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Suddenly, Hacker News is not the first result for 'Hacker News'

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Re: Suddenly, Hacker News is not the first result for 'Hacker News'

#81

Post by billpatrianakos »

_ndrw wrote: post #41
lhnz wrote: post #4

I actually think this might be positive for the quality of the conversation on this site.

True. No reason not to keep HN on the hush hush, eh?

I disagree. I mean, we don't want to keep it a secret but at the same time this site has always been really close knit and the people all really just "get it". If HN grows too large I fear for it. The web is full of Cretans and people who think they're thoughts are so worthy they must be heard. Lots of ignorance out there. I've seen some it here already. I learned the culture and studied the etiquette and what qualifies as a useful submission or comment before I really joined in. Not everyone is so thoughtful and it could really sour a once great community. You're obviously new around here so I'm not surprised you'd say that. I mean no disrespect - I do think you'll eventually change your mind though.

Re: Suddenly, Hacker News is not the first result for 'Hacker News'

#82

Post by eurohacker »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #53
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #9

I think I know what the problem is; we're detecting HN as a dead page. It's unclear whether this happened on the HN side or on Google's side, but I'm pinging the right people to ask whether we can get this fixed pretty quickly. Added: Looks like HN has been blocking Googlebot, so our automated systems started to think that HN was dead. I dropped an email to PG to ask what he'd like us to do.

Apparently the page in the top spot now hasn't been updated since: 2011.07.08 It now only consists of ads, a twitter feed, and a "Abba-da-dabba-da-dabba-dabba Dat’s all folks!" line. So what if Googlebot thought HN was dead? Why would it opt to show a "more dead" page in place of it? I think you're fibbing.

yes - it looks more like google had been changing their algorithm recently - in favor of older sites , versus the content -

and it didnt turn out quite well ...

Re: Suddenly, Hacker News is not the first result for 'Hacker News'

#83

Post by pierrefar »

markerdmann wrote: post #30
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can look back in your search history to find the specific searches that didn't do well for you, we're always happy to get really concrete examples. The best reports look like "I did a search for [Bavarian red widgets] and the results weren't good because e.g. you were missing a specific page X that you used to return or should return, or you returned Austrian red widgets" or whatever. Lots of Googlers are clea…

That's helpful, thanks. I haven't kept a record of those searches (they were mostly programming-related queries), but I'd be happy to submit reports in the future. Is there a URL or email address for this purpose?

At the bottom of every search results page is a link that says something like "give us feedback". That's your first point of call for reporting bad results, spam, etc.

If you have a whole bunch queries that are somehow related, like say we do a bad job at Python function names, then you can collect them and post them on our forums in one go.

And please give us details as Matt said. In particular, If your refer to a specific result, please say its URL not "5th result" because rankings fluctuate.

Re: Suddenly, Hacker News is not the first result for 'Hacker News'

#84

Post by officemonkey »

metaprinter wrote: post #57
wgx wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only we could all get our Google woes fixed in such a manner.

seriously. i can't get a hospital to show up in google maps... no human for me to talk to. HN is number 4 instead of 1 google page one, they're right on it.

Which hospital? Seems like this thread has at least one pair of google-eyeballs looking at it.

Re: Suddenly, Hacker News is not the first result for 'Hacker News'

#85

Post by officemonkey »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #34
aw3c2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to set that crawl rate but do not see why I must register at Google to do so. Why can't Google support the Crawl-Delay directive in robots.txt for this?

My plane is about to take off, but very briefly: people sometimes shoot themselves in the foot and get it way, way wrong. Like "crawl a single page from my website every five years" wrong. Crawl-Delay is (in my opinion) not the best measure. We tend to talk about "hostload," which is the inverse: the number of simultaneous connections that are allowed.

I would think that the number of people who (a) know how to create a valid robot.txt file, (b) have some idea of how to use the "crawl-delay" directive and (c) write a "shoot-themselves-in-the-foot" worthy error is vanishingly small.

Re: Suddenly, Hacker News is not the first result for 'Hacker News'

#86

Post by jfoster »

AznHisoka wrote: post #40
hahla wrote: post #29

Does anyone else find it disturbing that google employees are bending over for pg/hn? Seriously, if any other webmaster blocked googles bots they wouldn't change their algorithms to accommodate, or see how they could use less of our resources. Its pg's fault not googles, and I dont see why they should care. Maybe from their standpoint it would be more beneficial to google users who are used to typing in 'hacker news'…

Yes, it's VERY disturbing, no question about it. Matt can sound all helpful, and cuddly, and oxytocin-inducing all he wants, but he's basically stepping in and helping 1 site over another, when the whole process should NOT favor anyone. There are lots of webmasters out there that do stupid stuff like override a robots.txt accidentally, yet I don't see Matt sending them an email, asking them to check up on it.. Come'n…

What do you think should happen in this scenario? Matt Cutts is aware that a reasonably high-profile site is not being indexed properly. Should he just ignore that?

I think it's particularly good that this is being done publicly, too. There's billions of sites out there and Google can't provide this for all of them, but since they're doing it publicly others can learn from it and know how to address it.

If Matt was artificially boosting HN's ranking that would be disturbing, but they're fixing an indexing issue.

Re: Suddenly, Hacker News is not the first result for 'Hacker News'

#87

Post by orijing »

Tichy wrote: post #70
AznHisoka wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's VERY disturbing, no question about it. Matt can sound all helpful, and cuddly, and oxytocin-inducing all he wants, but he's basically stepping in and helping 1 site over another, when the whole process should NOT favor anyone. There are lots of webmasters out there that do stupid stuff like override a robots.txt accidentally, yet I don't see Matt sending them an email, asking them to check up on it.. Come'n…

Google should simply deliver the best results, no matter what algorithm they use to do so.

If that were truly their goal, their ads would never be the useful, because if they were the best results, they would be duplicates of the organic search results (hence useless). Or, if they weren't the best results, then the best results are in the organic search.

Clearly that's not the case, as advertising makes 99% of their revenues.

Re: Suddenly, Hacker News is not the first result for 'Hacker News'

#88

Post by jfoster »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #9

I think I know what the problem is; we're detecting HN as a dead page. It's unclear whether this happened on the HN side or on Google's side, but I'm pinging the right people to ask whether we can get this fixed pretty quickly. Added: Looks like HN has been blocking Googlebot, so our automated systems started to think that HN was dead. I dropped an email to PG to ask what he'd like us to do.

Has Google considered an indicator next to results for this type of case? A single red exclamation mark with further details when the mouse is over it, for example.

I'm aware of webmaster tools, but it seems not all webmasters are.

Re: Suddenly, Hacker News is not the first result for 'Hacker News'

#89

Post by wmf »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #74
felipe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am glad Google is a company made up of humans and not uncaring robots That's exactly the problem. Google is notorious for providing horrible customer support, so why some people get personalized help, while the rest of us are stuck with the uncaring robots ?

I see your point and maybe my attitude toward it is totally biased or morally/ethically off balance but I think it's just fine. PG knows his shit. He knows how to block crawlers, he knows how get SEO done, he's no dummy. "So what?" you say. Well I work in web development and I meet with people all the time and explain to them how to run a site and get rankings up, etc. I tell them I'll give them the tools, show them…

PG knows his shit. He knows how to block crawlers, he knows how get SEO done, he's no dummy.

Apparently he doesn't use Google Webmaster Tools, though.

Re: Suddenly, Hacker News is not the first result for 'Hacker News'

#90

Post by tonfa »

orijing wrote: post #87
Tichy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google should simply deliver the best results, no matter what algorithm they use to do so.

If that were truly their goal, their ads would never be the useful, because if they were the best results, they would be duplicates of the organic search results (hence useless). Or, if they weren't the best results, then the best results are in the organic search. Clearly that's not the case, as advertising makes 99% of their revenues.

If you're looking to buy shoes, why should the organic results for [your favorite model] (likely wikipedia, the brand website, etc.) be better than ads?
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