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CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking

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Re: CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking

#571
Recently, I did some research on the topics of "Windows Phone" and "Windows Mobile". I found a lot of interesting articles on Hacker News, thanks to everyone who contributed to the database.

However, many of the links are no longer working. Some websites domain have expired, while others have chosen to remove the old articles. That made me feel so bad.

Re: CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>JavaShit Glad to see the diversity of HN readers apparently includes twelve year olds. Anyway, you do realise plenty of languages have compilers with JS as a compilation target, right? How readable do you think that is?

>Glad to see the diversity of HN readers apparently includes twelve year olds. The abuse of JavaScript does not deserve the respect of being called by a proper name. >Anyway, you do realise plenty of languages have compilers with JS as a compilation target, right? How readable do you think that is? If you're going to run "compiled" code through an interpreter anyway, is that really compiled code?

>In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the source language) into another language (the target language).

Re: CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking

#573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed something similar on youtube. I search for "how to do X", and instead of just showing me how to do it, which might take 30 seconds, they put a ton of fluff and filler in to the video to make it last 5 minutes. Typical video goes something like: 0 - Ads, if you're not using an ad blocker 1 - Intro graphics/animation 2 - "Hi, I'm ___, and in this video I'm going to show you how to do X" 3 - "Before I get i…

I mean, people are bad at editing. "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I've written a long letter instead." I don't think it's a conspiracy. I definitely write super long things when I consciously make the decision to not spend much time on something. Meanwhile, I've been working on a blog post for the better part of 2 years because it's too long, but doesn't cover everything I want to discuss. If you wan…

There's certainly a wide gamut of creators out there, and the handymen I've seen have videos like you mentioned. I imagine the complaints above are about the far more commercialized channels that do in fact model their videos after YT's algorithm.

Re: CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking

#574
post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point; This guy has zero power over what Google does so publicly berating him is not going to accomplish anything. And anyways, the sentence "Take responsibility for the results of your actions like an adult" actually does imply he has some personal responsibility here. It's not helpful to the discussion and it's rude.

If you choose to throw yourself on a public forum doing PR for a company doing dumb things and you also insult everyone's intelligence by lying to them, people are gonna be a little rude

"choose to throw yourself"

"a company doing dumb things"

"insult everyone's intelligence"

"lying to them"

That's a little hyperbolic, don't you think? Do you even hear yourself? I fully understand Google hate but directing it at one person who is literally just doing their job (and hasn't lied to anyone despite your allegation) is childish and counterproductive. Save that for Twitter.

Danny has been here since 2008. Your account was created in 2022.

And also, "people" aren't being rude, you are. Own your actions.

Re: CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking

#575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock Origin is my extension of choice for this. It makes it really easy to block those distractions, and there are quite a few pre-existing filters to choose from.

I think you missed what the poster is asking for. They want to block a portion of the video itself. For example when you watch the news on TV, there is constant scrolling text on the bottom of the screen with the latest headlines. They want to block stuff like that.

I believe you're right! I can't think of any extension that would be able to modify the picture of a stream itself in real-time. What came to my mind was the kind of 'picture-in-picture' video that some questionable news sites display as you scroll down an article, usually a distracting broadcast which is barely related to the news itself.

Re: CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking

#576
post #550

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What's great about writing is that readers can go at their own pace. When speaking, you have to optimize for your audience and you probably lose more people by being too fast vs. the people you lose by talking too slow. I have to say I appreciate YouTubers that go a million miles an hour (hi EEVBlog). As a native speaker of English, I can keep up. But you have to realize, most people in the world are not native speak…

> What's great about writing is that readers can go at their own pace. 100%, and you can skim it so that your pace subconsciously varies depending on how relevant or complex that section is.

This is why I hate the trend of EVERYTHING being made into a video. Simple things that mean I have to watch 4-5min of video and have my eardrums blasted by some dubstep intro so some small quiet voice can say "Hi guys, have you ever wanted to do _x_ or _y_ more easily?" before finally just giving me the nugget of information I came for.

I wish more stuff were available in just text + screenshots..

Re: CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking

#577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock Origin and Sponsor Block provide a better experience than YouTube Premium.

... on desktop. My kingdom for Youtube ad blocking on my TV.

SmartTubeNext, if it's an Android smart TV.

Re: CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking

#578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why KPIs or targets should NEVER be calculated values like averages or ratios. The team is then incentivized to do something hostile such as not promote the content as much so that the ratio is higher, as soon as they barely scrape past the impressions mark.

Sure they can, e.g. on-time delivery (or even better shipments missing the promised delivery date) is a ratio. Or inventory turn rates, there you actually want people to attack the denominator. Generaly speaking, an easy solution is to attach another target to either the nominator or denominator, a target that requires people to move that in value in acertqin direction. That might even be a different team thanthe one…

That can be gamed as well: you could either change the scope or cut corners and ship something of lower quality.

Re: CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking

#579
post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your recommendations are not magically a description of how your algorithm actually behaves. And when they contradict, people are going to follow the algorithm, not the recommendation.

Exactly this, not any different than how they behave with youtube, it seems deceptive at best

Yeah, Google’s statement seems obviously wrong. They say they don’t tell people to delete old content, but then they say that old content does actually affect a site in terms of it’s average ranking and also what content gets indexed.

Re: CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking

#580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Once upon a time, Matt Cutts would come on HN give a fairly knowledgeable and authoritative explanation of how Google worked. But those days are gone and I'd say so are days of standing behind any articulated principle.

I work for Google and do come into HN occasionally. See my profile and my comments here. I'd come more often if it were easier to know when there's something Google Search-related happening. There's no good "monitor HN for X terms" thing I've found. But I do try to check, and sometimes people ping me. In addition, if you want an explanation of how Google works, we have an entire web site for that: https://www.google.…

Google Alerts come to mind.
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