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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

#451

Post by JohnFen »

pmoriarty wrote: post #438
dep_b wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you notice that nowadays a lot of websites have a lot of uninteresting drivel giving a "background" to whatever the thing was you were searching for before you get to read (hopefully) the thing you were searching for? People discovered that Google measures not only how much time you stay on a webpage but also how much you scroll to define how interesting a website is. So now every crappy "tech tips" website that…

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…

What makes this worse is that there's an increasing trend for how-tos to be only available on video.

As someone who learns best by reading, I'm already at a disadvantage with video to begin with. To make it worse, instructional videos tend to omit a great deal of detail in the interest of time. Then when you add nonsense like you're pointing out, it makes the whole thing a frustrating and pointless activity.

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

#452

Post by JohnFen »

CharlesW wrote: post #215
SahAssar wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience SEO experts are the most superstitious tech people I ever met. One guy wanted me to reorder HTTP header fields to match another site. He wanted our minified HTML to include a linebreak just after a certain meta element just because some other site had it. I got requests to match variable names in minified JS just because googles own minified JS had that name.

> In my experience SEO experts are the most superstitious tech people I ever met. And some are the most data-driven people you'll ever meet. As with most people who claim to be experts, the trick is to determine whether the person you're evaluating is a legitimate professional or a cargo-culting wanna-be.

Some of the most superstitious people I've ever met were also some of the most data-driven people I've ever met. Being data-driven doesn't exclude unconscious manipulation of the data selection or interpretation, so it doesn't automatically equate to "objective".

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

#453

Post by robertlagrant »

throwaway290 wrote: post #444
robertlagrant wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does stuff like tree shaking as well; it's quite good. If your page is bloated, it makes it better. If your page is not bloated, it makes it better.

Tree-shaking is orthogonal to minification tho.

That's true.

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

#454

Post by bobajeff »

brookst wrote: post #418
CivBase wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you notice that nowadays a lot of websites have a lot of uninteresting drivel giving a "background" to whatever the thing was you were searching for before you get to read (hopefully) the thing you were searching for? I know you came here looking for a recipe for boiled water, but first here's my thesis on the history and cultural significance of warm liquids.

It’s interesting that water is often boiled in metal pots. There are several kinds of metal pots. Aluminum, stainless steel, and copper are often used for pots to boil water in. Water boils in pots with different metals because only temperature matters for boiling water. If the water is 100c at sea level, it will boil.

Finally, that SA writing skill we learned in school can be put to practice!

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

#455

Post by dragonwriter »

hliyan wrote: post #349
dragonwriter wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before someone suggests a new search engine where the ranking algorithm is replaced with AI, I would like to propose a return to human-curated directories. Yahoo had one, and for a while, so did Google. It was pre-social-media and pre-wiki, so none of these directories were optimized to take advantage of crowdsourcing. False. Google Directory (and many other major name, mostly now defunct, web directories) were pow…

Interestingly, a static snapshot of DMOZ is still out there: https://dmoztools.net/ | https://web.archive.org/web/20180126194656/http://dmoztools....

Actually, several static snapshops exist (a benefit of open licensing) despite the fact attempts to fork and continue have been not so successful. In addition to the one upthread there are also:

https://dmoz-odp.org/

http://www.odp.org/homepage.php

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

#456

Post by chinchilla2020 »

dep_b wrote: post #408
pessimizer wrote: post #68

So google's shitty search now economically incentivizes sites to destroy information. Can there be any doubt that Google destroyed the old internet by becoming a bad search engine? Could their exclusion of most of the web be considered punishment for being sites being so old and stable that they don't rely on Google for ad revenue?

Did you notice that nowadays a lot of websites have a lot of uninteresting drivel giving a "background" to whatever the thing was you were searching for before you get to read (hopefully) the thing you were searching for? People discovered that Google measures not only how much time you stay on a webpage but also how much you scroll to define how interesting a website is. So now every crappy "tech tips" website that…

There should be a search engine penalty for loquacious copy.

I want the most succinct result possible when I search the web.

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

#457

Post by chinchilla2020 »

zx8080 wrote: post #90
demizer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is destroying the internet is a good way to put it. AD dollars are their only priority. I hope Google dies because of it.

What a fantasy. It does not show any sign of profit decrease. How would a company die with $279.8B revenue, steadily increasing yearly?

Their search results are declining rapidly in quality. " reddit" is one of their most common searches. Their results are filled with SEO spam and bots now.

At some point a competitor will emerge. The tech crowd will notice it and begin to use it. Then it will go widespread.

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

#458

Post by chankstein38 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #446
ranie93 wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that any video that is 10:XX minutes long almost always is useless They're probably reaching some YT threshold to have more ads show on it

I can only tolerate modern YouTube at 1.5 or 2x playback speed. Principally because speaking slower to stretch video length has become endemic.

Same. I think it's a mix of that and this "presenter voice" everyone thinks they have to use. My ADHD brain doesn't focus on it well because it's too slow so it's useless to me but all my life I've been told when presenting I should speak slowly and articulately while the reality is that watching anyone speak that way drives me nuts

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

#459

Post by mcpackieh »

pmoriarty wrote: post #438
dep_b wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you notice that nowadays a lot of websites have a lot of uninteresting drivel giving a "background" to whatever the thing was you were searching for before you get to read (hopefully) the thing you were searching for? People discovered that Google measures not only how much time you stay on a webpage but also how much you scroll to define how interesting a website is. So now every crappy "tech tips" website that…

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…

Sponsorblock is great for cleaning this crap up. Besides skipping sponsor segments, I have it set to autoskip unpaid/self promotion, interaction reminders, intermissions/intros, endcards/credits, and filler tangent/jokes set to manual skip.

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

#460

Post by dannysullivan »

pessimizer wrote: post #68

So google's shitty search now economically incentivizes sites to destroy information. Can there be any doubt that Google destroyed the old internet by becoming a bad search engine? Could their exclusion of most of the web be considered punishment for being sites being so old and stable that they don't rely on Google for ad revenue?

Hello from Google! I work for our search ranking team. Sadly, we can't control publishers who do things that we do not advise and do not recommend.

We have no guidance telling publishers to get rid of "old" content. That's not something we've said. I shared this week that it is not something we recommend: https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1689018769782476800

This also documents the many times over the years we've also pushed back on this myth: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-dont-delete-older-helpfu...

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