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Google Punishes Self for Cloaking

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the slap-their-own-wrists dept.

amyrick writes "eWeek is carrying a story about Google's response to March 8th's cloaking accusations. Rather than justify the shady practices as some exception to their rules, Google removed the pages from their indices, and are requiring the pages' maintainers to revise the pages and reapply for indexing. Though the existence of the cloaked pages at all is somewhat questionable, at least Google has responded with integrity and consistency."

16 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. Nice to see... by kebes · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's nice to see that Google:

    1. Actually tries to follow the "don't be evil" thing.

    2. Reads slashdot.

    1. Re:Nice to see... by lowrydr310 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Google's public perception is one of integrity, and that it one big reason people like them.

      I like Google because their homepage isn't littered with ads and other junk. I was initially attracted to them becasue of their simplicity - a nearly blank webpage with one single graphic and a few links to other features. I like how MSN copied their style.

      In addition, many of my friends and family prefer Google over anything else because on a dial up connection, you don't need to wait 10 minutes for a whole page of graphics and banner ads to appear. I am more likely to click on Google's text ads in the search results because they're usually not obnoxious.

      This makes me think of why I like NPR over other radio stations - their 'ads' are usually spoken in a normal tone. It's one person saying "This show paid for in part by Chrysler" or whatever company, as opposed to some silly script with obnoxious voices. I can even tolerate some of the ads on the Howard Stern show - those that are read by Mr. Stern himself.

    2. Re:Nice to see... by kwerle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I fail to see how google boosting its own search rankings is "evil".

      When you are in a position of power (and I'd say that google qualifies), imposing different rules on the peons than you impose on yourself is often considered evil/bad.

      Obviously they can do things as they please (decide how to rank things, etc - hell, they could give bonuses for their IP blocks) - but in telling Page owners not to behave a certain way, and then doing so themselves... Well, it obviously gives rise to certain questions. Otherwise we wouldn't have this topic, eh?

    3. Re:Nice to see... by gahzinia · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Google's public perception is one of integrity, ...

      What does a company/person have to do until what could be considered a "perception" turns into what that company or person really is?

      They have a clean page, they don't sell rankings, everything that Google has done in the past left me with no doubt that this is how they would react. I knew they would take the right course of action.

      Granted, maybe the inner workings of Google are slave drivers who dock you a week's pay for taking five extra minutes for lunch, so maybe it is only the public perception that is one of integrity, but I doubt that.

  2. More about "Google Guy" by xmas2003 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    An occasional poster to the Search Engine Forum is someone named GoogleGuy, who is real ... at least according to the Google Blog itself.

    Check out his comments on the affair which echo the EWeek article, but provide a little more detail.

    --
    Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
  3. Problem with Search Appliance by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Apparently the original problem was caused by the Google Search Appliance identifying itself with the string googlebot, similar to the general search sit bot. The support section of the site was setup to return additional keyword information to the internal search appliance and "accidently" returned the same info to the regular googlebot.

    Of course, it's nice to hear they're making themselves fix it before relisting themselves.

    --
    The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
  4. I still don't get it by Roguelazer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Term Stuffing"? It didn't look like the terms used on that page were chosen to pop up in a search engine. They looked to me much more like the terms that any marketing department would use to make a product seem good/useful/whatever. Are we going to ban marketing departments from using common positive words now?

    --
    My Systems
  5. What old informal self? by gandell · · Score: 4, Interesting
    You mean this old Google?

    Or perhaps this one?

    --
    Mercy was given to me by Christ...I must give the same to others.
    1. Re:What old informal self? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      They started more formal

  6. Could it just be PR? by stubear · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Though the existence of the cloaked pages at all is somewhat questionable, at least Google has responded with integrity and consistency."

    Wow, they removed the pages that were discovered. How many more are there and have these been cleaned up as well?

  7. There is no longer any such thing... by talksinmaths · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...as critical thinking. Didn't anyone see this posting from the March 8 comments?

    --
    Don't you have someone you'd die for?
  8. This is why... by mrmittens · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... I'll continue to use google over MSN Search. Just kinda gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when they do something like this.

    Or it could be that I'm exactly the 'consumer' they aimed this at.

    Either way, my homepage will remain www.google.co.uk!!!

  9. Re:Understanding Complaints by 16K+Ram+Pack · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Thing is, I know businesses that take an evil route - screw customers, don't worry about recommendations and retention because there will be another sucker along soon, just keep aggressive marketing going.

    On the other hand, there are businesses founded by people who whilst they wanted to make money, also had an interest in creating something. In many cases, they fostered a positive culture.

    I've worked in organisations that turned from evil to good. Rather than being dishonest with customers, they decided to be more transparent with them. As well as being easier to work with, it paid off.

    I don't think such decisions are down to someone taking alternate profit views, they are far more about the attitude of the person in charge. Are they a cynic about the world, or positive about it?

  10. Re:This is no big deal by tintub · · Score: 2, Interesting

    According to his site, even Greg Duffy isn't 100% convinced that google did this. How can you be so sure?

    What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'? Oh yeah, Guantanamo...

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    sig under construction...
  11. Re:Google did wrong x 2 by Fortran+IV · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Huh? Google didn't do the right thing. They skirted blame by saying it was done "inadvertently." ...Google has demonstrated this week that it is no saint.
    Did any of you self-righteous goons actually search for the "cloaked" Adwords page yourself? If you had, you'd have seen that when the page came up in Google's search listing, the listing did not give the "friendly" title of "Why do traffic estimates for my Ad group differ etc." that Google would have wanted you to see.

    Instead the listing title showed a meaningless garble of phrases - "traffic estimate, traffic estimator, traffic tool, estimate traffic, blah blah blah". To me, this certainly looks like an unintended, "inadvertent" result.

    I for one am perfectly willing to believe Google's claim that "We inadvertently showed additional information on product support pages to both Google's site search crawler and Google's main web crawler." Why shouldn't I? There are honest people left in the world. Are honest mistakes not allowed any more?
    --
    I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
  12. Re:Didn't mean to post as AC by GoogleGuy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just to chime in: Google didn't remove Greg Duffy's site from our index. I've said as much today on Metafilter, Kuro5hin, Threadwatch, Greg's own site, and now I'm happy to say it here.