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 something beautiful (or at least interesting) and is usually a treasure for visitors who share a love for the niche topic.

What I’m complaining about are so-called niche websites that people are creating for the sole purpose of raising advertising revenue. These sites have little content (if any). The colorful images and the abundant ads do not make up for this lack. Advertising is fine, in fact, it is usually essential if you want to stay in business. What makes me look red is clicking on misleading ads and landing on a website after a cloned website only to be faced with a few sentences of misspelled text and dozens of babbling ads. To test the integrity of a niche site, look at what would be left if you removed all pay-per-click ads.

It’s unfortunate for information seekers that the Internet is being invaded by awful, flimsy-looking web sites produced by templates that are being produced at a breakneck pace. If you spend some time on the Internet, you will know what I mean. 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 the trade” so to speak) and ad groups placed to be the first thing you see. . . If you manage to get past the ads, you might find some articles that have been copied from other websites just for the sake of having something on the pages that gives them some credibility. These websites do not exist to provide information or services or to promote anything. Its sole purpose is to carry advertising that allows the owner to earn money in exchange for almost zero work on their part.

How much time and effort goes into creating one of these monstrosities? Virtually none: in most cases everything is done using a software package. The username webmaster never has to worry about designing or building an actual web page. All these charlatans need 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 whatever topic anyone in the world comes up with. It’s easy because they don’t need to know anything about it. 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. Nobody cares that the man laughing with a handful of cash or the sports car featured in the headline is irrelevant to the content and would be downright inappropriate if you were looking for a funeral director or medication for a condition. painful medical. The webmaster does not intend to offer you anything of value. In fact, it is in his best interest not to immediately like your web page because that makes it more likely that he will click off of it via one of your advertising links and this is how he earns 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. Okay, so you can’t judge a book by its cover, but the cover is generally not intended to deliberately mislead you on content (in fact, quite the opposite). When I type a query in 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 appreciate being directed to websites that consist of a few keyword-laden phrases walled in by ad units from other similar websites.

Seize the day when someone invents a search engine that can distinguish between a real niche website and an advertising vehicle built from a cheap kit. Perhaps we can go back to the days when searching the Internet was faster than taking a bus to the library and browsing through books.

Copyright 2006 Elaine Currie