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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”

#261

Post by kbenson »

aptwebapps wrote: post #257
kbenson wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shout out to the guy that runs pinboard. He posts here sometimes (regularly? Rarely? Often?), and goes into his experience running a site like that by himself.

`idlewords, but that's that got to do with Pinterest?

The comment I replied to noted "they are popular because they are pretty much the only ones in that pretty specific space" while referring to Pinterest. Pinboard is a competitor, is it not? Not at the same scale, of course, but it is an alternative, a paid on at that, and is successful.

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

#262

Post by yellowapple »

teddyfrozevelt wrote: post #170
JohnTHaller wrote: post #110

While they're at it please remove Yelp. The page that comes up on mobile does not appear to be the one Google indexes. It only shows the first sentence of a few reviews. Clicking Read More or More Reviews bounces you straight to the Google Play Store to install the Yelp app.

If they did this, they would get slammed with lawsuits considering their own rating system competes with Yelp.

I suspect if Yelp clearly runs afoul of Google's policies (and "don't compete with Google" is not one of those policies) and the page rank demotions are explicitly documented to be because of chronic violations of such policies, then such lawsuits would be uphill battles at best.

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

#263

Post by mrsteveman1 »

mrsteveman1 wrote: post #81

They seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to insert themselves between the site users visited intentionally to find what they were looking for (Google), and the site that actually provided what they were looking for. They've essentially become a large MITM attack on Google Image results. Edit: just tried a few arbitrary search strings on Google Images, it seems improved compared to the past few weeks/months, somewha…

Replying to myself after doing some additional testing.

I've now seen multiple examples of Pinterest hosting images with the "original link" being a Google Images search result page, complete with the huge URL query string intact.

While it's possible users who don't know how to find the original URL for an image are pinning Google Image pages instead, the accounts that have pinned them do not look like real people.

It really makes it look like Pinterest is crawling Google Images for specific search terms, auto-generating pages to match the results, and then manipulating Google to get their own pages to show up in Google instead.

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

#264

Post by aptwebapps »

kbenson wrote: post #261
aptwebapps wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`idlewords, but that's that got to do with Pinterest?

The comment I replied to noted "they are popular because they are pretty much the only ones in that pretty specific space" while referring to Pinterest. Pinboard is a competitor, is it not? Not at the same scale, of course, but it is an alternative, a paid on at that, and is successful.

I guess I don't think of them as competitors. They're both social bookmarking sites but the interface and the way people use them seem very different.

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

#265

Post by tabtab »

There's a problem bigger than Pinterest here: images AND any content that is not where Google expects them or can link to. The "infinite scrolling" fad contributes to this as there is no longer a page to link to. Google and Bing should penalize sites for making it difficult to link to specific images and content.

For example, they can create a "2 page down" rule. If it takes more than two presses of the Page Down button (or equivalent per mouse/finger) to see indexed content, then penalize their rank score.

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

#266

Post by upvotinglurker »

aptwebapps wrote: post #264
kbenson wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment I replied to noted "they are popular because they are pretty much the only ones in that pretty specific space" while referring to Pinterest. Pinboard is a competitor, is it not? Not at the same scale, of course, but it is an alternative, a paid on at that, and is successful.

I guess I don't think of them as competitors. They're both social bookmarking sites but the interface and the way people use them seem very different.

Yup. Pinterest is less about saving the URLs/pages, than about curating a selection of pictures and visually displaying them in a fashion-magazine looking manner. Pinboard doesn't do that last I checked.

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

#267

Post by rosegold »

jypepin wrote: post #204
adrianmonk wrote: post #159

I don't see why Pinterest does this to themselves. My main exposure to them is through Google image search and links to their site. So my first several experiences were like this. It left me with a terrible first impression. It makes me wonder if the whole site plays games and tries to waste my time. I usually don't sign up for an account the first few times I encounter a site, so in my mind it's a pretty critical ti…

Agreed on this. What's surprising to meis their success despite the logged in experience not being better at all. We're getting married, so my fiancée is (obviously) using pinterest for everything - her dress, themes, you name it. And the wedding planner we work with uses Pinterest too, we (try) to share it with them so they get an idea. Even such a simple feature as sharing a board is a nightmare and wastes 5-10 min…

Happy to help you share a board or pin from outside Pinterest. I've absolutely never had a problem with any of the things you mention. My problem with Pinterest is that it is way too commercial now with lots of links to buy and spam contained within images. I used to enjoy it but not so much now.

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

#268

Post by mvkel »

Isn’t this the best practice for, like, everyone?

Name one social network that lets you view its content without a significant reg wall being displayed.

You can’t see a single tweet without logging into twitter.

Browsing Facebook? Good luck seeing past that login box that dominates half the browser screen.

Want information about a restaurant on Yelp besides its address? Better login.

Not sure why Pinterest is being singled out here.

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

#270

Post by jjeaff »

creato wrote: post #187
jjeaff wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No sound business model? Quora has a sound business model. The same model as many VC backed SV companies. No, it's not to simply sell ads. You build something slick and shiny, then you pump VC money into it and you keep hyping (otherwise known as "pumping") until you can get numbers that look good. You can just spend that sweet, easy VC money to buy users and spend a dollar to make 10 cents because of that "growth" y…

Do you have an example? You speak as if this is a very common pattern, but I can't think of any good examples. I can think of some that look like they might fit this pattern if they were to IPO, but that's a big if.

Groupon IPO'd at $28 a share. Currently trading at around $4

Zynga IPO: $23. Now around $3

Snap $22 ... ~$16 (LA not SV)

Blue Apron $10 ... ~$2

Box plummeted more than 50% before coming back up closer to the IPO price but has almost never exceeded the IPO price since inception.

And there are a lot more that are newer and still riding the capital injection from the IPO (like twitter).

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