What’s in a niche? When it comes to niche websites, the answer to that question is, IMHO, not much in most cases. Certainly much less than it should be in a niche. Is it just me? Are my expectations too high? I don’t think so because I’ve seen some good niche websites as well as a lot of horrors. A real niche website that has been built with care and passion is a beautiful (or at least interesting) thing and is usually a treasure trove for visitors who share a love for the niche topic.
What I am complaining about is so called niche websites that people are creating for the sole purpose of collecting ad revenue. These sites have little (if any) in the way of content. The colorful images and abundant advertisements do not make up for this lack. Advertising is fine, in fact it’s usually essential if you want to stay in business. What makes me see red is clicking on deceptive ads and landing on website after website cloned only to be faced with a few sentences of misspelled text and dozens of sputtering ads. To test the integrity of a niche site, look at what would be left if you removed all pay-per-click ads.
It is unfortunate for people browsing for information that the Internet is being overrun with websites produced by flimsy looking templates that are being produced at a breakneck pace. If you spend any time on the internet, you’ll know what kind of stuff I’m talking about. These websites consist of a couple of pages with pretty cool header graphics (those are the images at the top, if you’re not “in business” so to speak), and ad groups positioned so that they’re the first thing you see. see. . If you manage to get past the ads, you may find some articles that have been copied from other websites just because they have something on the pages that gives them some credibility. These websites do not exist to provide information or services or to promote anything. Their sole purpose is to deliver advertising that earns the owner money for almost no work on their part.
How much time and effort goes into creating one of these monstrosities? Virtually none: in most cases everything is done by a software package. The pseudo webmaster never needs to worry about designing or building the actual web page. All these quacks have to do is decide on their niche topic, add a bunch of keywords to the mix, and the software will do the rest. These people can create their pseudo niche websites on any topic that anyone in the world can think of. It’s easy because they don’t need to know anything about it themselves. Whether it’s dog training, wedding dresses, funerals, or hemorrhoids, an online search tool will provide a list of keywords and the software will do the rest. No one cares that the laughing man clutching a handful of cash or the sports car shown in the headline has no relevance to the content and would be downright inappropriate if he were looking for a funeral director or medication for a medical condition. painful. The webmaster has no intention of offering you anything of value. In fact, it’s in his interest if he immediately dislikes your web page because that makes him more likely to click away via one of your advertising links and that’s how he makes his money.
After a couple of days of trying to do some semi-serious research on the internet, I feel like unplugging my computer and dusting off my library tickets. Granted, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but the cover is usually not intended to deliberately mislead you as to the content (in fact, quite the opposite). When I type a query into a search engine, I want the results to take me to websites that contain the answer to that query. If I’m looking for information on a particular topic, I don’t like being directed to websites that consist of a few keyword-laden sentences surrounded by ad units from other similar websites.
The day passes when someone invents a search engine that can tell the difference between a real niche website and an advertising vehicle built from cheap kit. Maybe we can go back to the time when searching the internet was faster than taking a bus to the library and flipping through books.
Copyright 2006 Elaine Currie