Comments on: Article Spinning, Another Bad Idea

By: Ayushma Pandey

Ayushma Pandey — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 11:22:00 +0000

Hi Zac, this is an eye-opening article for SEOs all around the world. With the new Panda & Penguin updates, it has become essential for us to understand that no tweaks will work. We have to write and optimize for our readers. Only when we have gained the trust and confidence of our readers that Google and other search engines will follow suit. Thanx once again.

By: Susan Bachelder

Susan Bachelder — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 05:39:00 +0000

I have to thank you for this article. Building a small business is challenging online when traffic is the source that will make or break the business. Taking shortcuts by many has put a huge amount of poor quality articles spattered throughout the internet which I find frustrating for research reasons. The other reason is when so many people are spinning articles for the goal of linking it ruins the reputation of marketers just trying to get content seen. It is almost like you have to over prove yourself to make up for the shadow left from the multitude of crap. Just my two cents.

By: Simon Hill

Simon Hill — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:35:00 +0000

You should see this case stufy below. Since the penguin update in particular, it seem you can cause negative seo. Its easy enough to build thousands of spam links with xrumer/scrape box.

http://trafficplanet.com/topic/2369-case-study-negative-seo-results/

By: Simon Hill

Simon Hill — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:09:00 +0000

{Theres article spinning and theres article spinning. You are using flat word spinning here as an example, but paragraph and sentence spinning done by a person is undetectable and reads perfectly. Obviously Google understands semantics and synonyms, but what if you were to spin on a higher level?
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Not all article spinning is the same. In your article I feel that you are talking about spinning single words and synonyms. You can however spin articles on a higher level with paragraphs and sentences. When you spin an article like this, it reads perfectly and still often receives organic clicks and shares. Google would be able to pick apart flat level word spins, but probably not when hand spun to these levels}^ case in point.

By: Naysay

Naysay — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:54:00 +0000

Main site is a huge no, but are spun articles really an issue for 2nd or 3rd tier blogs?

By: Zac Grace

Zac Grace — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:07:00 +0000

Well, you will get the benefit of a quality article that is posted on a high authority domain, or wherever you decide to post it. As for the syndicated pieces, well, that is something for an argument. I would say you might get a few links at the most, the rest will be ignored.

The worst and the best part is that you cannot control where the syndicated content will go, so that may be a good thing or a bad thing in the end. Personally, I would never rely on syndication for backlinks, for mentions and promotion of a brand sure, but concentrating on the high quality piece and one website to publish it is the way I would go about it. Too many benefits of doing it the good way to outline in one comment :)

By: Nick Morris

Nick Morris — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 05:54:00 +0000

Thanks for the reply Zac. I have a follow up question though… what about writing a high quality article then, without spinning it, getting it syndicated on hundreds of sites. Is this a good way to build links?

FYI I’ve argued that its not but there are many out there that disagree with me.

By: Nedim Šabić

Nedim Šabić — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:39:00 +0000

I’ll try to focus on the topic. My claim – Google can’t recognize a spinned article. Using it in cases you don’t have time or the niche market is so narrow, can not harm, but will not give a big effect. Using it for you main website or for marketing promotion purposes is a bad idea, because of user response, not because of fact that the article is spinned and could be detected by Google.

By: Zac Grace

Zac Grace — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:59:00 +0000

Neil and Nick, no, it’s not Article Samurai, first time I hear of it, but I’m guessing it’s not different from the one that inspired me to write the post.

As for article syndication, if you look at it like content marketing focusing on original and quality posts offered to bloggers than the industry is blooming, if you still want to rely on Ezines that will get syndicated and posted on hundreds of blogs you will be spreading crap content, and Google will react to that content the same way a user would. Maybe they can’t still see the clear difference between an original and one spinned article, but with spinning it tends to go a lot more than just one article, so it’s easy for Google to see the odd couple and devalue any links coming from those crappy pages.

By: Dejan SEO

Dejan SEO — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:19:00 +0000

I agree with you in one aspect and that is that they are not completely able to understand content on a semantic level. But…

“…but they will improve to follow the user response on articles and kinda guess what is good and what rubbish content.”

You seem to believe that “the algorithm” is just machine perception and pure AI. What falls into Google’s algorithm is beyond that and they use far greater number of signals than that including social mentions, reactions, copying, referencing, citations, temporal and other factors. They all are part of the algorithm, not outside of it.

Have a read of some of Google’s research involved in building their algorithm: http://research.google.com/pubs/papers.htmlLet me know if you change your mind about their capabilities for today, and more importantly – to come.

“Please don’t see Google as a little God, please do not care for all the things Google “might be doing”, just do honest work and you don’t have to fear Google at all.”

The point of the above article or my comment is not to glorify Google’s power, but to set webmasters and SEO professionals on a sustainable path of thinking. From what I see you agree with that. Google is a dominant search engine (call it God if you like) and I will pay very close attention to everything they are (and might be) doing, test it – and decide on the best way forward. That’s what I do for living.