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Searching for The New York Times

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the registration-required dept.

r.jimenezz writes "Adam L. Penenberg, an assistant professor at New York University, has written an interesting piece over at Wired about the contrast between the New York Times' relevance in the real world and the dismal rankings it gets in modern search engines' results. Penenberg discusses some very interesting ideas about opening up the Times digital archive and the impact this would have on its cyber presence."

8 of 397 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Registration required... by mrokkam · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually... I believe it does. on news.google.com, I often come across articles which are shown as subscription only. Typically free to register... but some are otherwise. So yeah... the googlebot actually may be a registered user of these websites;) Though....I wonder if the results are cached........... Mohan.

  2. cloaking by UA, perhaps? by clsc · · Score: 2, Informative
    If (HTTP_USER_AGENT ~= Googlebot) {
    ShowContent();
    } else {
    AskForUID();
    }
    This is done by some of these login based sites, although it will still p*** the user off, as, when the article is seen in the search results, they will meet the usual login stuff in stead of the content they wanted.

    (yes, i know that UA strings can be faked)

  3. Re:Registration required... by danormsby · · Score: 2, Informative
    Maybe it does as an 87 year old Albanian?

    I use BugMeNot via the FireFox plug-in to save registering myself.

    --
    Omnis amans amens
  4. America's Most Liberally-Biased Paper of Record by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    The New York Times may consider itself "America's paper of record," but it's liberal bias is legendary. In fact, it has been studied and verified:

    http://www.yale.edu/isps/seminars/american_pol/g ro seclose.pdf

    One obvious impact of opening up the archive would be the immediate availability of even more information then there already is on the web that can't be believed or trusted.

  5. Re:it's not just newspaper websites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Simple solution. Every time anyone here meets a compulsory regsitratin, use slashdot/slashdot and eventually we'll all be able to get in to places like the NYT without having to go through the hassle. Unfortunately the NYT already has a user called slashdot who has used some other password :-(

  6. Contrast with the BEEB's website by Ronald+Dumsfeld · · Score: 2, Informative

    I really don't like the idea that you can't continue to link to an article beyond a certain time limit, or that after that time limit anyone following your link will get a demand for a $3 payment.

    That's why, although the article may be shorter, I prefer to use BBC News if I'm referring to a story.

    Having said that, I certainly feel sorry for the NYT, and I do have my own valid registration. I just can't see how they can find a for-profit way to handle their archive.

    --
    Where's the Kaboom?
    There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
  7. Useful tool... by Lord+Haha · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not sure if anyone noticed but in my opinion:

    http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink

    was the only thing of any relative importance as its another nice way to get around the NYtimes registration barrier....

  8. Re:Move on to free sources for the same informatio by mattdm · · Score: 2, Informative

    Dasani is tap water.

    Well, it *starts* as tap water.