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Google search and search engine spam

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Re: Google search and search engine spam

#71

Post by fname »

dpifke wrote: post #68
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has taken action on Mahalo before and has removed plenty of pages from Mahalo that violated our guidelines in the past. Just because we tend not to discuss specific companies doesn't mean that we've given them any sort of free pass.

On a similar note, how is the expert sex change site still in your index? They very clearly are serving different content to the crawler (as evidenced by the "cached" link) than they are to people who click through on the SERPs. I though this was a big no-no? For an example (which was submitted as search feedback a month ago), try searching for "XMPP load balancing" and look at the third organic link. (Edit: actually…

While I'm not a fan of that site either, it's not true -- scroll to the bottom of the page. Sneaky? Absolutely, but the content and solution is there.

Re: Google search and search engine spam

#72

Post by seunpy »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #35
mmaunder wrote: post #11

"we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content." "As “pure webspam” has decreased over time, attention has shifted instead to “content farms,” which are sites with shallow or low-quality content. In 2010, we launched two major algorithmic changes focused on low-q…

I don't think they're talking about duplicate content so much as stuff like Demand Media (ehow), Associated Content, Hubspot, ezinearticles, etc, etc.

What's wrong with eHow?

Re: Google search and search engine spam

#73

Post by lftl »

jsherry wrote: post #70
jonpaul wrote: post #20

You know, sometimes it really makes me mad that it's difficult to get into contact with a person at Google for support of their products. But, I've got to hand it to them. They could have issued a non-personal public statement like most companies and signed it with "Google Search Team" But instead there is a personal touch. It's public statements like these that add just a bit of personal touch that makes people love…

The reason you can't in contact with people at Google is because you're not the customer. Paying businesses are the customers. Not just trying to sound snarky - it's true.

While you're right, I'll note that it isn't that easy to get in touch with a person at Google even if you are an actual paying customer.

Re: Google search and search engine spam

#74

Post by ryanwaggoner »

seunpy wrote: post #72
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they're talking about duplicate content so much as stuff like Demand Media (ehow), Associated Content, Hubspot, ezinearticles, etc, etc.

What's wrong with eHow?

I guess if you find it helpful, nothing. I always skip their results because they're always really shallow. The kind of article you'd expect if you were paying someone $4 to research and write an article on a topic they know nothing about.

Re: Google search and search engine spam

#75

Post by rfergie »

abrahamsen wrote: post #61

Google have two strong incentives to weed out AdSense drivel sites in the search results. 1. They diminish the value of Google Search as an advertising platform. And Google Search is likely the most valuable virtual estate on the net. I more often click on ads in Google Search than I click on ads on all other sites combined. This is because when I'm on Google Search I'm actually searching for something, so I might cl…

I agree with you on point 1; if Google's search quality is not the best than people will (eventually) go elsewhere.

I disagree on point 2. Users on low quality AdSense sites almost certainly arrived there from a search engine so if I can display my adverts on a users landing page it will be almost as good as if they arrived on my site straight from Google.

Re: Google search and search engine spam

#76

Post by gregable »

timmaah wrote: post #56
nolok wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a query where that is still the case ? It hasn't happened for a few weeks for me, since stack overflow changed their title seo.

http://www.google.com/search?q=delayed_job+delay+priority&#3... Stackoverflow comes in at number 8 while clones are 6 and 10

Assuming we are looking at the same results, the pages at position #6 and #10 are not copies of the stackoverflow content at position #8. They are copies of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1399293/test-priorities-o.... Unfortunately, the only place that the word "delay" (which is in your query) sometimes appears on that stackoverflow page is in the "related" links in the right column. At the time Google last crawled that stackoverflow page (see the cache), "delay" wasn't on the page, only "delayed". Whereas, the last time Google crawled the other two pages you mentioned, they did have "delay" on the page. Google should still be able to do better, but this little complication certainly makes things more difficult.

Re: Google search and search engine spam

#77

Post by dpifke »

fname wrote: post #71
dpifke wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a similar note, how is the expert sex change site still in your index? They very clearly are serving different content to the crawler (as evidenced by the "cached" link) than they are to people who click through on the SERPs. I though this was a big no-no? For an example (which was submitted as search feedback a month ago), try searching for "XMPP load balancing" and look at the third organic link. (Edit: actually…

While I'm not a fan of that site either, it's not true -- scroll to the bottom of the page. Sneaky? Absolutely, but the content and solution is there.

That used to be the case, but the complete page as it appears in Firefox to me now: http://i.imgur.com/Lw0Mh.png.

The indexed content is blurred out and there's a big ad overlaying it, with no close button or other method to display the content, other than the Google cache link.

Re: Google search and search engine spam

#78

Post by gregable »

lukev wrote: post #12
nolok wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a query where that is still the case ? It hasn't happened for a few weeks for me, since stack overflow changed their title seo.

Happened to me not ten minutes ago with the search string "pass json body to spring mvc" The efreedom answer at the 5th position is actually the most relevant - the stackoverflow question from which it was copied doesn't even show up on the first page. There is one stackoverflow result on the first page, but it deals with a more complex related issue, not the simple question I was looking for.

In Google's most recent cache, the efreedom result has the word "pass" on the page due to some related links content near the bottom, whereas the stackoverflow page does not. If you modify your query to [parse json body to spring mvc], stackoverflow is at position #1, and efreedom is at position #4. This still has room for improvement, but it would seem like the simplest explanation is just the better match on your query terms.

Re: Google search and search engine spam

#79

Post by roc »

fname wrote: post #71
dpifke wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a similar note, how is the expert sex change site still in your index? They very clearly are serving different content to the crawler (as evidenced by the "cached" link) than they are to people who click through on the SERPs. I though this was a big no-no? For an example (which was submitted as search feedback a month ago), try searching for "XMPP load balancing" and look at the third organic link. (Edit: actually…

While I'm not a fan of that site either, it's not true -- scroll to the bottom of the page. Sneaky? Absolutely, but the content and solution is there.

It's no longer true.

Short version is: they used to, and got busted for, serving answers to the spiders and ads and pitches to the surfers. So now they show the answer at the bottom of a pile of ads and pitches.

But they still suck. Horribly. And are the number one example I hear when people say "I wish Google would let me blacklist domains".

Re: Google search and search engine spam

#80

Post by fname »

dpifke wrote: post #77
fname wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm not a fan of that site either, it's not true -- scroll to the bottom of the page. Sneaky? Absolutely, but the content and solution is there.

That used to be the case, but the complete page as it appears in Firefox to me now: http://i.imgur.com/Lw0Mh.png . The indexed content is blurred out and there's a big ad overlaying it, with no close button or other method to display the content, other than the Google cache link.

So, here's the difference that I found. If you're coming from Google SERPs (the referrer is Google) the answer is shown near the bottom. If you copy and paste the link into a browser (empty referrer) I get the results you show in your screenshot.
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