“Back to the kitchen” *** *** Hallo Leute, German Advent Calendar, Day 18, the fourth of Advent, and today we’ll actually pick up a loose thread of the Calendar and complete our look at the slightly sad truth about How (many) posts online are made If you missed the first part or you want to read that again you can find that here: Advent Calendar 15 – Peeking into the kitchen We left after step 3 when we had a list of promising topics for our blog. But now we need to create the actual articles. Ewww, that sounds like a lot of work. Especially because we’re not really interested in writing and in the topics. Because remember… we’re just doing this to market our product. And the topics we collected are based on search metrics, not on what we know or care about. Step 4 – Hire a (cheap) freelance writer So we go back online to Fiverr or Upwork or another of these freelance platforms and we find ourselves a cheap copywriter. There are plenty of English native speakers on these platforms who freelance as content writers, either as a side hustle or as their normal income while…
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For German learning, someone can look for a school’s/group’s content on YouTube to try before they buy, and some apps have trial periods. Caveat Emptor.
Nitpick: “pick up a lose thread” – the thread is “loose”. “lose” is a verb.
Oh man, I think I’ve made this mistake 20 times already and it just won’t stick in my brain!!
Probably because it’s a really common mistake for native English speakers too – you see it everywhere. So you can’t really go wrong I guess :)
This is the most depressing thing I have read this year. But clearly true. Thanks.
It’s just the natural way of things. Where there is an incentive, a possibility to make money, people will flock in.
I think Google could/should put out a mode that is “non-affiliate” where they filter out all content that has any affiliate links or discount codes in it. But there’s no money in this for them.
I think it’s just important for us as “consumers” to be aware of this stuff, so next time we come across “The three best apps to learn German” we know that it’s not going to be an honest review.
Anyway, happy new year :)!!
So if I catch your meaning, and I look up the best chainsaws for 2022, the list probably has no validity.
Exactly! It’s most likely someone trying to make affiliate money and it will NOT be an honest, unbiased review of chainsaws.
This really does explain a lot…a lot of the sad reality of the internet and humanity in general. Thanks very much for the explanations.
Many thanks for that. It does explain some of he rubbish that a search engine will throw up and why it becomes harder and harder to find what’s really wanted. Also explains what a content writer or creator is.
Interestingly, I found your site years ago among the first few results when searching for clarification of some point of German usage. Unfortunately I don’t recall what. That was in the days when funny or cute cat videos were often included. Did they somehow increase your hit rate?… or just make cat [video] lovers more likely to return?
I’m still quite easy to find via Google. That’s how I get new readers, basically, I never run ads anywhere and I also don’t do social marketing. I always felt my time is better spent creating new content or functionality.
As for the cat pictures… I think it wasn’t as often as you think :). But no, I don’t think that had anything to do with good ranking.
Actually, maybe what I should do is add some dumb thumbnail like face at the top of each article, like they do on youtube. Mouth half open, surprised eyes.
And then I can see if that improves how long new readers spend on the site :)
And I’ll just hide it for members.
I didn’t know any of this – except that it is a desire to get high up on the search engine list. But it certainly explains much about some of the weird articles I get hooked into. I especially see the same statement/topic regurgitated across 3-5 paragraphs all saying the same thing. And sometimes worded very oddly. Oddly worded very often. Often oddly sometimes worded.
Yes, the odd wording is a problem.
To understand the problem of odd wording, let’s start with a look at What Odd Wording is.
Odd wording is when a wording you read in a text feels odd to you.
Rewrite: buzzfeed!
We’ve all been there. You’re read about your favorite porridge recipe but something about the text feels off. And it’s not the fact that they use regular milk. Though that’s off too. I mean, hello, we’re not in 2012 anymore. But there’s something beyond the missing mention of Almond Milk.
You can’t quite put your finger on it for a while but then it strikes you: the text is oddly worded.
Karen Christensen, expert at Grammarly, explains what odd wording is: ….
Hallo,
Here’s the typos:
either as a a side hustle (either as a side hustle)
keyword (one word)
subheaders (one word)
I totally agree with you on the “rant”, I do a lot of Internet searches for work and the amount of garbage I find is astounding.
Your blog is GREAT and your sense of humour lets any reader know straight away that (i) it’s not some AI piece of garbage; (ii) you care about the subject and the learners; (iii) you know what you’re talking about. And word-of-mouth isn’t dead (YET, I think they’re building a bot to do that!), so we’ll keep spreading the word on your site…
Bis morgen!
one more typo – the number is fourth, not forth :)
Oh, and ams race not arm’s race unless we are competing with appendages. The “gonna” right before it surprised me but for a rant like this I think it’s ok.
Great reading, and yes interesting and insightful. I really enjoy this blog. Wish I could buy you a beer!
Yes, that was really interessing! I almost fell into such a trap a few years ago, some sort of instinct held me back. I understand now. I am so glad there are people like you making the Internet a place for learning and exchanging! Thank you for your work.
I really appreciate you emphasizing this – most of which I hadn’t even thought of. This explains a lot of less than stellar results.
I will change my search engine behavior, like taking a look at second and third pages.
By the way, it’s an arms race, no apostrophe. I got a picture in my head of a bunch of Thing‘s taller cousins lined up on the track. :-)
And now I’m noticing all the key word hype – I used to think it was just lousy writing, or dumbing down. Vielen Dank!!
Haha, nice association :)!!
I think that’s definitely one way to get a bit less of this stuff. If people stop clicking on “The 11 best something somethings” then Google will stop ranking it.
But that’s a LONG process. I think text prompt search might come out before it.
What I’d love to see is Google finding a way to “flag” results that are especially SEO optimized or contain affiliate links. Or that have ads on their page. That way, you can decide while searching, if you want to click or not.
I’d for example not click on something if it is flagged as “has 2 or more ad banners”.
Awesome insights, Emanuel! Thanks for sharing!
The Comment App I used wrote “good work, thanks for the information”
Nice comment.
Wow, me too!! What’s your favorite tool? Mine is {echo $affiliate[$random]->name}
What app is that. It’s soooo gooood!