What’s in a niche? When talking about 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 thing of beauty (or, at least, interesting) and is usually a treasure trove for visitors who share a love of the niche topic.

What I am complaining about is so called niche websites that people are creating for the sole purpose of collecting advertising revenue. These sites have little (if any) in the way of content. 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 a website after a cloned website only to be faced with a few sentences of misspelled text and dozens of slurred 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 who browse for information that the internet is being invaded by 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 kinds of things 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 business” so to speak), and ad groups placed so they’re the first thing you see. see. . If you manage to get past the ads, you might find some articles that have been copied from other websites just for having 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 carry 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 through a software package. The pseudo webmaster never needs to worry about the design or construction of the actual web page. All these charlatans need to do is decide on your 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 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 pictured in the headline has no relevance to the content and would be downright inappropriate if you 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 is in his interest if he immediately dislikes your web page because that makes it more likely that he will click away from it via one of your advertising links and that is how he earns his money.

After a couple days of trying to do some semi-serious research on the Internet, I feel like pulling my computer offline and dusting off my library tickets. Granted, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but the cover is usually not deliberately meant to mislead you as to its 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 of other similar websites.

The day goes by when someone invents a search engine that can distinguish 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