Google’s New Algorithm Cuts Off Content Farmers at the Knees

Google's new attept to kill spam and content farmers from good search results is paying off and getting good reviews. The New York Times has the article Google’s New Algorithm Cuts Off Content Farmers at the Knees.

The article points out:

Here's what you can expect to see a lot less off on your results page: "sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content." This takes aim at scrapers — the types of sites that pull content from other sources typically by pulling from an RSS feed without permission. And content farmers — the types of sites that churn out articles like "How to Create a Start-Up Floppy Disk" in order to sell advertising for questionable profit. This announcement follows another anti-spam measure: Google's recently released personal blocklist, which lets users who are browsing on Chrome specify what unsavory sites they don't want showing up.


Good for Google. Real content should be at the top of the search results. Plagiarized or contrived articles shouldn't be.

Reframing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy

Thomas P. Mackey and Trudi E. Jacobson have a new article titled Reframing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy. It is in the January 2011 College & Research Libraries, vol. 72 no. 162-78.

From the abstract:

Social media environments and online communities are innovative collaborative technologies that challenge traditional definitions of information literacy. Metaliteracy is an overarching and self-referential framework that integrates emerging technologies and unifies multiple literacy types. This redefinition of information literacy expands the scope of generally understood information competencies and places a particular emphasis on producing and sharing information in participatory digital environments.