Google takes action on pages that are auto-generated, and add no value. You probably know that. Google talks about this kind of content in its Quality Guidelines. But that hasn’t stopped Matt Cutts from discussing it further in a new Webmaster Help Video in response to the user-submitted question:
What does Google do against sites that have a script that automatically picks up search query and makes a page about it? Ex: you Google [risks of drinking caffeine], end up at a page: “we have no articles for DRINKING CAFFEINE” with lots of ads.
“Okay, so it’s a bad user experience,” says Cutts. “And the way that you have asked the question, we are absolutely willing to take action against those sites.”
He notes that in the past, he has put out specific calls for sites where you search for a product, and you think you’re going to get a review, and you find a page with “zero reviews found” for that product.
If you have a site that would have something like this, Cutts says to just block the pages that have zero results found.
Image: Google (YouTube)
