A wee piece by me on Techradar:

Google’s success has created a new kind of industry. Content farms are firms who produce what Google’s Matt Cuts calls “shallow or low-quality content”.

Cutts is a funny guy, and his screenshots show the parody site The Content Farm, but the point is a serious one: often, when you search Google for something, you don’t necessarily get content that’s been created for you; you get content that’s been created for Google’s search algorithm.

There’s nothing unethical or illegal about content farms – they’re not wicked, or dishonest, or evil – but their prominence in Google results means they can be an enormous pain in the backside.