Live data from Hacker News

Google algorithm change launched

news.ycombinator.com

151–160 of 203 posts

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google (in the context of search) produce no content of their own, are they ruining the internet?

It depends what you think the goal is. I expect Google's goal with searching is to get you to the source data. What is the point in going to an aggregator for a query? Isn't that what google is in a nutshell? I'm not advancing a position, just genuinely posing the question. What role should aggregated results play in a search query if any at all?

The point of using an aggregator is that they supply MORE information surrounding your topic that the original source might. The original article or video might be great, but has no surrounding contextually relevant information that might also be useful or helpful. I personally love using sites that aggregate information for me about my hobbies, whether it be games or sports. I find more about what is going on because that site has done the "value added" work of finding and organizing it for me. Saves me time, because there are millions of sites out there that might have great original content, but I will never find them for many reasons. Not the least of which their SEO might stink. So thank you to aggregators whose SEO chops are good!

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#152
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aggregation site, your SEO shouldn't expect to outrank the content you're sourcing - that's unethical. At best, your SEO should focus on the service you provide. Looking at your site, it's easy to see why Google bumped you down: http://technifi.com/ http://technifi.com/news/Egypt-Leaves-the-Internet-3841691.h... It looks like your service is nothing like Techmeme, adding ad-related pages prior to accessing sign…

Let me address these points one by one: 1. We don't expect our SEO to outrank the original source, I was very clear about that in my original post. SEO is a tool to be used among many other tools to ensure that content is properly "classified", nothing more than that. When a search engine visits, you want that search engine to immediately know what any given page is about, and we do that very well. 2. The Vodafone im…

Radley is spot on. Instead of trying to counter his points you need to read them over and over. If I want to find about Charlie Sheens cocaine and pussy habit I will go to TMZ. You're 'magic algorithms' are NOT what decides what's hot and what's not. It's money through ads on duplicate content. http://informifi.com/company.php?page=about

The big aggregators will win and rise to the top. The knock-offs will be de-indexed. There's only so much room for news and gossip sites that don't add value, don't take it personally just move on.

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second that. WTB ability to customize my search results by blacklisting certain sites. Big change I know, but would be a hugely useful service Google could provide.

why not just use the - function? Create something like: http://www.google.com/search?q=google+-google.com&ie=utf... I suspect you could hack together a quick greasemonkey script to automatically inject your negative site list when the URL is generated

This only works for a small number of blacklisted domains.

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#154

Hi Matt. Why Google don't test the results after changes on algorithm? A simple program that store and compare n SERP results before and after the changes.

We do.

I still see sites with low quality duplicate content but highly stuffed keywords. Here's one such example http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=internet+phone+serv... Check the listing for www.internetphoneguide.org Also for http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=voip+phone+service see the listing for www.zimbio.com which is not an authority on the topic. Last but not the least http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=home+phone+service The site www.freelifelinephone.com jumped to Page 1 over night with the latest update.

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#155

Fantastic though I'd rather see google block sites like efreedom all together.

I think that would be a dangerous precedent to set. Whose opinion should decide what sites add value to content that may not be completely original? I'm not saying efreedom is not "being evil", but I could foresee someone somewhere using another's original content and making it more accessible. For example someone could easily improve the accessibility of the content from experts-exchange.com.

Google already makes that decision about lots of search results, usage on their services etc.

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#156
matt, kudos! this is great news.

a question that I always pondered, what is googles approach on more clever forms of rehashed content that involve photoshopping / cropping an original image, is this something that google looks at?

Example source photo: (http://shoes.n-sb.org/img/thumbs/472153d5fc674fa1c685f3c7814...)

rehashed image: (http://images.sneakernews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/nik...)

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully - Sites like yours ruin the internet. You admit it yourself: you produce no content of your own. I do NOT want to see results from pages of that ilk when I google for things. Google made the right choice to de-index it.

Like I said, and others have said as well, value is in the eye of the beholder - if you follow your own logic, then every single aggregator, including the likes of HuffPo (something like 60-70% of their content is little "curated snippets" from around the web), are ruining the internet. There is very little "truly original" content out there, virtually every single blog rehashes the content of others. Is Techmeme of…

The original content you do have just seems to be short rewritten versions of other online sources and any comments they have appear to just be random Tweets that use one of the same keywords.

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#158

I googled for my own name "Kunjan Kshetri" and I still see sites like 1. www.peekyou.com/_kshetri 2. www.yasni.com/kunjan+kshetri/check+people 3. mobile.aa.com/mt/net35.ccs.neu.edu/home/kunjan/?un_jtt in the front page. These sites reused my homepage or just have my name listed. They too add no original content. Please remove these sites. Please note that searching in Bing produces more original content results.

Google doesn't just remove sites from their index. They will always be there. But if you think a different site should rank higher than these spammy ones, you should mention it and maybe someone can look at it. (I don't work for Google.)

I meant remove them at least from my front page.

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#159

Matt, I just went through my search history because i remembered a very specific instance of seeing this. Here's the query. http://www.google.com/search?q=nstoolbar+bottom+bar&ie=u... You'll notice that efreedom.com shows on the first page with content taken directly from stackoverflow. While stackoverflow does show in the results, the exact page that efreedom copies does not. Anyway, I'm glad you guys are taking thi…

For [nstoolbar bottom bar] I see (from an incognito window): #2) stackoverflow.com/questions/3977343/nstoolbar-on-bottom-of-window #3) stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/nstoolbar #9) efreedom.com/Question/1-3977343/NSToolbar-Bottom-Window The #9 result is copied from stackoverflow.com/questions/3977343/nstoolbar-on-bottom-of-window, which is the same as the #2 result. This actually is really hard to do as well as Go…

For [nstoolbar bottom bar], searched from my logged-in window, a permalink to this comment is the top result.

Um...

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some really annoying torrent sites like this. I mean, sites that pretend they have search results for whatever torrent you're searching for. Those show up on a google a lot and they're useless.

This is another class of problems we're working on. Expect some changes here in the next few months.

Your account page doesn't say anything. I assume you work for Google?
Post reply on HN