Comments on: Demand Media Faces Harsh Spotlight En Route to IPO

By: Why Google and Demand Media Are Headed for a Showdown

Why Google and Demand Media Are Headed for a Showdown — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 04:18:10 +0000

[...] kind of content is likely to mean pain for at least one giant web company. Demand Media, which is currently planning a high-profile IPO for later this year, is often singled out by critics as the kind of content “farm” that [...]

By: Quality Standards for Online Content : Freelance Writing Jobs | A Freelance Writing Community and Freelance Writing Jobs Resource

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:17:18 +0000

[...] may be trying to get to that point through the backdoor. Matthew Ingram mentions that another proposed guideline is to ““ensure that all content submitted is [...]

By: Ebyline Wants to Create an iTunes for Journalism «

Ebyline Wants to Create an iTunes for Journalism « — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 20:32:33 +0000

[...] content produced by freelance writers makes Ebyline sound a little like Demand Media, Associated Content and other so-called “content farms,” but Momary says Ebyline is [...]

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 08:35:56 +0000

Karen has it right, the pay ranges up to and past $15 an article. Some articles pay $20, @30 up to $85-$100 dollars. In addition most of the articles require less pound the pavement research time than most journalism pieces do as they are how to and instructional in nature. You can write a good how to article in less than an hour once you get the system down. That adds up to a decent hourly pay. I’ve made more writing for Demand in many cases than I have writing for more traditional media outlets whose names you’d know and hold in high regard.

By: Welcome Back From Summer Vacation! (You Call That a Vacation!?) «

Welcome Back From Summer Vacation! (You Call That a Vacation!?) « — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:01:26 +0000

[...] August 13: Demand Media Faces Harsh Spotlight En Route to IPO [...]

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 04:03:27 +0000

It’s actually $15 dollars an article & people who write for them are people who don’t yet have the credentials they want because editors won’t give them a chance or who are simply embarking on a new career. Of course you wouldn’t write for them if you’re already a professional. However many who write for the site are professionals in other areas. A site like eHow, for example, is an excellent place for beginners who have been teachers or doctors or scientists to learn whilst being guided by editors. Also, in this economy, Demand Studios has been a reliable source of income for many people. It’s all about perspective, I guess.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:42:02 +0000

Frank J is right on target. Demand’s business plan is gaming the system and relying on imperfections in Google’s algorithms that turn up third-rate “content” instead of the real stuff. It may work for a while, but not in the long term.

Moreover, Demand’s “content creators” are getting paid a penny (or perhaps a few pennies) a word, and many of them gaming Demand by churning out formulaic junk.

By: Frank J

Frank J — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 23:12:57 +0000

Google dependence for traffic from an online publishing standpoint is not really that huge of a problem – it is the new reality. What bothers me about Demand is the way in which they are tricking Google’s algorithms into thinking that their low quality content is actually better than they are. Their use of a combination of cypersquatting and redirects, and their use of their thousands of parked domains to create artificial link popularity for their low quality (to trick Google’s Pagerank algorithm into thinking their content is highly linked to and hence of higher quality) content are just some of the ways they are currently gaming the system. Their tactics are well known in the ‘black hat’ SEO community, tactics that are the FOCUS of Google’s anti web spam team. While every online publisher is at the mercy of Google, I’d be wary of any publisher whose traffic is PRIMARILY driven by the black hat techniques. It’s a house of cards waiting to fall over – totally unsustainable. It appears that they are counting on the investment community’s lack of understanding of the SEO dynamics to pull this IPO off… this is really not all…they have also been reported for having done shady things with their writers’ content to avoid paying residuals. Richard R’s history, the lying about the profits, the Google-gaming, the constant alleged cheating of their writers…if not anything, should be enough of an indication of the integrity (or lack thereof) of the company – there is no smoke without fire. And wait till Yahoo advertisers start protesting about their ads showing up on parked pages with no contextual content. Also, why would a company drop their tracking tag with quantcast if they have growth to demonstrate? Especially during a time when they are trying to secure a high valuation?

Here’s a sample of controversies associated with this company:

http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3235104/demand-media-accused-of-hosting-malicious-sites-and-spam/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2010/02/24/demand-medias-advisors/
http://gigaom.com/2010/06/21/demand-media-subsidiary-accused-of-enabling-illegal-drug-sales/
http://www.seodigerati.com/demand-medias-ehowcom-using-interesting-expired-domain-redirect-seo-strategy/
http://www.xomba.com/ehow_uk_scam_grows_out_control
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/08/12/where-did-demand-medias-profits-go/

The list goes on and on… You just gotta do your own research…

By: Penny-a-word freelancers may earn "content farm" $1.5 billion « Wooden Horse Magazine News

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:04:57 +0000

[...] questions about the company. Writers may want to check out the resulting articles, such as “Demand Media Faces Harsh Spotlight En Route to IPO” in GigaOm’s blog. Also, Carol Tice’s informative blog post “Demand [...]

By: renaissance chambara | Ged Carroll - Links of the day

renaissance chambara | Ged Carroll - Links of the day — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 16:48:36 +0000

[...] Demand Media Faces Harsh Spotlight En Route to IPO – cost of content creation, even with a ‘content farm’ methodology [...]