Garbage In, Garbage Out

Almost everything about the web has become easier over the last couple of years. It is easier to buy and register a domain. It is easier to build a website. It is easier to fill it with "content".

Generally this has meant the proliferation of garbage sites which are thrown up like the proverbial mud thrown against the wall. Most will just fall to the ground. But maybe some will stick. Not likely, but maybe.

I have especially noticed this in two areas -- link exchange and "content" creation. Virtually anybody can setup an automated link exchange program that will do the work for you. The tedium of trading links -- of actually having to contact people and ask them to look at your site, etc. -- is all but eliminated by link exchange software and automated exchanges.

The fact that most of these exchanges are worthless is only relevant if you actually CARE about the quality of your site. Most garbage sitemasters do not care. They are just throwing mud against the wall. So part of this pointless exercise involves having hundreds of links from other garbage sites.

Same goes for creating content. The garbage sitemaster does not create content. He just copies it from somewhere else. The result is just more garbage.

Surprisingly, one welcome exception to this trend is in the area of blogs. Since a blog requires regular injections of (unique?) content, it is a bit more difficult to automate an effective blog. Garbage sitemasters are lazy and do not think in terms of regular updates. They just want to throw up their site and forget about it. A blog requires regular attention, so garbage sitemasters are not likely to be interested in blogging.

On the other hand, if it is not already available, I'm sure there will soon be automated blogging software. Programs that copy or steal "content" from other sources, rearrange it slightly, and then post it to your very own blog.

Or maybe not. It could be that not enough people are interested in blog-style publishing to make this kind of software worth writing. And the ones who are interested in blogs tend to be self-righteous people like me who think the quality of one's content is important.

We'll see.