Friday, October 14, 2005

Building Content-Filled Websites

There's been a spate of "article scraper" tools recently. These scour various article directories for articles, based on keywords, then stuff them automatically into a website template.

On the face of it, they seem to work well. I've built a 100-page site in less than 10 minutes: Management DataVault. But there are two problems with these systems:


  1. Some article directories are stopping the automated "scraping" of their sites
  2. There is evidence that search engines such as Google are able to detect and ban such sites.


Recently, I've taken the plunge and invested a large monthly sum to become one of the 400 Charter Members of "Content Desk". This is a huge set of resources which automates the process of building content-filled websites, but with a few significant differences from "scraper" software:

  • Articles are pulled from Content Desk's own vast directory of articles
  • The system can be automated so that new articles are added at regular intervals
  • Article summaries can automatically be posted to blogs
  • .. and quite a lot more

You can find information on Content Desk and its Chartered Membership here. Since membership is restricted to 400 people, I don't know if there are any vacancies when this entry is read.