Diary of a Mad Editor

I’ve been puzzled by certain blogs I’ve visited in the recent past — blogs written by individuals whose native language is not English, yet write their blogs in English. I’ve been wondering why some of these blogs seem to get more traffic, make more money and have a higher page rank than my own blog. There are probably lots of reasons for this. But one potential reason that may elude many people (and something some SEO expert might dispute). Something I’ve only recently noticed: the version of English they speak sounds an awful lot like the way those Google keyword suggestion tools spit out keyword phrases (and don’t misunderstand me, I’m not slamming ESL bloggers — they should be commended for their efforts). It’s nothing for some blogger who doesn’t speak native English to write a post with keyword phrases like, “He seek credit counseling utah,” because that’s the way many non-English speaking bloggers write English anyway. Instead of writing, “He was seeking information about credit counseling in Utah,” that blogger uses a phrase spit-out by a suggestion tool. Notice the difference. One sentence is grammatically correct and one is not. It’s virtually impossible for an English-speaking person like me (with degrees in English Lit and writing) to write a coherent sentence using those keywords without altering them for the sake of coherent sentence mechanics (or at least being very creative).

So I’m wondering: Should I abandon English altogether and just speak Adsense, even if Adsense often equals nonsense?