The content marketing and SEO writing world is all abuzz about Google's new move to give users the option to block certain sites from search results. Is Google blocking content farms from SERPs?

Google Blocks Content Farms?

None of this is surprising, as Google has openly talked about user-tailored search for a long time. But oh, the panic from writers on Demand Media Studios, Suite101, and other forums!

It sounds like this will be much like Ad blocking - people will use it, but in fairly small numbers for a long time, until eventually there's a tipping point. So far, there's been no tipping point with Ad block. User-tailored search will be the same. Tech savvy folks will use it and like it. The vast majority of people won't use it.

Chrome Extension to Block Sites vs. Ad Block - Similarities?

If people come to a user-generated content site's articles and spend a short time there, the bounce rate is enough to show whether the content is decent.

In addition, if readers DO click on ads, the CTR (click through rate) PLUS conversion (making a clicker a customer) is another way to determine quality of content.

If readers click on ads but don't convert into customers for those advertisers, the advertisers may howl at Google. Google then can go back to the web publishers and complain that the *quality of readers/traffic* isn't good enough for the AdWords advertisers, and lower the amount paid for the publisher per click.

Quality traffic = readers turning into customers.

Low Bounce Rate + Solid CTR + Strong CRO = AdWords Value

This is Google's way, in my humble opinion, of getting content farms to provide content that aligns better with ads and that targets readers who will eventually buy something from the advertiser.

Some writers on SEO message boards are freaking out about the possible misuse of this feature. What if a group of writers for one content site banded together and blocked a competing site? No worries. If Google can detect click fraud, Google can detect "block fraud."

Any site that organizes and *maliciously* blocks another site will be caught by Google.

There is no reason to panic about this new Chrome extension, but it's certainly a reason for sites to be on guard and to work on being perceived - by readers - as having value. And that applies to ALL sites, whether a content farm, Aol site, About.com or the New York Times.