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Ask HN: Why do search engines not let you blacklist spam domains?

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Ask HN: Why do search engines not let you blacklist spam domains?

#1

Post by pketh »

Whenever I'm searching for anything even mildly off the beaten path, it's not uncommon for the top results to be SEO stuffed spam websites, or maybe even real websites that I can't access (like paywalls or requiring adblocker exceptions to proceed). Usually pages from the same domains are top-ranked for other related searches too.

As a user I'd love to be able to tell my search engine to "Never show me results from this domains" (similar to blocking an account on Twitter) – but as far as I can tell there is no way to do this in either Google or DuckDuckGo search.

This seems like such low-hanging fruit to me that I'm wondering if other people have ever wanted this, and if there's actually a reason not to do it.

Re: Ask HN: Why do search engines not let you blacklist spam domains?

#3

Post by PaulHoule »

elmerfud wrote: post #2

It's a simple answer because you don't pay them for that. They run a balancing act of providing you useful results while also surreptitiously shoving trash, that they actually make money off of, at you and hoping you won't notice or complain.

If the search results were perfect you'd never look at an ad.

Re: Ask HN: Why do search engines not let you blacklist spam domains?

#4

Post by lijogdfljk »

PaulHoule wrote: post #3
elmerfud wrote: post #2

It's a simple answer because you don't pay them for that. They run a balancing act of providing you useful results while also surreptitiously shoving trash, that they actually make money off of, at you and hoping you won't notice or complain.

If the search results were perfect you'd never look at an ad.

A good argument for some distributed foss search then i guess. Wonder if it could ever be made to have search results return reasonably fast in a distributed large index?

Re: Ask HN: Why do search engines not let you blacklist spam domains?

#5

Post by rbinv »

Google used to have that feature: https://www.ghacks.net/2011/03/10/google-adds-block-all-doma...

In my opinion, back then, they needed the data as a training set for spammy domain detection. Now that SERP spam is no longer a serious issue (in Google's eyes anyway), why bother. Google always knows what's best for you.

Re: Ask HN: Why do search engines not let you blacklist spam domains?

#6

Post by sharps1 »

If I had to guess, it's a lot of data they don't want to store.

Current solution is either ublacklist, or add filters to uBlock Origin. Both are linked in the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29546433

https://github.com/h-matsuo/uBlacklist-subscription-for-deve...

Re: Ask HN: Why do search engines not let you blacklist spam domains?

#7

Post by fsflover »

lijogdfljk wrote: post #4
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the search results were perfect you'd never look at an ad.

A good argument for some distributed foss search then i guess. Wonder if it could ever be made to have search results return reasonably fast in a distributed large index?

https://yacy.net

Re: Ask HN: Why do search engines not let you blacklist spam domains?

#8

Post by baremetal »

lijogdfljk wrote: post #4
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the search results were perfect you'd never look at an ad.

A good argument for some distributed foss search then i guess. Wonder if it could ever be made to have search results return reasonably fast in a distributed large index?

i would wait longer if the results were better.

Re: Ask HN: Why do search engines not let you blacklist spam domains?

#10

Post by drunner »

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30374905 which in turn points to https://github.com/quenhus/uBlock-Origin-dev-filter

Doesn't answer you question. I wish google would use their enormous resources to fight this copy spam (and maybe its so hard that they are but you can't tell).

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