eHow Relaunches Amid Content Controversy, Revamps Site

eHow

Amid continued controversy over the quality of its content, eHow is expected to debut a major site redesign on Wednesday.

Bearing the new tagline "Trusted advice for the curious life," eHow's vast content stores will now be divided into six channels, including home, money, style, health, family and food. Each channel will have its own identity, feature set and "personality," catering to the specific interests of readers, according to Greg Boudewijn, general manager of eHow.com. 

"Creating content for a home and garden audience is different than creating [content] for a financial audience," said Boudewijn. 

As part of the broader redesign, eHow plans to increase its production of feature-length articles and videos, produced by professional writers and filmmakers from Demand Media Studios. For example, the eHow Food channel is debuting with a video series dubbed Curbside Eats, which explores the growing food truck culture. 

Shifting from a horizontal to a vertical content structure is designed to increase eHow's overall quality and provide a richer experience for readers, said Boudewijn. "This really does help us move forward with content that is more relevant." Still, Boudewijn insisted that the revamp has been in the works for about a year, and thus could not be a direct response to Google's recent crackdown on so-called "content farms."

Either way, there is no denying that parent company Demand Media -- which recently went public at a $1.5 billion valuation -- has taken Google's stance into consideration. In its IPO filing, Demand admitted that such search engine-led content filtering efforts could eventually require a new business model.

In addition to content segmenting, the new eHow introduces a more robust "content curation layer," according to Boudewijn, which encourages users to rate the quality of individual pieces of content. "Helpful?" buttons will now appear alongside all articles and videos, and feedback will be funneled directly back to eHow's editorial team.

But while Demand and eHow are always looking to raise their editorial worth, Boudewijn said not to expect a dramatic shift in their standards.

"Utilizing Demand Media's proprietary technology and insight, eHow pays attention to what consumers are seeking," the company explains in a press release. In other words, eHow has its editors tailor content to popular memes and search terms.

Google, along with other search engines like Blekko, has recently sought to discourage this practice by adjusting their search algorithms. To punish producers of poor-quality content, Google also recently began allowing users to block specific Web sites from appearing in future search results.

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