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“Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

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Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#41
post #22

In days of old it was pretty easy to ban a site from your Google search results. It looks like they have removed that function. I wonder why? I know I liked having certain low value (to me) sites not clutter up my results. A little article about the feature, sorry it is going to try to throw an interrupting DIV at you– https://searchengineland.com/google-block-sites-feature-1464...

[deleted]

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#42
post #3
post #2

It should, but this also illustrates a problem with Google Search that they'll need to grapple with in the future. Namely, that while they should treat all sites equally, in practicality there's not really much incentive to on their part. Think about it. Let's say Google does remove Pinterest altogether, banning the site as a punishment for 'gaming' the system. What then? The people that do search for Pinterest will…

Which is why they should have done it before Pinterest got so big in the first place. And honestly I don't think any significant amount of people search Google images wanting Pinterest results. People want images, they don't care where they're from. AFAIK there is almost no OC on Pinterest anyway.

> And honestly I don't think any significant amount of people search Google images wanting Pinterest results.

My guess is, Since search is Google's wheel house, they had this discussion, looked at the data, and found that many users do want it in their results.

Anecdotally, I myself dont care. Most of my image searches are to get an understanding what I am looking for. Some number north of 90% of the time, I dont click the images

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#43
post #2

It should, but this also illustrates a problem with Google Search that they'll need to grapple with in the future. Namely, that while they should treat all sites equally, in practicality there's not really much incentive to on their part. Think about it. Let's say Google does remove Pinterest altogether, banning the site as a punishment for 'gaming' the system. What then? The people that do search for Pinterest will…

I think you're looking at this in exactly the wrong way: Pinterest is already getting special treatment and it's positive special treatment. I think that any other site that didn't have the clout of Pinterest would get explicitly downranked for this kind of behavior if it became as apparent.

That’s exactly what op was saying.

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#44
post #40
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why they should have done it before Pinterest got so big in the first place. And honestly I don't think any significant amount of people search Google images wanting Pinterest results. People want images, they don't care where they're from. AFAIK there is almost no OC on Pinterest anyway.

> People want images, they don't care where they're from. Right, which doesn't align with the incentives which push Google to follow copyright law.

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Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#45

> "I'm searching for a specific piece of technical hardware " What specific piece of technical hardware shows up anywhere near the first page of results in Google that's from pintrest? I can't think of a single time I've seen pintrest in the search results and I search for various technical things all the time? Just curious since this surprises me. I thought pintrest was non technical stuff usually.

I'm a hobbyist woodworker.

I was recently searching for an unusual wood-joint, and I had to give up because the google search results were absolutely polluted with pinterest.

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#46

> "I'm searching for a specific piece of technical hardware " What specific piece of technical hardware shows up anywhere near the first page of results in Google that's from pintrest? I can't think of a single time I've seen pintrest in the search results and I search for various technical things all the time? Just curious since this surprises me. I thought pintrest was non technical stuff usually.

A bunch of arduino and other small easy beginner hardware is stuff that comes to mind. Since pintrest is about cataloguing project type things it can actually be quite relevant. Unfortunately.

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#47

I don't see the problem here. The most popular sites are showing up in search results. Pinterest is a popular site. It seems like that's the way search engines are supposed to work. If you don't like the fact that Pinterest is a popular site, fair enough -- but that's a personal opinion, and it's not a good enough reason for Google or any other search engine to suppress Pinterest images in search results.

May I ask if you're affiliated with Pinterest in any way? I'm reading your responses and while I have a very open mind, I feel like you're really handwaving the obvious (to me and many others) problems Pinterest causes and defending them very strongly. This of course doesn't mean you're affiliated, I'm just curious. I am also good friends with one of the original Pinterest engs and that person defends it in the same,…

I have no affiliation with them. I don't like Pinterest more than anyone else here. I just don't see how Google is doing anything wrong. By the way, I'm not affiliated with Google either. I shouldn't have to say that.

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#48
post #2

It should, but this also illustrates a problem with Google Search that they'll need to grapple with in the future. Namely, that while they should treat all sites equally, in practicality there's not really much incentive to on their part. Think about it. Let's say Google does remove Pinterest altogether, banning the site as a punishment for 'gaming' the system. What then? The people that do search for Pinterest will…

remove them only from all search results that don't include the word pintrest. Search for pintrest, you get pintrest. Search for "widgets," pintrist is excluded. Search for "pintrist widgets," pintrist is included.

Or better, just demote them to the very end of the search results. Occasionally there might be images from Pinterest that are not found elsewhere on the internet. If someone wants to scroll the image SERP down to page 6 (or whatever) it doesn’t hurt to show them there.

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#49
post #2

It should, but this also illustrates a problem with Google Search that they'll need to grapple with in the future. Namely, that while they should treat all sites equally, in practicality there's not really much incentive to on their part. Think about it. Let's say Google does remove Pinterest altogether, banning the site as a punishment for 'gaming' the system. What then? The people that do search for Pinterest will…

Pinterest shouldn't need to be removed specifically — the fact that they (or any aggregator, including say Reddit) reference some image should be a signal that the referenced source is a more valuable search result. (I think there used to be search engine that used a method like that.)

Re: “Pinterest needs to be removed from Google IMO”

#50
post #20
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And honestly I don't think any significant amount of people search Google images wanting Pinterest results. Sure they do, if the picture on Pinterest is relevant to the search term; they wouldn't have clicked on the thumbnail if it wasn't close to (or exactly) what they were looking for. The issue isn't that people don't want Pinterest, it's that they don't want the closed nature of Pinterest, and even then, it's l…

Almost all the images on Pinterest are available elsewhere. If Pinterest results were not polluting Google images, the originals would surface easier. --- I don't really see a problem with targeting the biggest worst abuser. Not everything has to be a one-shot solution to grand problems.

'...the originals would surface easier'

Yes, exactly. Try and find the original version of most images these days and you'll just go around in circles.

If Google really think Pinterest need to be in search results (I'm talking text based queries here) why on Earth do they need to return 3 results on page one, all leading to a Pinterest log-in page?

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