Shari Thurow has written an excellent article on When Content Isn’t King in SEO. Shari brings some excellent points to the table, namely arguing that any content is not always good content.
If I had my way, I’d change the mantra to “Unique, high-quality, un-duplicated content is king.” Not as catchy, I admit. But there are many situations in SEO when content isn’t king.
You got to hand it to those who can turn just about any good SEO practice into spam. Keyword tag? Been there. Links? Done that. Content? Yep, we can spam that too!
Users don’t want to see the same content over and over in search results. “This is the type of content creation that engines are working night and day to avoid.”
Good content isn’t just necessary to achieve top search engine rankings, it’s also necessary to convert visitors into buyers. Duplicate, or regurgitated, content is counter-productive to the total process. You might get temporary top rankings, but what does it say about your professionalism and status as an industry expert if you’re unable to contribute anything unique? Not much, in my opinion.