Matt Cutts and Curated Content -- something is confusing here...

[bizzer]

Okay, I read an interview somewhere this week where Matt Cutts said he didn't care much for curated content.  Today I searched on that subject and came up with the following video of his:

http://youtu.be/zZU7O1BHfyo

So, in the video he is going along and saying not to just grab content and repost it.  And then at around minute 3:15 he says that, on the other hand, you can have a blog like DaringFireball.net and that's a good thing, because the blogger takes the time to pick and choose what he is posting.

I went to Daring Fireball to take a look, and I saw that he writes maybe one line of commentary, and then pastes in a big chunk of the curated content along with a link to the source.

This shocked me. How could Matt like that blog -- he keeps telling that he likes original not duplicate, curated content.  So, the difference is that a blog can get away with this if they exercise discretion in what they choose to copy and paste?  How the hell would the Google algorithm know what the intention of the blogger is?

And here I've been wasting my time writing up paragraphs and paragraphs to precede any excerpts I paste in, in fear of getting hit by Google.

I'd like to hear your comments on this.

[bizzer]

DaringFireball.net must have very low time on site numbers though. There's nothing to read on that blog, and links take the user away from the site.  It's just a weird example that he chose.

[JustDucky]

@ Bizzer -  I don't disagree with what you're saying.  The issue is more complex and isolating one factor (even a major factor such as duplicate content issues) is often very difficult to do if you are comparing small sites with very large ones such as Mashable of HuffPo.  Mr. Cutts has avoided answering whether non-analytics data about time on site is a ranking factor.  I believe it is.  Many other factors favor larger "high authority" sites.  Even if you select better material and make more useful editorial comments about it (as evidenced by better time on site), G is going to favor the larger sites.

[bizzer]

Yes, that's the difference, but how does Google know unless they takes the time to read each site?

In a blog of mine, I'm taking care to rewrite my own take on various stories that appear on other sites, only sometimes even pasting in an excerpt.  I discriminate in my selections. So, instead, is Matt Cutts saying that I could just save a ton of time by just making a sentence of commentary and then paste in an excerpt? I guess so. (Yes, I know my blog is better for readers if I do it as I am now, that's not the issue).

Still, he's contradicting himself on duplicate content.  And I still think it's hilarious (and confusing) that Cutts used DaringFireball as an example of how to curate. I'd at least think he should have pulled a site as an example that maybe writes a couple paragraphs, then some excerpt and then maybe a closing paragraph.

[donford]

I think the difference is making a site that just regurgitates content nondiscriminatory vs one that has staff or editors that pick through the best of the content and then re-post it.

Yahoo repost Mashable stuff all day long, Huffington post built their world off or regurgitated content. Whats more is most news sites pull content from the Associated Press, each organization then decides what to tell its viewers about or spin to their political or company agendas.

In this sense a News Corp, or Website is actively discriminating at what they post and wish to tell its viewers about.

That's about the only thing I can make of it.