I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora • Hacker News Board

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#11

Post by jsnk » Thu, Feb 14, 2013, 1:59 AM UTC

niggler wrote: post #8

andymcsherry wrote: post #3

I'm hoping that Google will penalize them someday. They download all the content in the page so that they'll get indexed for it, but they don't offer it up without an account to the user.

How would google determine that the content being served to other users differ from what the crawlers see?

Just penalize any content from Quora.com in page rank.

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#12

Post by artursapek » Thu, Feb 14, 2013, 1:59 AM UTC

niggler wrote: post #8

andymcsherry wrote: post #3

I'm hoping that Google will penalize them someday. They download all the content in the page so that they'll get indexed for it, but they don't offer it up without an account to the user.

How would google determine that the content being served to other users differ from what the crawlers see?

If it's simply divs masking the content there must be a way to load the page on an iOS emulation, screencap the entire length of the page, and compare the amount of "content" in the source to what shows up in the screencap.

I'm not saying it's worth the trouble for Google. Quora is probably the worst example of this bullshit. But it's certainly possible to automatically catch devilry like this, isn't it?

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#13

Post by andymcsherry » Thu, Feb 14, 2013, 2:00 AM UTC

niggler wrote: post #8

andymcsherry wrote: post #3

I'm hoping that Google will penalize them someday. They download all the content in the page so that they'll get indexed for it, but they don't offer it up without an account to the user.

How would google determine that the content being served to other users differ from what the crawlers see?

Probably if enough people report them for cloaking: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreportform?hl=en

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#14

Post by dannyr » Thu, Feb 14, 2013, 2:01 AM UTC

niggler wrote: post #8

andymcsherry wrote: post #3

I'm hoping that Google will penalize them someday. They download all the content in the page so that they'll get indexed for it, but they don't offer it up without an account to the user.

How would google determine that the content being served to other users differ from what the crawlers see?

Change user agent to crawl as a mobile browser.

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#15

Post by cbs » Thu, Feb 14, 2013, 2:04 AM UTC

niggler wrote: post #8

andymcsherry wrote: post #3

I'm hoping that Google will penalize them someday. They download all the content in the page so that they'll get indexed for it, but they don't offer it up without an account to the user.

How would google determine that the content being served to other users differ from what the crawlers see?

The big fish (experts exchange etc...) are big enough to be caught manually. Programatically they can crawl with a typical browser user agent, from a netblock not registered to google nor announced by their ASes. They'd need to account for the dynamic nature of sites to determine if the difference between different crawls is a sign of trouble, but as luck have it they're already in the business of algorithms and archiving websites.

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#16

Post by kawsper » Thu, Feb 14, 2013, 2:04 AM UTC

I am on Quora, but I can't for the life of me remember how I signed up. One day I got an e-mail saying that somebody was following me.

There seem to be some interesting debates going on there, but I haven't used it that much.

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#17

Post by Osmium » Thu, Feb 14, 2013, 2:04 AM UTC

Quora is irritating in this respect; they're always so pushy. They keep sending me weekly digest emails even after I asked them not to and repeatedly tried to unsubscribe. As it happens, I then started reading them and found them quite interesting, so I guess it worked -- but I still resent the tactics used.

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#18

Post by niggler » Thu, Feb 14, 2013, 2:09 AM UTC

andymcsherry wrote: post #13

niggler wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would google determine that the content being served to other users differ from what the crawlers see?

Probably if enough people report them for cloaking: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreportform?hl=en

Well, I did my part in reporting quora. I wish there were a way to track the progress of this report. The process makes me feel as if the message was lost in the ether

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#19

Post by niggler » Thu, Feb 14, 2013, 2:09 AM UTC

dannyr wrote: post #14

niggler wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would google determine that the content being served to other users differ from what the crawlers see?

Change user agent to crawl as a mobile browser.

That wouldn't help if a site served different content to the google block of ip addresses

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#20

Post by niggler » Thu, Feb 14, 2013, 2:10 AM UTC

jsnk wrote: post #11

niggler wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would google determine that the content being served to other users differ from what the crawlers see?

Just penalize any content from Quora.com in page rank.

I was referring to automated processes, not a manual intervention