Use "lousy content" for your ppc landing pages

And pay a lot more than you need to.

I read SEL pretty much every day. Lots of great stuff out there. I was reading an article on duplicate content today and was a bit surprised to see the following;

"The bottom line is that the engines are actively seeking out lousy content and removing it from their main results. If this sounds like your site, don't be surprised to wake up one day and find you've lost some or all of your rankings. It's time to bite the bullet and use them as PPC landing pages instead. There's definitely some irony in the fact that those types of pages are welcome in Google if you're willing to pay for each clickthrough you receive, but those are obvious moneymaker pages, and Google has a right to demand their cut."

Go read the whole article so you can see that in it's original context.

A few years back that was pretty much spot on...you could get decent traffic at a reasonable price (regardless of the landing page) so skip the organic route and just buy your way in. Things have chanced over the last few years (heck, even over the last few months) and "lousy content" doesn't fair much better in the paid results (talking AdWords here) than it does in the organic results. Sure, you can bid $10 per click and get clicks all day but odds are that won't be profitable for anyone...except of course Google.

The article is a nice explanation of duplicate content but misses the mark in terms of what will and won't work in paid search. Lousy content will cost you - one way or the other. If you want to compete in the paid search space take the time & learn how build and optimize your landing pages. It may take a little more effort to set up but will pay for itself in the long run.

It's time to bite the bullet and fix your lousy pages...organic, ppc or otherwise.