content farming
noun
large-scale production of low-quality online content
What does content farming mean?
Content farming refers to the practice of producing large amounts of online content, without any significant regard for its quality, in an attempt to make money through ad revenue. The site that produces this material is called a content farm.
Examples of content farming
Most of the time, AI slop is just content-farming chaos. Exaggerated or sensationalised online material boosts engagement, giving creators the chance to make money based on shares, comments and so on.
—Nasrine Malik, The Guardian (London, Eng.), 21 Apr. 2025
It persists across classic Pinterest categories like home inspiration and DIY hacks, fashion, beauty, food and recipes, art, architecture, and more—and often links back to AI-powered content farming sites that masquerade as helpful blogs, using Pinterest as a tool to draw in viewers to useless chum content just to cash in on lucrative display ads.
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Where does content farming come from?
The word combines a recent sense of content (“the principal substance (such as written matter, images, music, etc.) offered by a website or on social media”) with an existing sense of farm (“to grow or cultivate in quantity”). It has been in common use since about 2010.
"The news business remains in tremendous turmoil, searching for both credible journalistic experiences and profitable models: High cost, high quality journalism is staring into the face of low cost 'content farming,'" Dvorkin said.
—However, there is evidence that even Google's core strength—search—is slipping in the face of new competitors. The company recently came under fire for allowing content-farming companies like eHow.com and about.com to rise to the top of search selections.
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How is content farming used?
The word is often used with a touch of derision; it rarely seems to be employed as a compliment.
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