Is there SEO benefit of automated content through Narrative Science or Automated Insights?
-
I'm considering working with a group like Narrative Science or Automated Insights to create content for 10k cities around the country. Each article they would create (3-5 per city) would be completely original, based on data we either own or license, written to our editorial tone, voice and direction, and consist of 300-500 words per page.
If you are familiar with these groups, you'll know that it is not spun content or spammy crap that we know Google kills off in droves. It will be well written, accurate, articulate original content on topics like health, demographics, population growth, schools and education and weather pertaining to a city or metro area.
My question - assuming the answer is actually known - is how well (or if) this content will perform in Google. It is a significant investment for my group (well into size figures) and we don't want to take this decision lightly. We are looking to challenge sites like city-data.org and bestplaces.net, who largely just regurgitate aggregated data.
-
It's going to come down to just a couple of things:
- How well the content is written--what's the reading grade level score, are there grammatical errors, etc.
- How close the content comes to existing content on the web.
I'm not familiar with these two companies, but from what you say, it sounds like #1 isn't going to be an issue. And most likely #2 won't be a problem either--even though realistically they're going to be looking up the raw data from somewhere (Wikipedia!) and doing their best to completely rewrite it....and that's always a challenge.
But the reason I don't think #2 is honestly going to be a problem is because right now, Google doesn't seem to be very good at spotting near duplicate content with even just light edits. Or even WITHOUT edits, just with other content on the page. As an example, search for this phrase (including the quotes) in Google (it's taken straight from Freebase, i.e. Wikipedia's back door):
"The local people are mainly Maasai, but people from other parts of the country have settled there"
Google finds and displays 96 YES NINETY-SIX pages before chopping it off and leaving it to the supplementals.
Will this go on forever? Of course not, Google is undoubtedly working at trying to handle detection of this kind of thing. Certainly it isn't in Google's quality interests to list 96 pages all that suck the description of something straight out of Freebase. But, this paints a picture of where they are today in doing that....and that tells us that they're a long ways from taking a run at content that you've hand-rewritten from other sources....even if it's a light rewrite.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Content hubs vs blog
Hey all! I work for a large healthcare company. We're in the planning stages of redesigning our website, and the question came up of whether we needed to continue with the patient-focused blog at all when we could simply incorporate the blog articles into the service lines they best fit with (i.e. an article about feeding babies solid good would go under the pediatrics section of the website instead of the pediatrics section of the blog).Anybody have an opinion/insight on whether the articles would get better rankings being dispersed to the services sections of the website instead of concentrated on a blog? Or would good internal linking make the whole question moot?Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | MartyIHC1 -
Duplicate content in sidebar
Hi guys. So I have a few sentences (about 50 words) of duplicate content across all pages of my website (this is a repeatable text in sidebar). Each page of my website contains about 1300 words (unique content) in total, and 50 words of duplicate content in sidebar. Does having a duplicate content of this length in sidebar affect the rankings of my website in any way? Thank you so much for your replies.
On-Page Optimization | | AslanBarselinov1 -
Harms of hidden categories on SEO
On our website we have some invisible/hidden categories on our site. Can anyone advise whether these are harmful in terms of SEO?
On-Page Optimization | | CostumeD0 -
International SEO
We have a client who is looking to expand to other countries, particularly South America. What is my best route forward for SEO on a multi national site?
On-Page Optimization | | CreativeCow0 -
Content with changing URL and duplicate content
Hi everyone, I have a question regarding content (user reviews), that are changing URL all the time. We get a lot of reviews from users that have been dining at our partner restaurants, which get posted on our site under (new) “reviews”. My worry however is that the URL for these reviews is changing all the time. The reason for this is that they start on page 1, and then get pushed down to page 2, and so on when new reviews come in. http://www.r2n.dk/restaurant-anmeldelser I’m guessing that this could cause for serious indexing problems? I can see in google that some reviews are indexed multiple times with different URLs, and some are not indexed at all. We further more have the specific reviews under each restaurant profile. I’m not sure if this could be considered duplicate content? Maybe we should tell google not to index the “new reviews section” by using robots.txt. We don’t get much traffic on these URLs anyways, and all reviews are still under each restaurant-profile. Or maybe the canonical tag can be used? I look forward to your input. Cheers, Christian
On-Page Optimization | | Christian_T2 -
Wordpress SEO. How to add static content above home page posts.
I think I many have some duplicate content issues as have been adding unque content above posts in categories using the all category SEO. How can I add static content to the posts on the home page though? Any help appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
No Content on home page + rankings
If a home page has no content will it hurt the sites ability to rank? The interior pages will have content but not the home page. (See attached image) My client does not want content on the home page as he feels it will take away from the look and feel he wants to achieve. This website is actually 10 sites or locations in one as we intend to market each location (a total of 10) separately. In reality the home page is a doorway page to each separate location. I'd like feedback if possible as to the necessity or not, of content on the Home Page of this or any website. Will the lack of content hurt on the Homer Page hurt with SEO? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | fun52dig
Gary Downey bobby-vans.jpg0 -
Duplicate page title and content
Hello, I have an ecommerce store where we offer many similar products, and the main difference could be the color or memory storage. Due to this reason my main problem appears to be be duplicate page title and content. What is the best way to correct this issue? I cant make them different neither. I always include this particular difference in title or description. I guess it is not enough? any way to fix it? thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | tolyadem10