Google has issued a recent warning to webmasters who are operating sites that have content of dubious value that has either been scrapped or otherwise does not add substantial value to users. Recently, Google has seen this type of content on many video sites. In particular, it is prevalent in the adult industry, but it has manifested itself elsewhere as well.

Frequently, these sites have content which was provided to them as part of an affiliate program.  The same or similar content is generally available on numerous additional sites.

If you operate a site or sites that contains content that is available elsewhere on the web, then it is unlikely that your site has any value added benefits to users that they could not obtain from the original content source.  If your site provides little or no added value to visitors it will likely serve to frustrate visitors and violate Google’s quality guidelines.

Similar to any quality guideline violation, Google is likely to take corrective action and remove these type of sites from their index so as to maintain the quality of the search results.

Consequently, if you are running an affiliate site that does not contain value-added content, you may want to ameliorate the situation by adding original content to your site, or face the likelihood that you will be de-indexed.