The trend to better quality explanations

February 24th, 2011 was a significant day.
Until then, much of the content found via a Google search was low quality fluff produced by ‘Content Farms’, purely to get higher rankings and expose users to ads.
A high percentage of info junk means users waste time on rubbish sites, while good information is obscured. This pollution makes it harder to get clarity on issues that are important to you.
What does valuable information look like?
It also lowers expectations about what valuable information looks like. To be regularly exposed to lower quality explanations encourages people to think that vague and unstructured presentations are ‘good enough’.
On Feb 24th Google changed it’s search algorithms to target content farms and “provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information…”
This change by Google won’t solve the problem of low value information, but it’s a step in the right direction.
You can make a difference too. Next time you’re giving feedback on a poor business presentation, don’t focus on the style or voice of the speaker, give specific suggestions about the clarity of the message and structure of the information.