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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”

#111
post #108
post #39

While they are at it please remove LinkedIn. You can't actually view anything on any page without logging in. Why is it listed at all? Seems pretty deceptive to me.

Oh and w3schools.com needs to go below MDN because it's less informative. Even today I wanted to read about transform-origin and landed on w3schools [0], where MDN article [1] is clearly superior. [0] https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css3_pr_transform-origin.as... [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/transform-o...

Perhaps, but at least they don't require you to signup just to view a stupid image.

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

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Try `-site:pinterest.com` to remove any results from the website, rather than any results that contain the text "pinterest.com". A minor distinction, but one that could change your results slightly.

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

#113
post #57
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, pr…

Based on what I remember of their demographics, I would guess that you're right. What scares me is the number of LinkedIn users that are so unsavvy!

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

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "Google search results reflect content on the web" That's what's being violated. The GoogleBot gets the content, but not a human visiting the site. That's not what a user expects. That's why Pinterest and LinkedIn should be removed from Google search indexes. Addendum We're not even talking about violating Google's T&C here. It's about how their ranking algorithm works. Try building a site and applying similar blac…

You could make the same argument about the New York Times, WSJ, the Economist, FT, and many other newspapers of record: the Googlebot gets the content, and the users get a login page if they don't have an account. Should Google get rid of those as well? How can a search engine be useful if it doesn't include the most popular sites?

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

#115
post #108
post #39

While they are at it please remove LinkedIn. You can't actually view anything on any page without logging in. Why is it listed at all? Seems pretty deceptive to me.

Oh and w3schools.com needs to go below MDN because it's less informative. Even today I wanted to read about transform-origin and landed on w3schools [0], where MDN article [1] is clearly superior. [0] https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css3_pr_transform-origin.as... [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/transform-o...

Does Google manually adjust weights? While I agree with you, I always supposed that Google weights websites according to their own algorithms, not because some moderator thinks that it's less informative. If w3schools is higher, probably there are technical reasons, for example more users prefer it (may be content is easier to understand).

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

#117
post #57
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, pr…

It might be a good habit. If you're typing URL manually, you can visit some fakebook instead of facebook and lose your password. But Google will correct you in this case.

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

#118
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh and w3schools.com needs to go below MDN because it's less informative. Even today I wanted to read about transform-origin and landed on w3schools [0], where MDN article [1] is clearly superior. [0] https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css3_pr_transform-origin.as... [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/transform-o...

Does Google manually adjust weights? While I agree with you, I always supposed that Google weights websites according to their own algorithms, not because some moderator thinks that it's less informative. If w3schools is higher, probably there are technical reasons, for example more users prefer it (may be content is easier to understand).

They apply “manual actions” all the time.

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

#119
post #39

While they are at it please remove LinkedIn. You can't actually view anything on any page without logging in. Why is it listed at all? Seems pretty deceptive to me.

It’s also a trap if you forget you’re logged in and the user immediately gets notified you viewed their profile.

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

#120
post #108
post #39

While they are at it please remove LinkedIn. You can't actually view anything on any page without logging in. Why is it listed at all? Seems pretty deceptive to me.

Oh and w3schools.com needs to go below MDN because it's less informative. Even today I wanted to read about transform-origin and landed on w3schools [0], where MDN article [1] is clearly superior. [0] https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css3_pr_transform-origin.as... [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/transform-o...

When searching for things like that, I usually prefix my search with MDN, or even better, just use ddg for technical searches. These days, ddg is getting pretty good at showing results of typical coding/technical questions. If my search is for a very fringe/specific/new topic, I fall back to google (which you can from ddg with the `!g` prefix)
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