[volomike]

This is autoblogging. This won't work. Google will see the blog theme fingerprint and will either lessen the index or de-index. Also, the dupe content is another factor that gets you de-indexed.

Now if they used a generic, common theme, and different themes; and then if they used unique, synonymized content -- these things would perhaps get past the Google filter unless of course something triggers a manual review at Google and a human checks it.

A site has flags at Google (that's the theory) and if you throw enough flags, then it sometimes triggers an automatic de-index or PR lessening. In some cases, and again this is all theory, it triggers a manual review and they have a human review what's going on to see if they need to alert the core team on a search engine tweak.

[sjs382]

  http://dormontplumber.com/ 
  http://www.google.com/search?q=dormont+plumber
  http://bridgevilleplumber.com/ 
  http://www.google.com/search?q=bridgeville+plumber
  http://bethelparkplumber.com/ 
  http://www.google.com/search?q=bethel+park+plumber

This plumbing company seems to be getting away with it just fine. I really wish Google did a better job at smacking down this sort of thing.

[tedunangst]

What dupe content? If I go to starwarsanswers.com I see different questions than astonmartinanswers.com. If I open a SW question and change the domain to AM, I get redirected back to SW.

[jcalacanis]

It's not autoblogging, they are niche communities no different than HN or forums or StackOverflow.

As they grow you'll see us invest more in their design and build them out.

I'm not certain this will become a huge business for us, but our Q&A platform is really helpful for niche communities and I'm excited to see how it works.

Most folks won't hang out at a Yahoo Answers or Mahalo Answers, but they would hang out at an iPad Answers site or a Toyota Answers site I think.

Time will tell.

[davidu]

It's lame, but what they are doing is not exactly auto-blogging. They are driving traffic (eventually) to Mahalo.

[jcalacanis]

Actually, we're not trying to drive folks to Mahalo with these sites. We're actually happier if they stay on the vertical sites--which have higher CPMs.

[jotto]

where did you learn these details about how google's indexing algorithm works?

[volomike]

As a developer, I try to "get in the minds" of other developers sometimes. I try to think, "If I had to build this same system, and ensure it was tuned properly, how would I be building it?"

However, I interact monthly with other SEO guys and learn from their thoughts on what they see from the trenches with their content. They commonly tell me that they think that the Google search engine is not fully automated -- that flags are sometimes raised and low-cost staffers react to those flags when enough go off. From there, low-cost staffers filter out the false alarms and escalate to a core team for manual analysis. This makes the most sense. I mean, if you were Google, building the greatest SE on the planet, it makes sense to automate as much as possible, create tools to collect flags and let low-cost staffers check these flags and escalate or ignore issues, and then have a core team do manual reviews to find areas to improve in the SE code.