Google Removes More Than 11 Million .co.cc Domains From Search Results • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Removes More Than 11 Million .co.cc Domains From Search Results

#21

Post by brudgers » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:32 PM UTC

speckledjim wrote: post #14

nodata wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's search results are extremely... crap. There I said it. It used to be that I could search for something, say this: word1 word2 and Google would give me the results for pages which contain both those words. Then Google decided I didn't mean what I searched for, so I had to prefix my searches with plus signs, like this: +word1 +word2 And now this week I find out that even that doesn't work any more. It's crap.…

Never had any issue. Give some examples of what doesn't seem to work for you.

Your results are likely to be different because of Google's practice of "personalizing" results based upon the consumer's profile. Any discussion of the quality of Google's results should be preceded with "For me."

Re: Google Removes More Than 11 Million .co.cc Domains From Search Results

#22

Post by silverbax88 » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:33 PM UTC

nodata wrote: post #5

yaakov34 wrote: post #4

The Google search results are still extremely spammy. For anything with commercial potential and especially anything which could lead to an immediate purchase, the noise is just overwhelming. I recently looked into getting a VPN provider; it is simply impossible to research them without being showered in pages that are either outright spam or merely search-engine-optimized out the wazoo (pardon my French). They've le…

Google's search results are extremely... crap. There I said it. It used to be that I could search for something, say this: word1 word2 and Google would give me the results for pages which contain both those words. Then Google decided I didn't mean what I searched for, so I had to prefix my searches with plus signs, like this: +word1 +word2 And now this week I find out that even that doesn't work any more. It's crap.…

Google results have always been crap, they were just 'less crap' than other search engines until the past couple of years, where Google has been overwhelmed by spammers and, frankly, is losing that battle.

Re: Google Removes More Than 11 Million .co.cc Domains From Search Results

#23

Post by vaksel » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:35 PM UTC

you could probably take it even further just by making it a lot more difficult to rank the other types of domains:

1. anything that's not a .com or .org(let's face it...if it's a .net, then it's most likely bought for seo optimization)

2. the .co.uk/.de etc, should only get a bonus in their own countries.

3. anything that's longer than 16 letters. If it is, chances are that its just a spam domain.

4. anything with a dash in the domain(the more dashes, the bigger the penalty).

5. anything with a # in the domain

this way brands would be fine, but those crappy domains that were purchased solely for SEO wouldn't be as effective. Sure, .com exact match would be fine, but that's a lot less to worry about.

Re: Google Removes More Than 11 Million .co.cc Domains From Search Results

#24

Post by lhnz » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:37 PM UTC

yaakov34 wrote: post #4

The Google search results are still extremely spammy. For anything with commercial potential and especially anything which could lead to an immediate purchase, the noise is just overwhelming. I recently looked into getting a VPN provider; it is simply impossible to research them without being showered in pages that are either outright spam or merely search-engine-optimized out the wazoo (pardon my French). They've le…

How could this be solved though?

There are few easy-to-attain signals that will help you to differentiate search results in a way that approximates the opinion of an intelligent human.

I believe we have reached the point in which Google's search results are only useful for one reason: speed of information retrieval. If you wish to get high quality information you visit sources that you trust. These are either (a) content providers that have provided high quality information to you previously, or in the cases in which you've not had to search for some information before (b) socially curated information from user communities in which you trust and are a part of.

Here's an example: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=mp3+player+reviews

Most of the content rated highly by Google has either nothing to do with reviews or is hideously out-of-date, note the 2007 'reviews' in the second result down. It's junk all the way down. For a lot of people the Google search bar has been denigrated to a fancy URL bar; it takes them to places only when they know where they're going: you avoid browsing for fun.

So what can be done... An extension that allows you to join an invite-only group of Hacker News users who will remove any rubbish search results from Google? Using the +1 as a signal to try and make the search results better? I can only see the former idea as being difficult to game. The latter would be unused apart from for very popular searches to the extent that a determined spammer with a botnet wishing to cheat would probably be able to affect many search results.

Better minds might know better ways.

Re: Google Removes More Than 11 Million .co.cc Domains From Search Results

#25

Post by brudgers » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:39 PM UTC

5000 phishing sites cause Google to block 11,000,000 domains? That's less than 0.5%.

First, is that really "a significant fraction?"

Second, when did collective punishment become less evil than innocent until proven guilty?

Re: Google Removes More Than 11 Million .co.cc Domains From Search Results

#26

Post by parfe » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:42 PM UTC

Google blocked one domain that was reselling subdomains.

Re: Google Removes More Than 11 Million .co.cc Domains From Search Results

#27

Post by yaakov34 » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:45 PM UTC

lhnz wrote: post #24

yaakov34 wrote: post #4

The Google search results are still extremely spammy. For anything with commercial potential and especially anything which could lead to an immediate purchase, the noise is just overwhelming. I recently looked into getting a VPN provider; it is simply impossible to research them without being showered in pages that are either outright spam or merely search-engine-optimized out the wazoo (pardon my French). They've le…

How could this be solved though? There are few easy-to-attain signals that will help you to differentiate search results in a way that approximates the opinion of an intelligent human. I believe we have reached the point in which Google's search results are only useful for one reason: speed of information retrieval. If you wish to get high quality information you visit sources that you trust. These are either (a) con…

Hey, I come here to offer useless kvetching and complaints, not solutions :). Seriously, if I knew how to solve it, I'd be the CTO of Google.

But I'll make a couple of guesses. I think they need to go for a lot more human input. It goes against the grain of everything they do, they want to solve everything algorithmically. But SEO is just too good at abusing algorithms. I think they need to get more humans involved, and force the SEO guys to tone it down.

And one tiny specific suggestion: drop the strong signal of a search term being in the domain name. Maybe leave it for proper names, but drop it for all generic words, please. It used to be a good signal. It used to be that when you saw your search echoed in the domain name, you knew you found what you wanted. Now, I cuss and skip it, because I know it's spam. It's been abused beyond belief.

EDIT: Yes, lots of people suggest "going social" on the problem. That's a lot harder for most people to manage than just using a search box. And searching for "trusted social group for reviews" is just going to take you to mytrustedsocialgroupforreviews.com. Guess what's there.

Re: Google Removes More Than 11 Million .co.cc Domains From Search Results

#28

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:45 PM UTC

vaksel wrote: post #23

you could probably take it even further just by making it a lot more difficult to rank the other types of domains: 1. anything that's not a .com or .org(let's face it...if it's a .net, then it's most likely bought for seo optimization) 2. the .co.uk/.de etc, should only get a bonus in their own countries. 3. anything that's longer than 16 letters. If it is, chances are that its just a spam domain. 4. anything with a…

[deleted]

Re: Google Removes More Than 11 Million .co.cc Domains From Search Results

#29

Post by Klinky » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:47 PM UTC

MichaelApproved wrote: post #17

Klinky wrote: post #6

One thing that irks me is Google News. It's hard to get your site listed on Google News but when you see some of the sites that are listed, you have to wonder why Google makes it so difficult. Some search terms bring up "news sites" that are essentially devoted to spamming health remedies and playing them off as though they were real news articles.

I'm looking into listing a site on google news. Can you elaborate on the problems you've encountered when trying to list?

Google News, like a lot of their services is a black box that no one really knows how it works or what criteria they use to pick sites for inclusion.

Generic Google News talking points are:

You need at least 3 or more editors/staff, with some sort of bio page detailing who they are.

You need to push a lot of content through your site. What "a lot" is, no one really knows.

Content needs to meet a certain quality level. What the criteria are for "quality content" is anyone's guess. If you're big enough you won't be held to this as strictly.

Content should offer an independent viewpoint and not be slanted to one side or another. If you're big enough you aren't held as strictly to this.

Re: Google Removes More Than 11 Million .co.cc Domains From Search Results

#30

Post by beaumartinez » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:57 PM UTC

yaakov34 wrote: post #27

lhnz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could this be solved though? There are few easy-to-attain signals that will help you to differentiate search results in a way that approximates the opinion of an intelligent human. I believe we have reached the point in which Google's search results are only useful for one reason: speed of information retrieval. If you wish to get high quality information you visit sources that you trust. These are either (a) con…

Hey, I come here to offer useless kvetching and complaints, not solutions :). Seriously, if I knew how to solve it, I'd be the CTO of Google. But I'll make a couple of guesses. I think they need to go for a lot more human input. It goes against the grain of everything they do, they want to solve everything algorithmically. But SEO is just too good at abusing algorithms. I think they need to get more humans involved,…

> Drop the strong signal of a search term being in the domain name [...] It's been abused beyond belief.

I whole-heartedly agree—but people still search for "facebook.com login" and similarly trivial queries. If Google broke returning "facebook.com/login" for these it'd lose a lot of its value for these people.