How Bleacher Report's website works

[Judge Jude]

A lot of you may know something about Bleacher Report, but this is a comprehensive analysis of how it works

http://www.sfweekly.com/2012-10-03/news/bleacher-report-sports-journalism-internet-espn-news-technology/

"There's no single narrative to encapsulate the ascent of Bleacher Report, a site that churns out around 800 articles a day penned by 2,000 "core contributors." The site is as polarizing as it is popular. And it is very popular. In August, some 14.2 million users visited it. Astronomical pageview numbers have translated into loads of advertising revenue — media reports peg the site as on pace to gross $30 million to $40 million this year."

"The site's deft use of search engine optimization (SEO) — the tweaking of content and coding to increase online visibility — propelled its unpaid, amateur writers' fare to the top of Google's search engine results, placing it on equal footing with original work created by established journalistic outlets. It's a rare sports-related Google search that doesn't feature a Bleacher Report article among the top results."

Perhaps uniquely among journalistic entities, Bleacher Report has a "blanket policy" forbidding its writers from seeking out and breaking news. ... Bleacher Report is designed to engage in the far more lucrative practice of pouncing on news broken by others, deploying its legions of writers to craft articles — or better yet, multi-page slideshows — linking to its own voluminous archives, and supplanting original stories on the Google rankings. Breaking a story is no longer valuable: owning it is."

[Erik]

It's the epitome of modern newsgathering. It values page hits and search engine placement over news and content.

Much of its content is quite terrible, in fact.

[gungy 2]

It's the epitome of modern news gathering. It values page hits and search engine placement over news and content.
Much of its content is quite terrible, in fact.

I concur with this economic, concise and accurate assessment

[revo]

It's the epitome of modern newsgathering. It values page hits and search engine placement over news and content.

Much of its content is quite terrible, in fact.

Agreed -- I hate that site.

[TS Garp]

Agreed -- I hate that site.

I third that emotion.

[Judge Jude]

It feels like modern America - the guy who creates the original product isn't the one who makes the money, not to sound all "Occupy Wall St" or anything.

It took me almost two YEARS for google-search to start pushing me to the front of their listings, and only then for the old-fashioned reason that I got linked to often enough by major sites without having to game the system like they did (not as true now, in the specific sense that they really are among the most-visited sites these days, setting quality issues aside). If I do an item about Jay-Z's concerts to open the Nets' billion-dollar Barclays Center in Brooklyn, my hit count for the day likely will spike. The difference is my raison d'etre is not to rig in keywords just to puff up the count.

I can see why the businessmen did it - the way the internet works is such that people treat it as a magic box. Type in your keyword, and here are your options. The second-hander mentions the real info provider in passing or in a link, but enough info is stolen that there's no need for a casual reader to click the link.

Can't really blame that reader, either - these are the options he's handed, and as with talk radio, moronic provokes more interest than even-handed.

[johnnya24]

The site has to be admired for its success though. Despite (almost) all the content originating from the USA, if you do a search for any soccer related subject, you invariably get a couple of bleacher links in there.

It doesn't bother me. There's never anything insightful in their output, but it's harmless nonetheless.

They have really taken advantage of people searching for "top" "top 5" "top 10" "top 50" "best" "greatest" type web searches.

[Long John]

Unfortunately, JJ, sometimes it really is just about how well you play their game. I've found this out the hard way a few times.