{{Short description|Organization that creates web content optimised for views}}
A '''content farm''' or '''content mill''' is an organization focused on generating a large amount of web content, often specifically designed to satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval by search engines, a practice known as search engine optimization (SEO). Such organizations often employ freelance creators or, since 2022, use generative artificial intelligence tools,<ref name=":3" /> with the goal of generating large amounts of content in the shortest time and for the lowest cost. The primary goal is to attract as many page views as possible, and thus generate more advertising revenue,<ref name="benkoil2010">{{cite web |author=Dorian Benkoil |date=July 26, 2010 |title=Don't Blame the Content Farms |url=https://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/07/dont-blame-the-content-farms207.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100728102656/https://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/07/dont-blame-the-content-farms207.html |archive-date=July 28, 2010 |access-date=July 26, 2010 |publisher=PBS}}</ref> at the cost of the accuracy of information. The emergence of these media outlets is often tied to the demand for "true market demand" content based on search engine queries.<ref name="benkoil2010" /> Content farms have been criticized for their reliance on sensationalism<ref name=":4" /> and misinformation.<ref name=":1" />
== History == Historically, content farms have outsourced the creation of their content to individuals in poorer countries to enlarge profit margins by keeping workers' pay low.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Oxenham |first=Simon |date=2019-05-28 |title='I was a Macedonian fake news writer' |url=https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190528-i-was-a-macedonian-fake-news-writer |website=BBC News}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Knibbs |first=Kate |title=That Sports News Story You Clicked on Could Be AI Slop |url=https://www.wired.com/story/ai-slop-sports-news-sites/ |access-date=2025-06-15 |magazine=Wired |language=en-US |issn=1059-1028}}</ref> These operations increasingly leverage AI tools to generate content at an accelerated pace.<ref name="futurism-content-farms-ai" /> This content can be anything that circulates on the internet, e.g., videos, news articles, social media posts, or blogs.
The rise of the digital advertising industry incentivized the rise of content farms. Digital advertising revenue is typically proportional to the number of people who have seen an advert, meaning that websites which host advertisements are incentivized to attract as many visitors as possible. Techniques like clickbait (misrepresenting the content of a web page in order to draw in viewers) may be used to attract traffic to the often low quality content published by content farms. Whether a visitor is satisfied with the content or not, the content farm receives a small amount of advertising revenue for each such visit. This model has encouraged the creation of content farms by offering them a means to financial success. Although any individual page may not be of interest to internet users, a content farm may still attract many viewers and be able to place many adverts across an enormous number of total web pages, bringing in a large amount of revenue while minimizing costs.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Eichhorn |first=Kate |title=Content |date=2022 |publisher=The MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-54328-6 |series=The MIT press essential knowledge series |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |pages=}}</ref>
== Characteristics == Some content farms produce thousands of articles each month using freelance writers or AI tools. For example, in 2009, ''Wired'' reported that Demand Media, owner of eHow, was publishing one million items per month, the equivalent of four English-language Wikipedias annually.<ref name="wired-profitable">{{cite magazine |last=Roth |first=Daniel |date=October 19, 2009 |title=The Answer Factory: Demand Media and the Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell Media Model |url=https://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_demandmedia/ |magazine=Wired |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110223141028/https://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_demandmedia/ |archive-date=February 23, 2011 |access-date=February 27, 2011}}</ref> Another notable example was Associated Content, purchased by Yahoo! in 2010 for $90 million, which later became Yahoo! Voices before shutting down in 2014.<ref>{{cite web |last=Plesser |first=Andy |date=May 18, 2010 |title=Yahoo Harvests "Content Farm" Associated Content for $90 Million, Report |url=http://www.beet.tv/2010/05/yahoo-harvests-content-farm-associated-content-for-90-million-report-.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230202193936/https://www.beet.tv/2010/05/yahoo-harvests-content-farm-associated-content-for-90-million-report-.html |archive-date=February 2, 2023 |website=Beet.TV}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Rossiter |first=Jay |date=July 2, 2014 |title=Furthering Our Focus |url=http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/90564142294/furthering-our-focus |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141012202752/https://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/90564142294/furthering-our-focus |archive-date=October 12, 2014 |access-date=October 7, 2014 |website=Yahoo |publisher=Tumblr}}</ref>
Pay scales for writers at content farms are low compared to historical salaries. For instance, writers may be paid $3.50 per article, though some prolific contributors can produce enough content to earn a living.<ref>{{Cite web |date=December 17, 2009 |title=What It's Like To Write For Demand Media: Low Pay But Lots of Freedom |url=http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_its_like_to_write_for_demand_mediap2.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110219163902/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_its_like_to_write_for_demand_mediap2.php |archive-date=February 19, 2011 |access-date=November 4, 2010 |website=ReadWriteWeb |page=2}}</ref> Writers are often not experts in the topics they cover.<ref name="tractor">{{cite web |last=Hiar |first=Corbin |date=July 21, 2010 |title=Writers Explain What It's Like Toiling on the Content Farm |url=https://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/07/writers-explain-what-its-like-toiling-on-the-content-farm202.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170330040710/http://mediashift.org/2010/07/writers-explain-what-its-like-toiling-on-the-content-farm202/ |archive-date=March 30, 2017 |website=MediaShift |publisher=PBS}}</ref>
Since the rise of large language models like ChatGPT, content farms have shifted towards AI-generated content. A report by NewsGuard in 2023 identified over 140 internationally recognized brands supporting AI-driven content farms.<ref name="futurism-content-farms-ai">{{cite web |last1=Dupré |first1=Maggie Harrison |title=People Are Spinning Up Content Farms Using AI |url=https://futurism.com/content-farms-ai |website=Futurism |access-date=December 24, 2024 |date=July 2, 2023}}</ref> AI tools allow these sites to generate hundreds of articles daily, often with minimal human oversight.<ref name="nytimes-ai">{{cite news |last=Thompson |first=Stuart A. |date=May 19, 2023 |title=A.I.-Generated Content Discovered on News Sites, Content Farms and Product Reviews |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/technology/ai-generated-content-discovered-on-news-sites-content-farms-and-product-reviews.html |access-date=December 24, 2024 |work=The New York Times}}</ref>
== Criticism == Critics argue that content farms prioritize SEO and ad revenue over factual accuracy and relevance.<ref>{{cite web |author=Patricio Robles |date=April 9, 2010 |title=USA Today turns to the content farm as the ship sinks |url=http://econsultancy.com/blog/5725-usa-today-turns-to-the-content-farm-as-the-ship-sinks |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100413173743/http://econsultancy.com/blog/5725-usa-today-turns-to-the-content-farm-as-the-ship-sinks |archive-date=April 13, 2010 |access-date=July 26, 2010 |publisher=Econsultancy}}</ref> Critics also highlight the potential for misinformation, such as conspiracy theories and fake product reviews, being spread through AI-generated content.<ref>{{cite web |last=Marr |first=Bernard |title=The Danger of AI Content Farms |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/05/16/the-danger-of-ai-content-farms/ |website=Forbes |access-date=December 24, 2024 |date=May 16, 2023}}</ref> Some have compared content farms to the fast food industry, calling them "fast content" providers that pollute the web with low-value material.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Arrington |first=Michael |date=December 13, 2009 |title=The End Of Hand Crafted Content |url=https://techcrunch.com/2009/12/13/the-end-of-hand-crafted-content/ |website=TechCrunch}}</ref> The word "sponsored" displayed when searching has raised questions on the reliability of the site, as it was likely paid to be pushed to the top of the search options.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Daily |first=Laura |date=January 13, 2025 |title="It's harder than ever to find reliable product recommendations online" |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2025/01/13/online-shopping-product-roundups/ |access-date=January 21, 2025 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref>
Criticisms of AI and content farms have coalesced because of the new use of AI tools and AI's tendency to hallucinate facts. AI's permeation of journalism, even in examples some consider trivial, like a summer reading list published by the ''Chicago Sun-Times''<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2025-05-21 |title=Chicago Sun-Times issues response after publication of fake book list generated by AI |url=https://www.yahoo.com/news/chicago-sun-times-issues-response-023119110.html |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=Yahoo News |language=en-US}}</ref> which was written by AI, have created distrust of artificial intelligence. The prevalence of AI to aid in the creation of content for the purpose of monetization has increased and become common on the internet.
Social media content farm accounts totaling hundreds of thousands<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rise of the Newsbots: AI-Generated News Websites Proliferating Online |url=https://www.newsguardtech.com/special-reports/newsbots-ai-generated-news-websites-proliferating |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=NewsGuard |language=en-US}}</ref> or millions of followers are not a rarity either.<ref name=":1" /> Usage of AI in high stakes environments like court cases as well as low stakes environments like the summer booklist publication<ref name=":2" /> and social media posts have left many questioning AI's role in the world.
Wider effects in society have been seen, like disruption of court cases because of hallucinations from AI tools dealing with usage among lawyers in citations.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-06-07 |title=UK judge warns of risk to justice after lawyers cited fake AI-generated cases in court |url=https://apnews.com/article/uk-courts-fake-ai-cases-46013a78d78dc869bdfd6b42579411cb |access-date=2025-06-14 |website=AP News |language=en}}</ref> Another instance was a New York man using an AI avatar for his own court case defense.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-05-09 |title=From AI avatars to virtual reality crime scenes, courts are grappling with AI in the justice system |url=https://apnews.com/article/ai-virtual-reality-courtrooms-legal-challenges-arizona-f47bfd50bd22469388082169ee77b7f0 |access-date=2025-06-14 |website=AP News |language=en}}</ref> This has raised many concerns based on AI bias, its susceptibility to fabricating information, and how AI makes mistakes on subjects of varied importance like in writing and law.
Content farms can also suffer from AI cannibalism. This is a process in which large language models (LLMs), models designed for the interpretation of text, speech, translation, and text generation, start to consume the content they created. Over time these text generators can present significant deviation from the original information on which the models were trained.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Prada |first=Luis |date=2025-06-03 |title=AI Models Are Cannibalizing Each Other—and It Might Destroy Them |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/ai-models-are-cannibalizing-each-other-and-it-might-destroy-them/ |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=VICE |language=en-US}}</ref> If a content farm uses an LLM to generate text and the LLM is using its own content, its accuracy will fall, leading to misinformation and worse content overall.<ref name=":3" />
Content farms have also been used to intentionally misinform the public and attempt to influence election results. In the 2016 US election, over 140 fake news websites from Veles in North Macedonia portrayed themselves as American websites, and wrote sensationalist articles in an effort to garner more shares on social media.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Alexander |first=Craig Silverman, Lawrence |date=2016-11-03 |title=How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News |url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=BuzzFeed News |language=en}}</ref> The United States was targeted because US viewers on Facebook have a higher average revenue per user, about 4 times as high as the world average.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Constine |first=Josh |date=2016-04-27 |title=Facebook swells to 1.65B users and beats Q1 estimates with $5.38B revenue |url=https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/27/facebook-q1-2016-earnings/ |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=TechCrunch |language=en-US}}</ref> This revenue potential incentivized writers to create attention-grabbing content they knew would be shared. These content farm articles can often get hundreds of thousands of people to engage in posts.<ref name=":4" />
Similarly, content farms have used bots to create inauthentic reviews of products.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Thompson |first=Stuart A. |date=2023-05-19 |title=A.I.-Generated Content Discovered on News Sites, Content Farms and Product Reviews |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/technology/ai-generated-content-discovered-on-news-sites-content-farms-and-product-reviews.html |access-date=2025-06-15 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> This manufactured website traffic encourages advertisers to bid higher prices for website advertising space; most companies have automatized bidding meaning unverified spaces can cost companies a lot of money for no return. It is estimated annually $13 billion dollars is wasted on this advertising.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |title=Junk websites filled with AI-generated text are pulling in money from programmatic ads |url=https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/06/26/1075504/junk-websites-filled-with-ai-generated-text-are-pulling-in-money-from-programmatic-ads/ |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=MIT Technology Review |language=en}}</ref>
== Search engine responses == Google attempted to lower the rankings of low-quality websites with its Panda update in 2011.<ref name="google-20110224">{{cite web |last1=Singhal |first1=Amit |last2=Cutts |first2=Matt |title=Finding more high-quality sites in search |url=https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110226144259/https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html |archive-date=February 26, 2011 |access-date=February 26, 2011 |website=Google |publisher=Blogspot}}</ref> DuckDuckGo implemented measures to block low-quality AI-driven sites in 2024.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Search Engine Backlash Against 'Content Mills' |url=https://www.technologyreview.com/2010/07/26/26327/the-search-engine-backlash-against-content-mills/ |access-date=December 24, 2024 |website=MIT Technology Review}}</ref>
Content farms have been a problem for ad exchange platforms, and many have policies around them, but enforcement of those policies is rare.<ref name=":5" /> NewsGuard found Google to overwhelmingly more likely to serve ads from content farms.<ref name=":5" />
== See also == * AI slop * Brain rot ** Italian brainrot * Click farm * Elsagate * Enshittification * Misinformation * SEO spam * Spamdexing
== References == {{Reflist}}
Category:Internet culture Category:Digital marketing Category:Search engine optimization Category:Online publishing Category:Deception Category:Content farms