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“Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

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Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#51

Post by minimaxir »

DanBC wrote: post #24
minimaxir wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyone of these results requires a signup and log into Pinterest to be able to see it" is a problem.

It's a bit more than that. (Or all newspapers behind a paywall would be blocked). The problem is that, even with a logged in Pinterest account, clicking on a Google image search result doesn't take you to the image. Sometimes the image will be on the page, but not always. Sometimes have to perform another search on Pinterest to find the item. Here's an example where the image is below the fold. There are plenty where…

> (Or all newspapers behind a paywall would be blocked).

I was under the impression that the current X-Articles-Free implementation of newspaper paywalls everywhere was a Google-friendly compromise.

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#52

Post by twblalock »

Firerouge wrote: post #35
twblalock wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't assume people didn't read the link. It's against the guidelines here and frankly it's insulting. People can read the same article and still have different opinions.

The third sentence explicitly states what rule Pinterest breaks....

That's not one of Google's rules, as far as I can tell. Here are some of Google's rules: https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/mission/open-we...

Some might say that Pinterest's behavior is covered under the "Spam and Malware" section on that page, but clearly Google does not agree with that interpretation of Google's rules or else the search results would have been removed by now.

There are other sites requiring logins that appear in Google results, e.g. LinkedIn, and Google clearly doesn't see that as a rule violation either. If that was really a rule, Google would need to block a lot of major news sites as well, e.g. NY Times, WSJ, FT, Economist, etc. I'll believe Google's interpretation of their own rules, rather than someone's interpretation on Reddit.

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#53

Post by xg15 »

CM30 wrote: post #2

It should, but this also illustrates a problem with Google Search that they'll need to grapple with in the future. Namely, that while they should treat all sites equally, in practicality there's not really much incentive to on their part. Think about it. Let's say Google does remove Pinterest altogether, banning the site as a punishment for 'gaming' the system. What then? The people that do search for Pinterest will…

> What then? The people that do search for Pinterest will find it missing, and likely assume Google screwed up/their search engine is broken.

Would that be a problem for Google (or anyone else)? If a group of users specifically expects the results to come from Pinterest, they'd presumably be able to search on that site directly. For other searches, they'd presumably still use Google because there is no good alternative.

Additionally, as the reddit comment notes, the pinterest search results are technically against google's policies anyway as they require a login to be useful.

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#55

Post by bootlooped »

bradford wrote: post #45
blakesterz wrote: post #21

> "I'm searching for a specific piece of technical hardware " What specific piece of technical hardware shows up anywhere near the first page of results in Google that's from pintrest? I can't think of a single time I've seen pintrest in the search results and I search for various technical things all the time? Just curious since this surprises me. I thought pintrest was non technical stuff usually.

I'm a hobbyist woodworker. I was recently searching for an unusual wood-joint, and I had to give up because the google search results were absolutely polluted with pinterest.

Did you try using search operators?

unusual wood joint -pinterest.com

- searches google for "unusual wood joint" minus any results from pinterest.com

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#57

Post by delinka »

xg15 wrote: post #53
CM30 wrote: post #2

It should, but this also illustrates a problem with Google Search that they'll need to grapple with in the future. Namely, that while they should treat all sites equally, in practicality there's not really much incentive to on their part. Think about it. Let's say Google does remove Pinterest altogether, banning the site as a punishment for 'gaming' the system. What then? The people that do search for Pinterest will…

> What then? The people that do search for Pinterest will find it missing, and likely assume Google screwed up/their search engine is broken. Would that be a problem for Google (or anyone else)? If a group of users specifically expects the results to come from Pinterest, they'd presumably be able to search on that site directly. For other searches, they'd presumably still use Google because there is no good alternati…

"...search on that site directly."

Not for an unbelievable number of people (according to my own anecdata.) There exist large numbers (extrapolating from aforementioned anecdata) of people who don't know you can just visit a website - they think it must first be "googled." I've witnessed on a single occasion an individual who accidentally went directly to facebook.com, didn't trust that they'd gotten facebook.com, proceeded to Google, entered 'facebook.com' in the search box, then selected the site from the search results.

I suspect (intuition via anecdata...) that much of the Pinterest's target audience has similar levels of technical awareness and ability.

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#58

Post by dazc »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #18
raquo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why they should have done it before Pinterest got so big in the first place. And honestly I don't think any significant amount of people search Google images wanting Pinterest results. People want images, they don't care where they're from. AFAIK there is almost no OC on Pinterest anyway.

>AFAIK there is almost no OC on Pinterest anyway. And this is the key point. By removing Pinterest from the search results the user doesn't lose almost anything.

'...is almost no OC on Pinterest'

I think you are being charitable there?

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#59

Post by xg15 »

Some people in this thread are comparing the situation to that of news site paywalls and noting the recent change in google image search. I think there is something to the comparison and it highlights the fundamentally different opinions about the purpose of a search engine:

Users want a search engine to find information they are looking for.

Businesses and sites want a search engine to advertise which information they could provide - but not lead directly to the pieces of information in question.

I think it's worth to make this divide visible and start a discussion which kind of search engine we'd like to have.

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#60

Post by endorphone »

twblalock wrote: post #52
Firerouge wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The third sentence explicitly states what rule Pinterest breaks....

That's not one of Google's rules, as far as I can tell. Here are some of Google's rules: https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/mission/open-we... Some might say that Pinterest's behavior is covered under the "Spam and Malware" section on that page, but clearly Google does not agree with that interpretation of Google's rules or else the search results would have been removed by now. There are other sites requir…

Cloaking -- presenting different content to a search bot than you would a visitor -- is against Google's rules, and many sites have been removed over the years for that reason. That they aren't currently removed hardly demonstrates that they've assessed whether it's allowed or not, and is specious logic.

If the search results lead to frustration -- and every pinterest result does -- that doesn't help Google. Ergo, those sites eventually get removed.

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