They’ve been called content mills, content farms, bid sites, broker platforms, and many other less kind names, too. But whatever you call them, websites that pit loads of writers against each other in a race to the bottom on price have been around nearly since the birth of the internet. Historically, rates were rock-bottom low and writers were unhappy.
I wanted to check in on the content farm scene again now, because a lot has changed in this neck of the freelance-writing woods. It’s been exactly 4 years since Google’s Matt Cutts declared junk content dead. Google began actively penalizing sites that used the sort of short, semi-literate, SEO-focused ‘articles’ that have long been content farms’ most common product.
That change was like a Category 5 hurricane for content farms.
Over the past few years, many mills have merged or folded. I recently reopened a survey of content mill writers I first did several years ago — and discovered many of the popular mills back then are now gone.
Which made me wonder what life down on the content farm is like today. To find out, I asked my blog readers, Facebook followers, and Freelance Writers Den members to check in with their personal experiences of today’s rates, working conditions, and opportunities on these mass platforms, where thousands of writers are still signed up.
Many of you responded. Below are stories from 13 writers:
