Google’s John Mueller Gives Hard Advice

Google's John Mueller often doesn't give direct advice that contains hard messages. But in a Google Webmaster Help thread John decided to give the hard truth to one webmaster producing low quality content. In fact, John recommended that he “take the site down, and start over fresh.”

He told the webmaster that the content on the site is “a bit questionable” and then goes on to say the content appears to be “spun / rewritten from other websites.” He said that type of content is “spam and against our webmaster guidelines.” That is when he told the webmaster he should take the site down and start over.

Here is the full message from John Mueller:

We don't index all content, that's completely normal. In your case, we are indexing a bunch from your website already. However, looking at the content, it seems a bit questionable to me, and I feel there's still a lot of work to be done with regards to its quality. For example, it's filled with “top 10 in 2019” lists — when it's not even been a week of 2019 so far. On top of that, the content appears to be spun / rewritten from other websites, which is spam and against our webmaster guidelines.

My recommendation would be to take the site down, and start over fresh with unique, compelling, and high-quality content that you spend time working on. Pick a topic you're passionate and knowledgable about, and work to create real content of your own there, something that can stand the test of time, and which stands out against *all* of the competition as clearly the best of its kind. Make something awesome, don't just make a website.

If you want to check out the site in question, go to the thread.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.