Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results

#31

Post by nervechannel » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 2:09 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #26

shrikant wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't mind that site - about half the time I search for an issue, I find it's been resolved by someone over at Experts Exchange. Do people realise that if Google is your referrer, you can scroll all the way down and see the solutions to the question?

It seems like every few months, EE tries to cloak its site in a new way ... then Google catches them and they revert to merely misleading people (by putting the answers several page-scrolls down) into thinking that they need to pay to see the answers. Actually, I sort of sympathize with the predicament EE faces. They want to show up high on Google search results, because that's how they get new customers ... but they…

Actually, I sort of sympathize with the predicament EE faces. They want to show up high on Google search results, because that's how they get new customers ... but they don't want to give away their content for free.

I have no sympathy at all for them. All the answers are community-generated for free, aren't they? So they're trying to charge for other people's generosity. And plenty of sites on the web give away better content than theirs for free, with no attempt to trick people into paying.

Their business model is broken and I'm surprised they've lasted this long.

Re: Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results

#32

Post by cosmicray » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 2:10 PM UTC

pixelbeat wrote: post #21

Google were experimenting with voting on results: http://techcrunch.com/2007/11/28/straight-out-of-left-field-... Also there is this form for reporting spam sites: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport Integrating the above into standard search results would be difficult unless it was restricted to users with a good "karma". That might be possible in our increasingly socially networked world

You could also restrict it to people who buy, and sell, on Google Checkout. Putting real money/goods on the table tends to weed out the fake accounts.

Re: Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results

#33

Post by forkrulassail » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 2:10 PM UTC

YES. Like the useless chromeextensions.org

This would be an awesome feature.

Re: Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results

#34

Post by 9ec4c12949a4f3 » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 2:11 PM UTC

foljs wrote: post #3

And no more bloody experts-exchange...

expert sexchange was the first one I was thinking of blocking too.

Re: Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results

#35

Post by dawgr » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 2:11 PM UTC

That will never happen, if they ever did that it would be an admission that there is something inherently wrong with their algorithm. They won't do it.

Re: Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results

#36

Post by Pewpewarrows » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 2:12 PM UTC

Gmail already does it, and the global system uses an algorithm to look at reported spam results in order to automatically move future emails from that party to the spam folder automatically, not just for the person that reported it, but for everyone.

If they're not looking into integrating that nicely into the existing search results page (not a separate form that the average user will never find or use), especially after all the internet chatter about it recently, then they definitely should make that a top priority in 2011. I definitely don't want them to do a rush job on it though. I don't want competitors to start reporting each other as spam in search results to try and game the system even further. I'm assuming they have anti-gaming measures in place for Gmail, so they won't be completely starting that from scratch...

Re: Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results

#37

Post by bartl » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 2:13 PM UTC

djhworld wrote: post #20

I think the worst culprits are the ones that skim StackOverflow questions and rehash them into their own supposed original "question and answer" site

Jeff Atwood discusses this in his most recent Coding Horror blog post (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/01/trouble-in-the-hous...), in which he states that he doesn't really mind people copying StackOverflow questions (and answers), but that he does mind that the copies get a higher Google ranking than the original.

Re: Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results

#38

Post by Luc » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 2:13 PM UTC

Also, I would like '[any widget] review' to take me to an actual review, not pages upon pages of spam. I usually end up looking at comments on a few trusted sites (e.g. Amazon). This seems broken...

Re: Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results

#39

Post by CWuestefeld » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 2:19 PM UTC

Luc wrote: post #38

Also, I would like '[any widget] review' to take me to an actual review, not pages upon pages of spam. I usually end up looking at comments on a few trusted sites (e.g. Amazon). This seems broken...

Yes, most of the results for this query wind up pointing to pages saying "be the first to review [any widget]".

As a workaround, try searching for "[any widget] sucks" and "[any widget] good".

EDIT: tying this to other discussions on the topic, it's a symptom of Patio11's observation that natural language search doesn't work very well. If you want to find something, you need to paint a picture of what it looks like, rather than asking a question about it.

Re: Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results

#40

Post by nervechannel » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 2:22 PM UTC

dawgr wrote: post #35

That will never happen, if they ever did that it would be an admission that there is something inherently wrong with their algorithm. They won't do it.

Nah. They let people 'report spam' in gmail -- they're happy to admit that algorithm doesn't always guess right. Also there's already a "give us feedback" mechanism for reporting bad search results, it's just too slow and manual.