It’s exactly this type of thinking (and acting) that created the dismal state of search, especially in the product review space. I can’t find anything but “content sites” when what I really want is genuine reviews or experiences from people who use the products I’m considering purchasing. It’s obvious that most of the sites in the top results for almost any product search are using a playbook similar to this. I can almost never find trustworthy, real reviews.

Now I try to find communities on Reddit or elsewhere to find real information and opinions. In some cases I’m sure my purchases have been influenced by some marketing drone that gets paid to post positive reviews on Reddit as well. Finding and supporting great makers and products shouldn’t be this difficult!

Please don’t make everything worse by following any advice in this article. If you truly want to turn a hobby into cash (a potentially fun-killing enterprise as others have mentioned) then let it happen organically, or at least keep the end users’ experiences in mind. For every person making $10k a month on terrible content sites there are thousands of people wasting their time sifting through hundreds “content” pieces in an attempt to find reality.