Content vs. No Content
April 24, 2008 by Jon
Filed under Search Engine Optimization
Today I got into a debate on the BANS forum regarding the best strategy for deploying BANS sites. Basically, the debate centered around two schools of thought:
- Build as many BANS sites as possible, as quickly as possible. Don’t worry about content or quality. The more the better.
- Build each BANS site with a focus on quality. Add unique content. Ensure your site adds value to the visitors.
Now I happen to believe that #2 is the way to go. With the first option, in my opinion you’re just building “out-of-the-box” BANS sites with little or no original content. That’s called spamming the search engines, and who wants to be a spammer?
Here are some additional reasons why I prefer quality over quantity:
- Google will penalize “thin affiliate sites” as stated in their Webmaster Guidelines. So if you want long-term SEO success, it doesn’t make sense to run afoul of Google.
- Creating out-of-the-box BANS sites will contribute to all BANS sites being de-indexed by Google eventually.
- The whole “circle of life” thing. You gain the most in life by doing things right and helping others along the way. Adding some original content to my sites brings value to my visitors.
Adding unique content does not mean you have to publish a niche encyclopedia on your site. It just means adding some content! 
- You could add a blog and post something as little as once per week.
- You could write three articles and publish those on your site.
- You could write a 100-word product description on the main product pages.
- You could find all of the related YouTube videos in your niche and embed them on your site, with a short description of what each video is and why it’s worth watching.
- Etc…
It doesn’t take a lot of work to add some unique content to a web site…
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hey buddy
So far all I have been doing is writing 100 word product descriptions on the home page and setting the sites loose
As far as Google deindexing all the BANS sites, don’t think that will happen. Just look at the amount of spam blogspot or wordpress blogs.. Google just tries to discern the quality sites from the non-quality and leaves it at that