then validate the results and then go to social media to get the assurance for the WOM regarding that site or blog . He wants quick answers for that he needs to have an in-house team to do all this search and refined search exercise for him or better than that he finds a site which curates content related to his search requirement. Content curation is about finding the most relevant content about a topic online and listing all the relevant links found on that topic after a thorough research on the web. Now the reliability and the quality of links will depend on the knowledge and sensibilities of the curator. But once people find his findings to be valuable and worth a read I am sure the blog, website or any other platform he uses to share that set of links will be surely be regularly read and followed. So, content curators are basically people who do the search activity for you and present the results in the form of ‘Ready To Eat’ food packages or like instant coffee. Content curation infact gives good quality inbound links to the content pages that have been curated. I say good quality links as the curator has found these links to be useful and informative and hence they have been listed by the curator for that topic or relevant search. Hence, in a way these sites help the search industry as a whole the searchers and the search engines. You never know content curator site signals could be incorporated the ranking factors of the search engines for quality and relevance just as social media signals are incorporated for popularity and WOM. Hence again we come back to square one where content is important and again the uncrowned king. As only when you have quality content there will be a possibility of someone curating it for sharing it and making it available in the ready to serve search page for the users. Hence, instead of having 10 posts of nonsensical information and content just for the sake of having content have one post but which will add some value and give information and knowledge to the reader and which will have the possibility of getting curated on the curation sites adding value back to your domain authority.

Author

  • Bharati Ahuja

    Bharati Ahuja is the Founder of WebPro Technologies LLP. She is also an SEO Trainer and Speaker, Blog Writer, and Web Presence Consultant, who first started optimizing websites in 2000. Since then, her knowledge about SEO has evolved along with the evolution of search on the web. Contributor to Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch, etc.

May 24, 2011