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Cracking the Google Code... Under the GoogleScope

jglazer75 writes "From the analysis of the code behind Google's patents: "Google's sweeping changes confirm the search giant has launched a full out assault against artificial link inflation & declared war against search engine spam in a continuing effort to provide the best search service in the world... and if you thought you cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out ... guess again. ... In addition to evaluating and scoring web page content, the ranking of web pages are admittedly still influenced by the frequency of page or site updates. What's new and interesting is what Google takes into account in determining the freshness of a web page.""

335 comments

  1. This is under YRO? by PornMaster · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    How the hell is this about my rights online?

    1. Re:This is under YRO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because its a violation of your rights that a privately run search engine uses methods to try to display more relevant and useful results above garbage results.

    2. Re:This is under YRO? by DrEldarion · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's about your right to not see search results filled with complete crap.

    3. Re:This is under YRO? by null+etc. · · Score: 2, Funny
      It's about your right to not see search results filled with complete crap.

      That's an interesting interpretation. Here's a review of today's submissions, translated to your perspective:

      Broadway Awards Spam is about your rights to watch Spamalot, nominated for 14 Tony awards.

      IT: More on Last Years Cisco Source Code Theft is about your rights to read about a theft of proprietary source code.

      IT: What Does a Spreading Worm Look Like? is about your rights to visualize what a spreading worm looks like.

      Games: Gameboy Emulator Released for PSP is about your rights to play Gameboy games on a PSP.

      Newest Star Wars Reviews Suprisingly Positive is about your rights to be surprised that Lucas Finally Got It Right(tm).

      Wow, with your new scheme, we can get rid of all other topics!

    4. Re:This is under YRO? by ShaniaTwain · · Score: 4, Funny

      "You have the right to search in silence. If you give up the right to search in silence, anything you say can and will be modded down in a court of public opinion. You have the right to be listed on google. If you desire a seo and cannot afford one, you will spare us all a lot of unwanted search engine spam, and a metamod will be obtained for you before final moderation."

    5. Re:This is under YRO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Oh really? Can you point to the section in the Constitution where I have the right "to not see search results filled with complete crap"?

      Or any place in federal or state law that states that?

    6. Re:This is under YRO? by DrEldarion · · Score: 1

      I believe the law referenced is the ULIE - Universal Law of Internet Etiquette.

    7. Re:This is under YRO? by larry+bagina · · Score: 1
      Sure. Amendments 9 and 10:

      Amendment IX

      The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

      Amendment X

      The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

      Of course, the Constitution is an agreement between the people and the gov't, not an agreement between the people and google.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  2. On the minds of all slashdotters, by uberjoe · · Score: 5, Funny

    So will this make it easier or harder to find porn?

    --

    The days of the digital watch are numbered.

    1. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Find lowest prices on hard to find porn!

    2. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      harder to find free pron, easier to find google compensated pron

    3. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by rrkap · · Score: 4, Funny

      So will this make it easier or harder to find porn?

      Because there's a shortage of porn on the web?

      --
      I like my beverages with warning labels!
    4. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by Fear+the+Clam · · Score: 2, Funny

      Everything to do with porn.
      eBay.com

    5. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would be impossible for it to be any easier to find porn on the Internet.

    6. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by uberjoe · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, there is a shortage of *quality* porn on the web. When are these people going to learn that pigtails don't necessarily make you look young.

      --

      The days of the digital watch are numbered.

    7. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you want to find porn, then you will find it. But if you are looking for something else, then it will make it harder for porn sites to rank higher in the search results.

    8. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by dindi · · Score: 1

      no, but it will be 100 times harder to find anything if you wan to BUY things.

      while I hate all the review/price compare sites when i am looking for a driver, when I try to shop online nowadays I end up on yahoo...

      why?
      google is killing affiliate sites like crazy but sometimes (when eg I need a price compare or feature review) I end up shouting Yahoo .....

      well I guess it is good to have a selection .....

      back to the topic: pr0n is NOT permitted by adwords/adsense policies .... how lame :) I cannot buy/earn pay-per-click money from pr0n ....

    9. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by WormholeFiend · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yes, there is a shortage of *quality* porn on the web. When are these people going to learn that pigtails don't necessarily make you look young

      bingo. therefore, the question he should've asked is: will the pron I find make me harder?

    10. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But lots of soft core porn on ads instead.

    11. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So will this make it easier or harder to find porn?

      When was it ever hard to find porn?

    12. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by Le+Marteau · · Score: 1

      When are these people going to learn that pigtails don't necessarily make you look young

      Yes, but it makes an older woman look sleazy, nasty and slutty, which can be a good thing.

      --
      Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
    13. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by Gamasta · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, there is a shortage of *quality* porn on the web. When are these people going to learn that pigtails don't necessarily make you look young.
      Have you already seen DOMAI? (NSFW)

      --
      reason defies logic
    14. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps you can find something you like at Empornium. BitTorrent enabled!

    15. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by famebait · · Score: 1

      If you have trouble finding porn on the net these days, I don't think anyone can help you.

      --
      sudo ergo sum
    16. Re:On the minds of all slashdotters, by Young+Master+Ploppy · · Score: 1

      *cough**cough*no, never....&*cough**cough*

      --
      http://instantbadger.blogspot.com
  3. Great by future+assassin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Now I'll see more Get ranked #1 in search engines" spam.

    http://www.anologger.com/

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
    1. Re:Great by 808paulson · · Score: 0

      Too bad your link has the rel attribute equals "nofollow." Google Blog

    2. Re:Great by wmajik · · Score: 1

      Actually, the entire point of the new patent is to combat search engine spam. By taking away the ability of black hat SEOs to game their engine, Google is effectively trying to put the bad SEOs out of business. As a result, if anything, you should get less spam in the future as these black hats realize that their link flooding, blog spamming and guerilla SEO tactics no longer work like they used to.

      Ok, ok, so that's what I'd like to believe, as I realize that penis pill spammers are still able to sell sugar placebos to masses of insecure males for $40 a bottle, so there's no reason to believe that small web operators will see through the lies as well. But hey, at least the quality of the Google results will be better?

  4. Google what is best in life by kensai · · Score: 5, Funny

    To crush artificial link inflation and hear the lamintations of search engine spam

    1. Re:Google what is best in life by The-Bus · · Score: 0

      I Googled it and it came up with:

      "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!"

      And here I thought Google did no evil.

      --

      Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

    2. Re:Google what is best in life by TrappedByMyself · · Score: 1

      I'm still trying to envision laminated women

      --

      Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
  5. it's a war by roman_mir · · Score: 4, Funny

    The linked article is slashgoogled. It's a googlewar. Googlers are all googling.

    1. Re:it's a war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fortunately, it's possible to read the article by looking at the copy in Google's cache.

    2. Re:it's a war by baggins2002 · · Score: 2, Funny

      If you check, you find they are running an IIS 6 server. I guess the 2GB of memory and quad CPU on MS platform couldn't handle the 15 of us that went to look at this article.
      Maybe we could find the cache of the article on Google.

    3. Re:it's a war by DrinkingIllini · · Score: 1

      They should've marklared there marklar before posting on marklar.

    4. Re:it's a war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Man, there's so many text in that "server is too busy" message, and it's displayed so fast that they could very well have used it to display the text of the analysis. Microsoft "technology"...

  6. in case of slashdotting, article text by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Cracking the Google Code... Under the GoogleScope
    Google's US Patent confirms information retrieval is based on historical data.

    Publication Date: 5/8/2005 9:51:18 PM

    Author Name: Lawrence Deon

    An Introduction: ...if you thought you cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out ... guess again.

    Google's sweeping changes confirm the search giant has launched a full out assault against artificial link inflation & declared war against search engine spam in a continuing effort to provide the best search service in the world... and if you thought you cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out ... guess again.

    Google has raised the bar against search engine spam and artificial link inflation to unrivaled heights with the filing of a United States Patent Application 20050071741 on March 31, 2005.

    The filing unquestionable provides SEO's with valuable insight into Google's tightly guarded search intelligence and confirms that Google's information retrieval is based on historical data.

    What exactly do these changes mean to you?
    Your credibility and reputation on-line are going under the Googlescope! Google has defined their patent abstract as follows:

    "A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of history data associated with the document. The system may generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data."

    Google's patent specification reveals a significant amount of information both old and new about the possible ways Google can (and likely does) use your web page updates to determine the ranking of your site in the SERPs.

    Unfortunately, the patent filing does not prioritize or conclusively confirm any specific method one way or the other.

    Here's how Google scores your web pages.

    In addition to evaluating and scoring web page content, the ranking of web pages are admittedly still influenced by the frequency of page or site updates.
    What's new and interesting is what Google takes into account in determining the freshness of a web page.

    For example, if a stale page continues to procure incoming links, it will still be considered fresh, even if the page header (Last-Modified: tells when the file was most recently modified) hasn't changed and the content is not updated or 'stale'.

    According to their patent filing Google records and scores the following web page changes to determine freshness.
    The frequency of all web page changes
    The actual amount of the change itself... whether it is a substantial change redundant or superfluous
    Changes in keyword distribution or density
    The actual number of new web pages that link to a web page
    The change or update of anchor text (the text that is used to link to a web page)
    The numbers of new links to low trust web sites (for example, a domain may be considered low trust for having too many affiliate links on one web page).
    Although there is no specific number of links indicated in the patent it might be advisable to limit affiliate links on new web pages. Caution should also be used in linking to pages with multiple affiliate links.

    Developing your web page augments for page freshness.

    Now I'm not suggesting that it's always beneficial or advisable to change the content of your web pages regularly, but it is very important to keep your pages fresh regularly and that may not necessarily mean a content change.

    Google states that decayed or stale results might be desirable for information that doesn't necessarily need updating, while fresh content is good for results that require it.

    How do you unravel that statement and differentiate between the two types of content?

    An excellent example of this methodology is the roller coaster ride seasonal results might experience in Google's SERPs based on the actual season of the year.

    A page related to winter clothin

  7. Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by 14erCleaner · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It just occurred to me that, as Google changes its algorithms, it'll just create more business for the Search Engine Optimization consultant. When web sites drop in the Google rankings, they'll want to make changes to move back up, and will hire the SEO again to do so.

    --
    Have you read my blog lately?
    1. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by rm999 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Perhaps, or perhaps if Google changes its rankings enough, the SEOs' credibilities will be destroyed (they will be seen as a temporary and overpriced fixes)

    2. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Here's a thought: How about companies try to offer useful services rather than "optimize" their search engine results? I've gotten several top hits on Google by the complete accident of providing useful services or information in the past. Traditional advertising such as adclicks and dmoz listings also help. Not once have I wasted my time trying to game the system.

      Companies need to start realizing that making money is about providing what customers want. Advertising is a great way of getting your name out, but only a good product or service will actually carry through. So in that frame of thinking, I highly recommend that companies:

      • Stop looking at "cost cutting" by reduction, and start looking at "using existing resources to provide relavent products"
      • Start hiring employees who know what they're doing and listen to them
      • Stop wasting your money on search engine optimizations.
      • Be good to the customer, and the cutomer will be good to you. If you don't know why people are upset or unhappy, grab a couple off the street and ask.
    3. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There will always be >=11 sites wanting to be in the Top10

    4. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Have+Blue · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but hopefully that will be more expensive than filling their site with content that's actually relevant to the keywords they want to get to the top of, and interesting to anyone searching for them.

    5. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by 14erCleaner · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Perhaps, or perhaps if Google changes its rankings enough, the SEOs' credibilities will be destroyed

      That would be great. Now that I've read TFA, it looks like Google's techniques a long way toward eliminating the fakery done by SEO's currently.

      As an aside, the article looks like it was written by an SEO consultant, as it contains a lot of advice about how to get good rankings under Google's patented approach. Interestingly, the recommended actions are mostly legitimate (offer interesing content, update regularly, don't try to create fake links to your site), but also some less-upfront techniques (make link-exchange deals with other sites and encourage bookmarking, for example).

      --
      Have you read my blog lately?
    6. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by MrNiceguy_KS · · Score: 5, Funny
      If you don't know why people are upset or unhappy, grab a couple off the street and ask.

      I'm unhappy because I was grabbed off the street. May I go now?

      Please?

      --
      Redundancy is good And also good.
    7. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by baggins2002 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Companies need to start realizing that making money is about providing what customers want. Advertising is a great way of getting your name out, but only a good product or service will actually carry through. So in that frame of thinking, I highly recommend that companies:

      Uhh, which world are you living in. Most companies have found that bigger profits can be made, by convincing people that they want what they have. And most customers find it easier to buy what they are told to buy.
      I like your world, but it's not the one I've been living in.

    8. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by DeadSea · · Score: 2, Informative
      How about sites that already provide a useful service and want to get as much exposure as possible? I can't count the number of useful sites that I've visited that are not ranked as well as google as I would like (so I can find them more easily) because they do non-Google-friendly things like:
      • Session IDs in urls
      • Doorway pages
      • Content that expires or changes urls
      • Javascript navigation

      Sometimes search engine optimization isn't about making a hack site rank well. Sometimes it is about getting the traffic that a really nifty site deserves.

      In fact, I wish all the legit sites did everything they should morally do in terms of SEO. Then the spam sites wouldn't have such an easy time pushing them out of the way.

      From a business perspective, money spent on making non-spammy search engine optimizations can be much more effective than money spent on marketing or public relations.

      --
      Scientific calculator with hex, octal, decimal, and binary

    9. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      If you don't know why people are upset or unhappy, grab a couple off the street and ask.

      Oh yes, then you'll know why they're upset and unhappy.

    10. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sometimes search engine optimization isn't about making a hack site rank well. Sometimes it is about getting the traffic that a really nifty site deserves.

      Actually, pretty much everything you list falls under the issue of usability. Many of those options have lower usability for the user, and thus the search engine by extension.

      These companies don't need an SEO, they need to find a web designer that doesn't use Macromedia "tools".

    11. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Saeger · · Score: 1
      "cheaters never win"? hahahaha.

      Sorry, couldn't resist.

      --
      Power to the Peaceful
    12. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by krelian · · Score: 1

      What you are saying might be true for well established sites or for someone that is offering content not yet available. But if some new fellow wants to enter the competition he can either wait a very long time so enough people would link out of their free will to his site, or, he can try and make the process a little faster. If you are talking about a business (and 99% of sites using seo are there to make money) this actually will decide if it will survive or not.

      Personally, I think google, by publishing too much information about their Page Rank formula ruined there own search engine. Right now, for a lot of keywords, yahoo has much better results than google. I am not saying that they don't use incoming links as a part of their formula but the beauty of it, is that you can not know for sure.

      I am still wondering if seo is here to stay.
      The world of search can be very dynamic and it could result costing a lot of money for a business to keep up a good position and still not be satisfied with the results (which is a given since the formula will always try to counter new bad tactics). Besides, the only difficult thing about seo is to get lots of links. With the importance of inbound links declining there will be no need (as far as i can see) to hire an seo company.
      Having good content an updating regularly are two things that any self respected business will keep doing if they want to stay in business anyway.

    13. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      But if some new fellow wants to enter the competition he can either wait a very long time so enough people would link out of their free will to his site, or, he can try and make the process a little faster.

      Nonsense. My very point is that traditional methods do that for you. For example, if I list my site of DMOZ it will get picked up and linked by hundreds (if not thousands!) of sites. If I use a pay-per-click service like AdClick, then I can have my site temporarily higher on search results as well as increase Google's "confidence" in my site. Press releases and public announcements also increase your Google ranking without resorting to evil trickery.

      I happen to run a recipe database that I wrote for my wife. It's a small thing designed to meet her needs. Thanks to Google, it is an extremely popular site that keeps growing despite my hands off approach. I never intended it to be much more than a place for my wife to store and share her recipes, but people liked the idea and Google reflects that.

    14. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only after you answer the question.

    15. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Posting as AC to avoid the inevitable karma hit so here goes...

      I'm a former SEO guy...I've worked with many companies, large and small, to optimize their websites. I've done everything from online pharmaceuticals to christian mission trips. I've tried every trick in the book over a number of years...and I can tell you that as long as search engines exist, I seriously doubt the SEO companies will disappear.

      Why? Simply put, people (and companies) do NOT understand how to present their content in a way that an automated bot can read and rank them.

      Towards the end of my SEO consulting days, my advice was over and over again: Content is king. Build a good website, with good content, and make sure to include all the necessary elements to identify it as a good website.

      Usually, that meant that I would go through their site, fill in missing pieces and recommend additional content. No schemes, no crazy link deals ... just a good, search engine friendly site.

      So, keep in mind not ALL SEO guys are bad...just most of them...but companies will always need SEO guys to come in and fill in their site's holes.

    16. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by twifosp · · Score: 1
      Advertising is a great way of getting your name out, but only a good product or service will actually carry through. So in that frame of thinking, I highly recommend that companies:

      Yes but when faced with a myriad of choices where you 1. don't know who offers the better product/service. 2. Research material doesn't exist. 3. Have no prior information to go on 4. The service is mundane enough that the quality doesn't have a lot of variability; then the consumer will always choose convience. Hell, most consumers will choose convience over those qualities in the first place.

      Which is why you have companies called Tripple A. Because of the yellow pages.

      Stop looking at "cost cutting" by reduction, and start looking at "using existing resources to provide relavent products" While I mostly agree that cost cutting and six sigma type programs can kill a business... often a business can not grow into new mediums WITHOUT cost cutting and reduction. Markets change, using existing resources to provide relavent products can lead to stagnatin.

      Start hiring employees who know what they're doing and listen to them

      I hope your in the business consulting field! This stuff is gold!

      Stop wasting your money on search engine optimizations.

      Why? I would agree that it shouldn't be your priority. However, if you are an internet based business, face it, google is probably your primary portal. Ensuring you have relevant results is paramount. I wouldn't advice hiring a consultant for this, but ensuring your search results are valid is definitely worth spending time/money on.

      Be good to the customer, and the cutomer will be good to you. If you don't know why people are upset or unhappy, grab a couple off the street and ask.

      Naw, I'd recommend you search google instead on why your company sucks.

      Making sure your search results are relevant on google is a lot like moderating in slashdot. The good stuff is supposed to filter to the top.

    17. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by krelian · · Score: 1

      You do not provide a link to your site so i cannot say that for sure, but i guess that your site is not there to make money, or at least that was not your intention when you first created it. Try to set up a site that sells stuff for the kitchen and see how long it will take you to reach the top 10.
      I am sure that 95% of the links to your site come from cooking related sites. An Seo company trying to promote a site like yours will jump leaps and bounds and will acquire links that otherwise would have never even thought of linking to your site. The sad thing right now, is that it works.

      If I use a pay-per-click service like AdClick, then I can have my site temporarily higher on search results as well as increase Google's "confidence" in my site.

      If this is the reason you use PPC, you are actually doing seo.

      This also very much depends on which time period are we talking about. Nowadays, lots of sites especially in fields with high competition have to use Seo just because everyone else does.
      I am sure that 95% of the links to your site come from cooking related sites. An Seo company trying to promote a site like yours will jump leaps and bounds and will acquire links that otherwise would have never even thought of linking to your site. The sad thing right now, is that it works.

    18. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      You do not provide a link to your site so i cannot say that for sure,

      That was intentional. The last thing I need is Slashdot pouring down on my poor server. ;-)

      but i guess that your site is not there to make money

      Correct. However, I have a commercial site that also gets top billing on Google without tricks. See if you can spot it. The sad part is that I have done very few updates to the site in quite a long time, and yet Google *still* gives it top billing. (It's long overdue for an overhaul.)

      If this is the reason you use PPC, you are actually doing seo.

      No, the SEO is a side effect of normal business. i.e. Google is going to attempt to latch on to every legitimate advertising method available as a way of identifying useful information. Trying to forcefully throw yourself into the middle of these venues is only going to cause people to get upset and Google to change their methods.

      I am sure that 95% of the links to your site come from cooking related sites.

      Nope. Guess again. Surprisingly there are very few outright links to my site. It's only the early advertising I did of the site that has caused it to skyrocket. Who'da'thunk? Now if only I could figure out a *good* business model for it.

    19. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      It just occurred to me that, as Google changes its algorithms, it'll just create more business for the Search Engine Optimization consultant. When web sites drop in the Google rankings, they'll want to make changes to move back up, and will hire the SEO again to do so. ... that is, until they realize they might be able to save some money by kicking the SEO and hire a good webmaster creating a good and informational site. They'll gain a good PageRank assuming the algorithm works properly, and also a pretty site attracting customers better, instead of an artifically constructed piece of junk exploiting PageRank problems.

      Nah, now I'm living in my dream world again; people aren't that smart.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    20. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Tsu+Dho+Nimh · · Score: 1
      "If you are talking about a business (and 99% of sites using seo are there to make money) this actually will decide if it will survive or not."

      The most important part of web promotion for a business is to make sure their URL is on all their print material: the ads, business cards, flyers, etc. That is assuming it's a real business with a real product, and not a Viagra seller. The SEOs get most of their customers from the ranks of the fools who are trying to sell MLM products or are in an overcrowded internet service business, like web design. Nothing can help them.

    21. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by remahl · · Score: 1
      make link-exchange deals with other sites and encourage bookmarking, for example

      These are good things IMHO. Links keep the web together. It is only in the grandest tradition of the WWW that links are "traded" between site owners. Encouraging bookmarking is hardly unethical either.

    22. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by MoogMan · · Score: 1

      You must be new here...

    23. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by robertjw · · Score: 1

      Here's a thought: How about companies try to offer useful services rather than "optimize" their search engine results?

      The problem is there are many companies that offer useful services that have NO IDEA how to promote a website. Many SEO consultants do little more than help write some intelligent copy, submit to dmoz and add some PPC advertising.

      ' Also, many businesses have excellent products that get overshadowed by someone that has optimized their site for search engines. For example, the company I work for has a collaboration software product very similar to Groove, named iKE. In many ways iKE is a superior and more economical product than Groove, but when you search for Collaboration Software Groove, or articles about Groove come up many times, while iKE does not appear once. Short of optimizing our site, how are we supposed to get exposure or market share?

    24. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Doctor+O · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Being a professional webworker for more than 8 years now, I agree with you from experience, but actually I don't think you can blame Macromedia.

      I will not say anything at all about Flash because two camps who BOTH don't get it will start the usual pointless discussion. Flash is rarely used for what it's great at, visualizing data, and plagues us with wildly unnecessary and annoying l33t-masturbation stuff instead.

      Dreamweaver itself is indeed a powerful timesaver in the hands of an experienced XHTML/CSS guy. If you look at it closely, you'll find that it is a very nice graphical frontend to HTML itself, with a great set of shortcuts so that you almost don't have to touch the mouse at all. The palettes just provide access to the most commonly needed attributes of the element you're working on. If you leave all those nasty "behaviours", "timelines" and whatnow alone, it produces nicely readable and well-formed code. I'm using Dreamweaver since the early betas, and even back then this was the case. I tend to think that this was an initial design goal behind DW.

      The bad comes from the 'designers' who are taught print design at the universities and apply them to the Web, using all the nutty clicky-pointy tools that produce JS-laden horror cabinet of non-standards-compliance they dare to call "HTML". It's a classical PEBKAC. Look at it this way - if DW didn't have those features, GoLive would've taken over long ago and we don't want THIS to happen. IMNSHO the only thing worse would be Frontpage. At least the guys at Macromedia didn't invent bogus HTML extensions because they were incapable of providing a proper metadata infrastructure, like Adobe did.

      (I'm not a fanboy though, I just use what works best at the moment for the things I do. If someone shows me how to reproduce this "Apply Source Formatting" feature from DW in Kate/KDevelop and how to synchronize sites like in DW, I'm switching my machine at work from Win2K with DW to KDevelop/nvu on FreeBSD tomorrow, because it better fits the things I do nowadays. It will then match my setup at home.)

      While we're at it, SEO is, was and always will be BS, just like the whole Internet Advertising Myth which after nearly a decade of documented failure still isn't debunked. Duh.

      --
      Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
    25. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by zerocool^ · · Score: 1


      Exactly. How hard is it to pass a Session ID as a hidden variable between pages, not in the URL? And if you close your browser, you'll have to start over. So what?

      --
      sig?
    26. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Mr.+Stinky · · Score: 1

      I couldn't agree with you more. I have built a moderately successful business with a whitehat approach to SEO, a "contained growth" strategy, and with a $0 advertising budget. By just providing good content, and relevant information for each product; and by making sure every product is in stock, we have built up tons of good business kharma with our customers and with Google.
      -=DG
      shameless_plug:
      http://snowboards-for-sale.com/?slashgoogle/

      --
      Nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
    27. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      1. I don't see your software in the advertised links on the right of the Google results. Why not?

      2. This tells me you guys aren't trying very hard. Not a single link from a press release, a software site like Tucows, a blog, SOMETHING. You have to talk about your product!

      3. This tells me the same thing as #2. You have to talk about your product!!! There are tons of "announce" newsgroups specifically for you to announce your product! Use them! They'll get picked up by websites that relay this info, and indexed by Google.

      4. Have you added your URL to the DMOZ directory? Why not? DMOZ will get picked up and replicated by hundreds of sites!

      5. In the above post, you mentioned "Groove" 4 times, and iKE 3 times. How will people trust your product if you pound into their heads that it's just like this other product?

      6. Have you asked any magazines or bloggers to review your software? Why not?

      In short, the problem is not your website. Your problem is that you need to advertise.

    28. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      One more thing: iKE is a bad name. If you punch iKE into Google, you get everything except your software. That's a bad place to start from. Try to develop a more unique name. It will help with customer brand recognition, ensure that you don't step on any trademarks, and generally make it easier for your customers to connect with you.

      As an example, "CollabNET" has a unique name that both communicates what they're about as well as maintaining its uniquness in the market.

    29. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by robertjw · · Score: 1

      1. I don't see your software in the advertised links on the right of the Google results. Why not?

      Internal reasons - we were advertising, but have changed direction. Also, they keywords we were targeting are VERY expensive. Much more cost effective to optimize our natural search results.

      2. This tells me you guys aren't trying very hard. Not a single link from a press release, a software site like Tucows, a blog, SOMETHING. You have to talk about your product!

      3. This tells me the same thing as #2. You have to talk about your product!!! There are tons of "announce" newsgroups specifically for you to announce your product! Use them! They'll get picked up by websites that relay this info, and indexed by Google.

      Good points, although there are links out there that Google hasn't picked up.

      4. Have you added your URL to the DMOZ directory? Why not? DMOZ will get picked up and replicated by hundreds of sites!

      Actually we did, months ago, but last I checked the DMOZ editors had not added a link yet. Seems like DMOZ is incredibly slow.

      5. In the above post, you mentioned "Groove" 4 times, and iKE 3 times. How will people trust your product if you pound into their heads that it's just like this other product?

      My post was mostly for comparison with a particular product. Our regular marketing doesn't compare iKE with any particular product.

      6. Have you asked any magazines or bloggers to review your software? Why not?

      Again, a good idea.

      In short, the problem is not your website. Your problem is that you need to advertise.

      Interestingly enough, in my mind, every one of the items you mentioned would fall under the category of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in my mind. Build more links, write better copy and advertise.

      Your original post, at least from what I understood, advocated that a site with a good product shouldn't have to be optimized. I was just attempting to show an example of a site with a good product that hasn't risen to the top of the search engines.

    30. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by robertjw · · Score: 1

      One more thing: iKE is a bad name. If you punch iKE into Google, you get everything except your software. That's a bad place to start from. Try to develop a more unique name. It will help with customer brand recognition, ensure that you don't step on any trademarks, and generally make it easier for your customers to connect with you.

      Yes, that is a problem with the iKE name. Unfortunately we have lots of time and money invested in it, and can't leave it completely. OTOH, our current marketing push is for a site called GetMyWorkDoneFaster that promotes the product as providing actual targeted solutions, rather than a generic workflow collaboration software.

    31. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      Interestingly enough, in my mind, every one of the items you mentioned would fall under the category of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in my mind.

      From my original post: Traditional advertising such as adclicks and dmoz listings also help.

      Note that traditional advertising is all I'm advocating. SEO tends to go beyond advertising into mutual spamming which Google will slap down. For example, I consistently get requests from unknown people with no bearing on my site to "trade links". They think that by trading links, they can improve the results of their site on Google. Personally, I think they're in for a rude awakening.

      Just run your business as a business and you'll be fine. It's quite easy actually, but takes one hell of a lot of work to accomplish effectively:

      1. Make a product that people want or need. This is more difficult than it sounds, because many products will be "wrong" in their first revision. Company experience will help tweak this over time.

      2. Advertise your product so that people know it exiss. This is relatively easy to do, but can easily become "spam" if you're not careful.

      3. Encourage a strong corporate image that suggests to customers that you can be trusted. Oh, and as with everything, Keep It Simple, Stupid. I've seen far too many companies with websites that blab on and on without every telling you what exactly they do. Unless you have sales people to make up for this, avoid this pitfall!

      Good luck! :-)

    32. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, it's pretty clear that it doesn't take quality to get high page rankings... look at slashdot! editorial quality is a joke, the engine is buggy, and produces inefficient and non-stantard compliant code.. the news tends to rehash the same types of topics, and there are always dupes.. the peer moderation system favors newbies, and the site continually goes down in quality, and yet people keep coming back for more...

      So clearly what works for making a revenue positive website is the Mcdonald's philosophy find a cheaper way to sling a sack full of cheap burgers at people, and as long as you're the 'biggest' more and more people will keep on coming back for more punishment...

    33. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by sparkz · · Score: 1
      I'm not a fanboy though, I just use what works best at the moment for the things I do. If someone shows me how to reproduce this "Apply Source Formatting" feature from DW in Kate/KDevelop and how to synchronize sites like in DW, I'm switching my machine at work from Win2K with DW to KDevelop/nvu on FreeBSD tomorrow, because it better fits the things I do nowadays. It will then match my setup at home.
      Easy ... vi / sed :-)
      --
      Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
    34. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hidden variables are normally (only?) transmitted when you submit a form. Normally cookies are used for session ID persistence. One way to deal with users not allowing session cookies is to pass the ID along via the URL. I think PHP even has a config variable that will automatically add the session ID to the URL if cookies are not available.

    35. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Elvisisdead · · Score: 1

      Totally agreed. If for nothing else, DW is an extremely valuable tool for me to untangle the mangled mass of crap that FP generates for the idiots that use it to create stuff that they send to me.

      I've always liked it because you have to know what in the hell you're doing to use it properly.

      --

      "Want in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first." - My Dad
    36. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Shaper_pmp · · Score: 1

      Maybe, but looking over TFA, as a webmaster with experience in SEO (don't look at me - job description "evolved" drastically between interviews and starting, and I stay defiantly white-hat) this seems to do an awful lot to get rid of the scummier end of the SEO spectrum.

      Link-swapping programs? Dead - Google now takes into account the trust level of the sites linking to you, as well as how quickly you garner links, so any sudden jumps in links from low-trust sites (like those run by SEO types) will impact against you. It also means that a site will have to link to you for a while before you'll get the full benefit of their "vote" - 1-week or 1-month link-swaps won't do anything anymore.

      Disposable domains/gateway pages? Dead - Google now takes into account how long your domain's been registered when assigning trust scores. It also considers whether your domain (or even IP, IIRC) hosts other, known spammer sites. Oh, and apparently it even checks for frequent changes in your DNS contact details, again to weed out the disposable jack-in-the-box domains that unethical SEOs create, use to boost sites' in-bound links, then remove.

      Re-tasking of existing high-PR pages? Dead - Google now watches for sudden "subject changes" on a page, and knocks the trust rank if it finds them. This prevents SEOs building up a useful, high-PR/trust page then retasking it as a source of high-PR links.

      Obviously you'll have to read TFA for all the details, but after looking over it it strikes me that the only working techniques left are basically fresh content, accessible+validated markup, links from high-trust sites, steady growth and all the other things that basically make a site good for users (and rule out unethical SEO).

      It might make my job slightly harder, but from a philosophical point of view, nice job Google!

      --
      Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
    37. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Doctor+O · · Score: 1

      I know you're winking, but... even though I program since the early 80's and am quite used to CLIs and terminal-based/pure-text editors, I never got to the point where I could force myself to really evaluate both vi and emacs and become proficient with one of them. I am just to lazy to find out how the FUCK I make it work the same via PuTTY and Konsole, and after a few days of not using it, I'll have forgotten WTF is this 'meta' key that's not on my keyboard. It doesn't matter though, because my human RAM deletes the whole keyboard shortcuts after a few hours anyways. Maybe I've just learnt too many shortcut schemes in this life already.

      And vi, well, I can remember this one: :wq. I use it whenever I forgot to change $EDITOR on some stupid FreeBSD server at work and some command leaves me with an editor that won't let me edit just because I always forget how to switch modes. I admit using ee where possible. And yes, I feel a bit dirty about it.

      If you have some nice ways of memorizing any of the above, please share. I can still remember most of the basic commands in Turbo Basic 1.0 (^K-B/^K-K anyone?), but I'd be damned if I could remember how to operate vi or emacs.

      --
      Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
    38. Re:Unintended side effects of the Google arms race by Doctor+O · · Score: 1

      That's actually a nice feature, albeit one for which there are free alternatives. If it's the only feature keeping you on DW, you might want to google for those. A good keyword is 'demoronizer'. I haven't tried any of those because we always had DW at work and my friends don't send me FP messes, so there was never the need for me.

      --
      Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
  8. After link analysis by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Its obvious Google and Yahoo are moving on to trust-based (or perceived trust) ranking for sites based on what they see users clicking on through the web accelerator, Yahoo's MyWeb, etc. Hopefully this will help grade down the obvious spam...although you only find out its spam by going to the page...we'll see.

    1. Re:After link analysis by JVert · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Doesn't seem like the best solution. This would work if you started from a clean slate but spam pages are still out there and are being clicked on. Not much you can do about that, I just hope its not something silly like how much time you spend on a page. If I find a page that quickly answers my question or at least answers part of my question and I click back for other links i'd hate to think that that site would be marked as "spam".

    2. Re:After link analysis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      May be we can't avoid spam at all? I'm suprised by how many people critizes Google because their search results are not as good because of the spam. I actually don't blame google for that - google is the number one, and search engine optimizers target for them, and those guys are smart. If everybody would use yahoo they'd target yahoo. How can we avoid it?. Google web accelerator means nothing - spammers will simulate they're users and will twist the results again. I actually like google more than yahoo because google's engineering is great and I do believe that they can find a good answer to that spam, and right now they already have a lot of experience on this field that yahoo and msn can't match (they're busy trying to imitate gmail)

    3. Re:After link analysis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yes, they are out there, and some people do click and view them. The difference is:
      - They are visited much less often. Usually by mistake.
      - Few people follow links /out/ of them.

      Remember, Google's algorithms are based on statistics, not absolute decisions. If one person links to a page, that's not enough to believe it's a respectable page. A lot of people have to be interested in that page for it to become important.

    4. Re:After link analysis by sapped · · Score: 1

      I recently sent Google a suggestion on their Search History feature. I would like to be able give each site in my history a thumbs up or down rating. This rating should then appear in future searches. That way at least I can see when a crap site comes up in a search again.

      Eventually Google should be able to start aggregating those ratings to find out how the public perceives a site.

    5. Re:After link analysis by ZiakII · · Score: 1

      What stops someone from spamming their junk site with a bunch of thumbs up and spamming a respectable site with thumbs up?

    6. Re:After link analysis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and just like everything else thats been suggested, thumbs down ratings on sites you're competing with...

    7. Re:After link analysis by sapped · · Score: 1

      They would need to create a Google ID for each of their spamming efforts.

      After a while, hopefully, some users are "trusted" more than others and we can rank their ratings higher.

      Any other suggestions to improve my idea?

    8. Re:After link analysis by JVert · · Score: 1

      soo what your saying is...

      Meta moderation?

      Its a fine idea but people are always going to be able to game the system. If you make it complex enough for the exploits not to work then the regular user base will be left out as well. If you could train pidgeons to do ranking though...

      http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html

  9. Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    But when I search on Tiger, a mail-order company's site still comes up above Apple's. Is anyone at Google listening?

    1. Re:Yes by BrianGa · · Score: 0, Troll

      So? Maybe, outside of your little world, more people are interested in TigerDirect (a fairly large computer parts store) than an Apple OS.

    2. Re:Yes by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Truthfully? The top results should be for "Tiger" should be furry creatures that eat meat and perform in Las Vegas.

    3. Re:Yes by scribblej · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Why? I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that even now, installations of the OS known as "Tiger" vastly outnumber actual tigers.

      If there are more copies of Tiger than there are Tigers, then I'd say Google's just doing it's job.

      Not to be a Google apologist. I think this filing is too obvious to be patented. It's just taking the obvious things you would look at to rank a page, and looking at it one level removed. Instead of asking how many links there are to my page, we're asking how many and when they were created. Big deal.

    4. Re:Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      you beat me to the same sentiment LOL.

      Aside from this, Tiger direct gets more hits, has more pages in it with the word "Tiger", is an older more established concern than this OS name is, is probably outbidding apple for the keyword, and [1000 other reasons why apple is not the center of the universe for most of us].

      Just because you have an apple computer, drive a VW, are probably overpaid, and have designer glasses, doesn't make your demographic more important than the other 99.99% of us, at least outside of your narcisstic little world.

      Get a clue and learn something about Google before criticizing their results. You might want to try searching for "Apple OS Tiger" as opposed to "Tiger". You really aren't as savvy as you think you are now are you?

      l8,
      AC

    5. Re:Yes by scribblej · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Sorry to respond to myself (and off topic, too... goodbye, karma!) but I just thought the comparison was interesting.

      The minimum number of tigers in 1993 was 4400 and the maximum was 7700 where as in 2000/2001the minimum was 5700 and the maximum was 7000.

      From: http://www.globaltiger.org/population.htm

      I can't find any stats for installations of Tiger, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there were more than 5700 copies out there.

      So the operating system called Tiger might be more prevalent than actual Tigers are. That would be something, wouldn't it?

    6. Re:Yes by nganju · · Score: 1


      Hey, leave Wayne Newton out of this.

      --
      There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
    7. Re:Yes by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Interestingly enough, the top the results for "tiger" are a page about tigers, tiger direct, and the Apple page. These seem pretty reasonable to me. The OS is obviously something a lot of people are going to be looking for, but I'd still find it weird if real tigers were not the first link. For "panther" the results are Apple's page, then some pages on real panthers. For "jaguar" you get the car manufacturer, Apple, then real panthers. I wonder what will happen if you do a search on "tiger" a year from now.

    8. Re:Yes by pqdave · · Score: 1

      I initially misread this as "furry creatures that eat meat and performers..."

    9. Re:Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, maybe because TigerDirect is an existing company who has had their name out for quite some time should be higher. For Apple to just come along and swipe the spot above them doesn't do justice to the company who has "Tiger" directly in their name. This isn't to say that search engines "do justice" all the time but that TigerDirect is still probably more relevant.

    10. Re:Yes by spun · · Score: 1

      And why do I get recipes for bread when I do this search? C'mon, google, that's not what I was after at all!

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    11. Re:Yes by crazyj · · Score: 1

      The top results for "Tiger" should be furry creatures that eat performers and meet in Las Vegas.

  10. resistance is futile by roman_mir · · Score: 4, Funny

    you will be googleated. Or googleaten. Whichever.
    Borgle.

    1. Re:resistance is futile by roman_mir · · Score: 0, Redundant

      you will be googleated. If you feel lucky, then you will be googleaten.

    2. Re:resistance is futile by WWWWolf · · Score: 3, Funny
      you will be googleated. Or googleaten. Whichever. Borgle.

      So that's what it sounds like when the Borg have problems digesting the food... and I always thought they just recharged or whatever... well, I guess they can't always adapt fast enough.

      ("Captain, may I suggest remodulating the food replicator inputs?")

    3. Re:resistance is futile by JeTmAn81 · · Score: 1

      If this goes on any longer they're going to be giving our eugoogley.

      --
      "Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare -- a pumpkin with a gun."
  11. Is it the general opinion of the public... by wcitech · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...that google is still a "not evil" company? This proxy "web-accelerator" thing really still has me freaked out. Am I just paranoid or is there legitimate reason for concern?

    1. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by DrinkingIllini · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Of course there is reason for concern, any company gets too big and powerful they become evil. Wal-mart, Microsoft, Disney, Intel, Lucasfilm, they're all evil, and I'm sure they didn't set out to become that way, it's just the power of the dark side. Power corrupts, it's the nature of the beast.

    2. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by CrackedButter · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The WWF is a big organisation, they do work all over the world, they are not evil are they? I don't see them killing Panda's or anything.

    3. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      This proxy "web-accelerator" thing really still has me freaked out.

      Freaked out in what sense? In the sense that Google can see what you are browsing (just like your ISP) or in the sense that some web applications break (because they were buggy to begin with)?

      Really, if something like the GWA "freaks you out", then you have a very low tolerance for the world in general and need to calm down a bit.

    4. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by JFitzsimmons · · Score: 1

      But do their shareholders care about profit?

      --
      Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
    5. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by mspohr · · Score: 1
      The web-accelerator gives Google the same information that your current ISP has... do you trust your ISP?... do you trust Google?

      The only way to hide these days is to stay home, pay cash, and disconnect from the Internet... big brother is here.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    6. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They wouldn't kill the panda. They'd distract the referee so the valet at ringside could slip into the ring and hit the panda in the head with a steel folding chair.

      Oh, you meant the wildlife conservation people.

    7. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by DrinkingIllini · · Score: 1

      They did force the World Wrestling Federation to abandon their WWF moniker. That's evil enough in my book.

    8. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google went evil a long time ago. The biggest piece of evidence toward that is this.

      There are several other examples including the one you list.

      It's well established they've become evil. The only question in my mind is whether they're incompetent or not. Check out the site webmasterworld.com to see discussions in regard to this. People are guessing that Google is trying to get rid of spammers, but in actuality they may just be screwing up. There is substantial evidence toward this conclusion.

    9. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're an idiot. Yes, an ISP can theoretically record where you surf. Most don't.

      Google, the world's largest Internet marketer, is promising to record where you surf.

    10. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not only are they the world's largest internet marketeer, they're also the world's largest internet repository of information. not a good combo!

    11. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by doofusclam · · Score: 1
      They did force the World Wrestling Federation to abandon their WWF moniker. That's evil enough in my book.


      Didn't the wrestling lot bring this upon themselves by starting the legal action? As the World Wildlife Fund have been registered since 1961 they didn't have a leg to stand on and so deservedly lost the rights to the initials.
    12. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lets remember that WWF had the logo first before WWE had to change their name and went back on a condition on using their last logo. WWE could of used WWF if those 3 letters were not in the logo (hence the conjoined W and F), then they started doing such a thing and got burned. Serves them right, its sad as well that a charity is considered evil by yourself but a greedy entertainment division isn't, they seem the victim.

    13. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by CrackedButter · · Score: 1

      No they care about endangered animals. :) Bad example I brought to the table I did.

    14. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by pqdave · · Score: 1

      I think what happened is that Wildlife allowed Wrestling to continue to use the initials, so long as Wrestling didn't do Wildlife-based promotions. Wrestling agreed, then did Wildlife-based promotions anyway.

    15. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by EraserMouseMan · · Score: 1

      Ya know, I'm starting to wonder what's so great about all things Google too. Do you think there will come a day when the term phrase "Free as in Google" will be added to the techie's vocab? It's pretty obvious that Google is only giving away free services as long as you don't expect them to respect your privacy. Google's existence is defined by services that help them gain more advertizing dollars. I remember when everybody had a fit because Intel was including a unique identifier in the new P4s.

      Now all the same paranoid people are signing up for gmail, using the web accellerator and using the search engine when they KNOW that Google records every move they make while using Google services. . . and if they aren't tracking it now they are hiring away Microsoft's best tallent to figure out how to track it!

    16. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by CptnSbaitso · · Score: 1

      ...that google is still a "not evil" company?

      Of course not. Google won't be evil until the end of Episode 3.

    17. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by Xarius · · Score: 1

      Add slashdot to that list ;)

      --
      C17H21NO4
    18. Re:Is it the general opinion of the public... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm somewhat paranoid too, and I also use it. I just use a different browser that doesn't use the accelerator for things I consider sensitive, or i turn it off when I wouldn't want anyone knowing what I'm doing.

      It's pretty simple, and actually can help hide your sensitive stuff if it turns out that Google is evil. You have legitamate or legal usage at all times when using their accelerator, so you can't have done anything wrong!

  12. Take the article with a grain of salt... by nganju · · Score: 5, Insightful


    The article is not written by a Google employee, nor did the author speak with anyone at Google. It's simply his analysis of the patent document filed by Google.

    Also, at the bottom of the article after the author's name, there's a link to some search optimization service's website.

    --
    There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
    1. Re:Take the article with a grain of salt... by krelian · · Score: 1

      Also, at the bottom of the article after the author's name, there's a link to some search optimization service's website.

      Which means that he probably cares and knows about this stuff more than the average tech guy.

  13. Is it the case.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ..that Google's search dominance is a direct result of it clinging onto a patent for PageRank ?

    Sorry kids, but patents and "Do no evil" are mutually incompatible concepts

    regards

    1. Re:Is it the case.. by CynicalGuy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is it the case that Google's search dominance is a direct result of it clinging onto a patent for PageRank ?

      Their search dominance is a direct result of PageRank. That they have a patent on it prevents other companies from copying the idea or hiring their employees away (Microsoft is notorious at doing both these things). So yes, the patent is important.

      Sorry kids, but patents and "Do no evil" are mutually incompatible concepts.

      You're retarded if you think that.

    2. Re:Is it the case.. by Umbral+Blot · · Score: 1

      Yes, patents ARE a violation of google's do no evil policy, as it gives them a monopoly on the good search engine algorithems. When did a monopoly by google become ok? Isn't it the stance of most /.ers that algorithems should be open so that companies can compete at making the best product? That is not to say that there aren't other ways of designing a good search engine, but why support one companies attempts to cripple their opponents through legislation instead of competition?

    3. Re:Is it the case.. by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, patents ARE a violation of google's do no evil policy, as it gives them a monopoly on the good search engine algorithems.

      So they have monopoly. What's your point?

      When did a monopoly by google become ok?

      Sometime around the 1790's when the patent system was created in the US to give inventors an temporary and artificial monopoly on their inventions so as to encourage them to innovate. Google has not violated their policy of "do no evil" by properly utilizing the patent system, and it has had the intended side effect of preventing Microsoft from using their corporate muscle to crush Google.

      but why support one companies attempts to cripple their opponents through legislation instead of competition?

      Why should a company with more money have a right to crush me with my own invention?

      The primary reason why the patent system sucks is that "invention" is far too loosely defined. Many patents get granted in cases where the patent office's own rules state that they should throw them out.

    4. Re:Is it the case.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you are saying that as long as you follow the law, you are not doing anything evil. You are simply "utilizing possibilities". Nice logic.

    5. Re:Is it the case.. by CynicalGuy · · Score: 1

      Yes, patents ARE a violation of google's do no evil policy, as it gives them a monopoly on the good search engine algorithems.

      It does? What's stopping you from coming up with a better search engine algorithm? Are you just not smart enough, or is the problem to hard to solve?

    6. Re:Is it the case.. by arodland · · Score: 1

      Obtaining a patent on a specific, innovative technique that's important to your business can be considered reasonable and not especially evil. Obtaining patents on a whole mess of vague descriptions of subprocesses in order to keep competition entirely out of a given field, exploiting loopholes in the process to create "submarine" patents, and other such abuse is evil. Just because "the patent system" is broken and subject to rampant abuse doesn't mean that the whole idea of a patent should -- necessarily -- be thrown out.

      That said, I think that the trademark, properly applied, is a more important protection, and better for business, than either the copyright or the patent.

    7. Re:Is it the case.. by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 1

      Some of us believe that patenting math _is_ evil because it slows the progress of the sciences. But of course, that is just an opinion.

  14. Non-subscribers! Damn you all! by dtfinch · · Score: 1

    While the article was in the "mysterious future", I clicked on it, skimmed the article, then clicked "printer friendly version" and closed the window with the original browser friendly page. The printer friendly version never came up and the original page was no longer accessible because in those few seconds the article went live on slashdot and the server was knocked out. I guess I'll just have to search my cache or find a mirror.

    1. Re:Non-subscribers! Damn you all! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.mirrordot.org The geek answer to get around the slashdot effect!

    2. Re:Non-subscribers! Damn you all! by gumbo · · Score: 1

      Am I missing something? On mirrordot, the link to the story is the link to the original (slashdotted) site. I can't find a mirror anywhere on mirrordot. Did they not get to it in time?

  15. Re:10 Comments and the site is down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's what one gets for running Windows and ASP.Net to serve web pages.

  16. Six weeks to fix? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I use google quite a bit to check on recent spyware/malware (used it this morning) and with all due respect, the first few links typically are for spyware products that don't work, domain parking sites (search engines themselves), requiring some amount of diligence to get to the "real" sites that have information.

    If this claim is true, I guess we'll have to wait the typical "four to six weeks for delivery."

    1. Re:Six weeks to fix? by MisanthropicProgram · · Score: 1

      I usually have to go the second page before I find what I'm actually looking for.

  17. GoogleBombs Away by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 4, Funny

    The "war" metaphor really is cute. Geeky competition in search relevance is really a lot like bombing cities, shooting ranks of soldiers, and destroying bridges and railways. Burnt, bloody bodies everywhere! And clean datacenters with mathematical algorithms.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:GoogleBombs Away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The term "Googlebomb" is a derivative from older terms, like "fork bomb" and "mail bomb", where the resource usage "explodes". It's got nothing to do with any "war metaphor".

    2. Re:GoogleBombs Away by General+Wesc · · Score: 1
      Googlebomb, yes. The word 'war', however, is a war 'metaphor':
      Google's sweeping changes confirm the search giant has launched a full out assault against artificial link inflation & declared war against search engine spam
      (Emphasis is mine.)
    3. Re:GoogleBombs Away by SirTalon42 · · Score: 1
      http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Diction ary&va=war
      1 a (1) : a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations (2) : a period of such armed conflict (3) : STATE OF WAR b : the art or science of warfare c (1) obsolete : weapons and equipment for war (2) archaic : soldiers armed and equipped for war
      2 a : a state of hostility, conflict, or antagonism b : a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end


      Look at definition #2.
    4. Re:GoogleBombs Away by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Are you and I now at "war"? Is every disagreement, conflict, or competition a "war"? No, they're not. The infatuation with war, and its inappropriate associations, makes the metaphor inappropriate. The associated connotations are the power of a metaphor, not its agreement with a single dictionary meaning.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    5. Re:GoogleBombs Away by Headw1nd · · Score: 1

      I think the idea behind using "war" as the description of googles actions is that this is not a disagreement google is having with link farming and other methods it sees as inappropriate, it wants to see those methods destroyed utterly and the people who use them punished. You and I might disagree over the use of war in this context, or compete for the ears of others, but I am not spending millions of dollars and man-hours trying to see your idea wiped from the face of the earth. Google is trying to do just that to what it considers shysty SEO methods. Make no mistake, it's not just about the bottom line, they really *hate* being "gamed". There's far more antipathy than is warrented from the economic standpoint. So a competition+hatred+the use of extrodinary manpower+ goal of absolute destruction of the opposing side=war

      As an aside to the great grandparent, don't think that because something isn't covered in the mud of the trenches it isn't involved in war. The most dangerous places in the world are where they keep the buttons, and they are kept spotlessly clean

  18. effect on search engine optimizers by nemexi · · Score: 5, Informative

    One of the most interesting (and obvious) effects of Google's changes: The company which once ranked first for the phrase "search engine optimization", SEOinc, is now nowhere to be found -- even a search for the company's name doesn't bring up the company's website. SEOincs response has been a -- somewhat ineffective -- try to bring those reporting on its fall to "cease and desist".

    1. Re:effect on search engine optimizers by future+assassin · · Score: 1
      heh everyone should phone 1-877-736-0006 or 1-760-929-0039 and ask them for the keyword that can be used to see how SEOincs site is ranked :)

      http://www.anologger.com/

      --
      by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
  19. Article text and Google cache link by RealProgrammer · · Score: 3, Informative
    I think this is the same article: google:www.coder.com
    Google United - Google Patent Examined

    Google's newest patent application is lengthy. It is interesting in some places and enigmatic in others. Less colourful than most end user license agreements, the patent covers an enormous range of ranking analysis techniques Google wants to ensure are kept under their control.

    Publication Date: 4/7/2005 7:41:24 AM

    By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor, StepForth Placement Inc.

    Thoughts on Google's patent... "Information retrieval based on historical data."

    Google's newest patent application is lengthy. It is interesting in some places and enigmatic in others. Less colourful than most end user license agreements, the patent covers an enormous range of ranking analysis techniques Google wants to ensure are kept under their control. Some of the ideas and concepts covered in the document are almost certainly worked into the current algorithm running Google. Some are being worked in as this article is being written. Some may never see the blue-light of electrons but are pretty good ideas so it might have been considered wise to patent them. Google's not saying which is which. While not exactly War and Peace, it's a pretty complex document that gives readers a glimpse inside the minds of Google engineers. What it doesn't give is a 100% clear overview of how Google operates now and how the various ideas covered in the patent application will be integrated into Google's algorithms. One interesting section seems to confirm what SEOs have been saying for almost a year, Google does have a "sandbox" where it stores new links or sites for about a month before evaluation.

    Google is in the midst of sweeping changes to the way it operates as a search engine. As a matter of fact, it isn't really a search engine in the fine sense of the word anymore. It isn't really a portal either. It is more of an institution, the ultimate private-public partnership. Calling itself a media-company, Google is now a multi-faceted information and multi-media delivery system that is accessed primarily through its well-known interface found at www.google.com.

    Google is known for its from-the-hip style of innovation. While the face is familiar, the brains behind it are growing and changing rapidly. Four major factors (technology, revenue, user demand and competition) influence and drive these changes. Where Microsoft dithers and .dll's over its software for years before introduction, Google encourages its staff to spend up to 20% of their time tripping their way up the stairs of invention. Sometimes they produce ideas that didn't work out as they expected, as was the case with Orkut, and sometimes they produce spectacular results as with Google News. The sum total of what works and what doesn't work has served to inform Google what its users want in a search engine. After all, where the users go, the advertising dollars must follow. Such is the way of the Internet.

    In its recent SEC filing, the first it has produced since going public in August 2004, Google said it was going to spend a lot of money to continue outpacing its rivals. This year they figure they will spend about $500 million to develop or enhance newer technologies. In 2004 and 2003, Google spent $319 million and $177 million respectively. The increase in innovation-spending corresponds with a doubling of Google's staff headcount which has jumped from 1628 employees in 2003 to 3021 by the end of 2004.

    Over the past five years Google has produced a number of features that have proven popular enough to be included among its public-search offerings. On their front page, these features include Image Search, Google Groups, Google News, Froogle, Google Local, and Google Desktop. There are dozens of other features which can be accessed by cli

    --
    sigs, as if you care.
    1. Re:Article text and Google cache link by pdbaby · · Score: 1

      That's an old version of the page. The current version is as follows:

      Cracking the Google Code... Under the GoogleScope
      Google's US Patent confirms information retrieval is based on historical data.

      Publication Date: 5/8/2005 9:51:18 PM

      Author Name: Lawrence Deon

      An Introduction: ...if you thought you cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out ... guess again.

      Google's sweeping changes confirm the search giant has launched a full out assault against artificial link inflation & declared war against search engine spam in a continuing effort to provide the best search service in the world... and if you thought you cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out ... guess again.

      Google has raised the bar against search engine spam and artificial link inflation to unrivaled heights with the filing of a United States Patent Application 20050071741 on March 31, 2005.

      The filing unquestionable provides SEO's with valuable insight into Google's tightly guarded search intelligence and confirms that Google's information retrieval is based on historical data.

      What exactly do these changes mean to you?
      Your credibility and reputation on-line are going under the Googlescope! Google has defined their patent abstract as follows:

      "A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of history data associated with the document. The system may generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data."

      Google's patent specification reveals a significant amount of information both old and new about the possible ways Google can (and likely does) use your web page updates to determine the ranking of your site in the SERPs.

      Unfortunately, the patent filing does not prioritize or conclusively confirm any specific method one way or the other.

      Here's how Google scores your web pages.

      In addition to evaluating and scoring web page content, the ranking of web pages are admittedly still influenced by the frequency of page or site updates.
      What's new and interesting is what Google takes into account in determining the freshness of a web page.

      For example, if a stale page continues to procure incoming links, it will still be considered fresh, even if the page header (Last-Modified: tells when the file was most recently modified) hasn't changed and the content is not updated or 'stale'.

      According to their patent filing Google records and scores the following web page changes to determine freshness.
      The frequency of all web page changes
      The actual amount of the change itself... whether it is a substantial change redundant or superfluous
      Changes in keyword distribution or density
      The actual number of new web pages that link to a web page
      The change or update of anchor text (the text that is used to link to a web page)
      The numbers of new links to low trust web sites (for example, a domain may be considered low trust for having too many affiliate links on one web page).
      Although there is no specific number of links indicated in the patent it might be advisable to limit affiliate links on new web pages. Caution should also be used in linking to pages with multiple affiliate links.

      Developing your web page augments for page freshness.

      Now I'm not suggesting that it's always beneficial or advisable to change the content of your web pages regularly, but it is very important to keep your pages fresh regularly and that may not necessarily mean a content change.

      Google states that decayed or stale results might be desirable for information that doesn't necessarily need updating, while fresh content is good for results that require it.

      How do you unravel that statement and differentiate between the two types of content?

      An excellent example of this methodology is the roller coaster ride seasonal results might experience in Google's SERPs ba

      --
      Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
  20. Re:Pamela Jones EXPOSED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So what is the fucking point?

  21. SEO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What do those guys actually *do* in any case? I mean, legitimately. I guess you can tweak things a bit, but... how much does that actually get you if you simply aren't a popular site?

    1. Re:SEO by Intron · · Score: 3, Informative

      There's a whole range. Some will tell you how to rewrite your web page so that search engines will classify it better. That seems legit. Others will try to sell you on "link farms" and other hacks to improve your ratings - not so legit. I've also seen spamming websites that have google-accessible logs with fake referrers, or spamming blogs like /. with links in your sig [place link here].

      --
      Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
    2. Re:SEO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There is an art to SEO. Some of us employ spamming techniques that will force a website to the top of the list for a short period of time, and then become banned. To some people, this is desirable - such as when you know your product has a short lifespan.

      Others like myself try to help businesses retool their websites to be search engine friendly. Alot of smaller businesses out there have websites that have every bit of info on everything they do on every page, thats bad. We show them how to break it into logical pieces, present it to the end user in a manner they will respond favorably to, AND build the site in a manner which will get crawled efficiently.

      True SEO has two sides to it, the Optimization side and the Search side. You have to understand how your demographic searches for things. If you are selling womens jewelry online, you will build the site (SEO wise) differently than you would a site that sells lab equipment. There are cultural differences in how these demographics search for things, and differences in the lifecycle of a sale to them. Some web developers can create sites that are easy to navigate and look great, yet they forget who they are targeting. Their content may be relevant, but it wouldn't spur Google to refer to it by the terms that the target would search with. Good SEO is about building a website with relevant content in the context that the target uses, not your perception of how it should be used.

      I don't try to manipulate Google into thinking my websites are the authority on any subject. I try to build my sites to speak to the target demographic. When done properly, this drives traffic to your site because you knew what your target audience was going to put into the search box. Which, BTW, is what Google WANTS. They don't want page spam that will artificaially inflate a page's ranking and dilute the the accuracy of their product. They want to be able to detirmine what is relevant by the traffic a site gets, how many people link to it, and how often it is updated. For heavily used terms, there are some technical tricks that are employed to increase your ranking, but nothing outside what a good designer should want to do to bring attention to the most relevant content on a page.

      The truth of the matter is, nothing on the internet is unpopular. If Furries exist, everything has a place. But speaking a demographics language on the web is difficult, and quite often outside the scope of a web developer/Copy writer.

    3. Re:SEO by hankwang · · Score: 3, Informative
      spamming blogs like /. with links in your sig [place link here].

      Doesn't work in slashdot because:

      • Sigs are only visible for logged-in users (i.e. not for robots)
      • Posts without a karma bonus have the REL=NOFOLLOW attribute in the links, so that they don't count for Google.
  22. A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Server Error in '/main' Application.
    Server Too Busy
    Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

    Exception Details: System.Web.HttpException: Server Too Busy

    Source Error:

    An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

    Stack Trace:

    [HttpException (0x80004005): Server Too Busy]
    System.Web.HttpRuntime.RejectRequestInternal(HttpW orkerRequest wr) +146

    Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2032; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2032

    1. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by rogueuk · · Score: 1

      meh..it's just an overloaded server that was not set up with custom error pages. just about any webserver that gets linked on slashdot is bound to die, whether it's iis, apache, or

    2. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, because Apache servers never get /.'d! Welcome to the land called Denial.

    3. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by Valar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, considering that it isn't .NET's fault that they didn't properly implement exception handling I would say no. Also, combine this with the fact that that exception is caused simply by a server overload and you get a total nonissue.

    4. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 1

      thanks for the reality check, my linux bias make me want to jump on MS errors.
      (typical slashdotter) :P

    5. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Well, I guess Apache, Mysql and PHP are off the list then too, since those run the vast majority of sites that slashdot murders ruthlessly.

    6. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 1

      Ya I've heard on here that MySQL and PHP are a good idea to stay away from if preparing for a Slashdotting.

      Apache, should be ok though, no?

      It was interesting that this site was down in under 10 comments.

      Glad some seen this not as flaimbait but as a question of understanding.

    7. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by SirTalon42 · · Score: 1

      The Slashdotting generally happens because the site's bandwidth is completely saturated, which is why slashdotting is considered similar to a DDoS attack.

    8. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by Rolan · · Score: 1

      And what would you suggest then? PHP/MySQL? Go visit groklaw right now. If you can even get the server to respond, you get a nice PHP/MySQL error. When it comes to the Slashdot effect, it's much less what you run, but what you run it on. Prettymuch anything dynamic is going to die. There are few sites on the web that can actually stand up to slashdot.

      --
      - AMW
    9. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 1

      yes, however, is not the desired, (lesser of the evils), when Slashdotting, a slowing/denial of the network connection?
      As opposed to a breaking of the server due to limitations in configuration.

      My point being, if you place the same server on a larger bandwidth, it would survive such that the bottle neck is the bandwidth *not* the server.

    10. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 1

      yes, that's the crux of my question.
      Bandwidth aside, what are the ideal parameters to harden a server for the slashdot effect?

      No doubt, I've seen enough PHP/SQL errors to know that they certainly are not up to par.

      It would be nice to have a list of URLs that can survive with an accompanied analysis for the community of what recipe worked.

    11. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by Rolan · · Score: 1

      Generally, a web farm with a lot of bandwith that only does dynamic content for necessary sections (i.e. comments) but otherwise has static articles. A excellent database server (hardware, not software wise) on the back end helps, too. Building a system that can support 10,000 hits in a matter of minutes takes a good bit of work. Both code, software, and hardware wise. That makes it expensive, and frequently not worth it. Unless, of course, you plan on having that kind of traffic frequently.

      --
      - AMW
    12. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by nmg196 · · Score: 1

      Have you ever *heard* the word "slashdotted"? It happens to ALL servers - no matter who wrote them.

      At least you're getting an error message telling you what's wrong instead of just no response.

      You're new here aren't you?

    13. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 1

      "You're new here aren't you?"

      Dam, I keep forgetting to use that lower UID# I purchased on ebay. :P

    14. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 1

      That's the ideal situation then.
      Web Farm, Bandwidth, Proper configuration.

      Now you would think this would exist at something like Grok.

      How would you simulate a slashdotting? Just a DDOS?

      It would be a fun project to see what can make a single server on a broadband connection survive a slashdotting such that the network connection fails *not* the server.
      Document it and give tips about using mirrors, router config, etc.

    15. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by duerra · · Score: 1
      Server Error in '/main' Application. Server Too Busy Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

      You must be new. Welcome to Slashdot!

    16. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 1

      new is what new does.

      redundant: forgot to use my lower UID# purchased from ebay. :P

    17. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by duerra · · Score: 1

      hEhEhE, I'm no 5-digit-er myself.

    18. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 1

      What is even funnier is that I don't normally get this many replies to posts.
      Guess you have to have an Offtopic mod.

      Been trying like hell to squeeze some info on good strategies to hardening systems against slashdotting, hence the "?" in the Subject line.

      Maybe its time to submit a question,(for rejection), to "Ask Slashdot"

      If I put a Google spin on it somehow maybe it will push through. :P

    19. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by Rikardon · · Score: 1

      Another alternative is lighttpd instead of Apache. See here for more. A shared hosting account was able to stand up to a "full-frontal slashdotting" -- and that was generating pages in PHP from a database backend.

    20. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 1

      If only I could mod this to the top of the stack.

      Love the preamble:
      "We have no photographs of our CEO strutting past server racks, or of women in telephone headsets ready to take your call, but we hope you'll consider joining us all the same."

      Impressive to say the least.

      Being one who prefers the text driven world, even the name appeals to me.
      Thanks for that one!

    21. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by duerra · · Score: 1

      For rejection, yes.

      I've submitted a few articles for rejection, myself. I'm starting understand how "Red" felt! (Shawshank Redemption).

    22. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 1

      lol, you could put " was here" in your journal" before you give up.

      It would be nice if the /. community could moderate submissions.
      Its clearly biased otherwise.

    23. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by duerra · · Score: 1

      I agree that it would definitely be nice to be able for, say, paying members to "vote" on news to be submitted, or something of that sort.

      In other news, I got my first 5-modded post yesterday!

    24. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      OpenSTA - A web server load testing tool.

      Basically, you record a path or multiple paths through the website. Then you setup multiple machines and threads to randomly walk those paths through the website. You'll want enough machines/connections to the network so that you can flood the web server's outbound connection.

      Bonus points if you do log analysis prior and base your "paths" through the site to match the most frequent ones seen in the log files.

      You can also do some extrapolation about upper-end, even if you only drive a particular component to 50% or 75% of maximum. We use this to find bottlenecks in our dynamic content, to find out where we need to focus on first (CPU usage or network usage).

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    25. Re:A reason why *not* to use .NET? by qualico · · Score: 1

      Nice info!

      Stuff like this should be put into a "Slashdotted?" FAQ to help those trying to cope with such loads.
      Albiet, it may be to late for some, others can use it as a precursor to article submissions.

  23. use askjeeves by himanshuarora · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    use ask.com .This is the best.

    --
    Spam: Any activity on internet to gain popularity without paying to advertising companies like Google.
  24. Old Story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    This story showed up on New scientist before (30 April).

    From the article: GOOGLE has plans that will dramatically improve the results of internet news searches, by ranking them according to quality rather than simply by their date and relevance to search terms. The ambitious system is revealed by patents filed in the US and around the world (WO 2005/029368) by researchers based at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California.

  25. Frequency of changes by Veinor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Almost any algorithm can be spoofed fairly easily: inserting very small text that's the same color as the background. Then whenever they want Google to think they've updated, they change the text. The viewer doesn't tell the difference, but the source code changes. Or they could just use comments in Javascript, or just create Javascript that never gets used.

    Also, a page with frames might get penalized since its content doesn't change, although the content of the frames may change frequently.

    1. Re:Frequency of changes by himanshuarora · · Score: 1

      Not a new information. Google knows about it. Himanshu Arora

      --
      Spam: Any activity on internet to gain popularity without paying to advertising companies like Google.
    2. Re:Frequency of changes by Veinor · · Score: 1

      Google knows about which? The frames, the white on white small text, or all of it? Please clarify.

    3. Re:Frequency of changes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google can decipher that there is text with the same BG color on the page. You will get an instant "penalty" for this. Also, Google can reference frames, but it does get tripped up. Thats why us SEO's try not to use them.

    4. Re:Frequency of changes by Veinor · · Score: 1

      The problem is, no matter how good your algorithm is, short of an AI, it'll either miss some trick (pointless javascript) or downgrade a page that uses something legitimately (white-on-white text for text-based-game hint sites.) And an AI will still make mistakes.

    5. Re:Frequency of changes by killtherat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What if Google starts to use a filter designed to elimnate the effect of text that is deemed 'unviewable'. Just check to see if the text color is the same as the background, if it is, ignore it.

      I thought of that is less then 30 seconds, what are the odds Google has already thought about it?

    6. Re:Frequency of changes by Veinor · · Score: 1

      Ok, fine. Background color is #000000, use text colored #010101, or make it #FFFFFF but put it in a place where most people won't see it.

    7. Re:Frequency of changes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those are juvenile tricks that Google has been penalizing for some time. The Google algorithms check for closely matching background colors and small text. I'm sure it didn't take Google long to figure that out. Nice try ... but no.

    8. Re:Frequency of changes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Even things like that are easily detectable. You could demand some minimum distance between the background and foreground color before it is deemed viewable. Or you could take positioning into account. All these are easy to check for programmatically. You could do some more complex stuff like having a script that could hide a section programmatically. If the script was complex it might be difficult for an algorithm to determine if the script would always hide the section. In general it might even be formally undecidable. However, in practice even this would be detectable because the page would have to be shown correctly on the end-users machine within a few second so Google could simply have a "browser emulator" in their engine that would let the script run for a few seconds and determine what was visible.

    9. Re:Frequency of changes by Tsu+Dho+Nimh · · Score: 2, Informative
      "inserting very small text that's the same color as the background"

      Puh-leeeeze! That trick became ineffective last century. It's very easy for the search engine to check background colors and FONT tags and penalize the page that uses text that is too close to the background color.

    10. Re:Frequency of changes by hostyle · · Score: 1

      Absolutely position a white image over black text on a page with a white background using javascript. Can google tell what words on the page are covered?

      --
      Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
    11. Re:Frequency of changes by HD+Webdev · · Score: 1

      I thought of that is less then 30 seconds, what are the odds Google has already thought about it?

      Search engine coders have been aware and interested in that problem for ~8 years. Making text/background a similar color has been pretty much useless for all of that time because comparing background color tags and text color tags is very easy.

      OTOH, using a colored background picture that closely matches some text has been possible due to it being more complex to detect.

      --
      This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
    12. Re:Frequency of changes by MikeBabcock · · Score: 1

      If your browser can render it, so can the thousands of servers running in Google's farms.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    13. Re:Frequency of changes by Xarius · · Score: 1

      Unless you use javascript to change the colour, or a font tag, or CSS etc. There are a lot of ways around that kind of thing. You could put all the words in an "alt" attribute for an image, or a textarea too.

      --
      C17H21NO4
    14. Re:Frequency of changes by John+Bokma · · Score: 1

      There are so many ways to hide text, that if Google wants to detect suchs things it needs to "see" how the page visual renders. And this goes beyond a merely: display:hidden; or "background-color:white; color: white;" Also, elements can be deleted using JavaScript. Is Google going to interpret JavaScript all the way? I doubt it. Note that: is this piece of code going to hide some text within given time is like solving the halting problem.

    15. Re:Frequency of changes by John+Bokma · · Score: 1

      That should have been written as: decide if this piece of code ever hides some text based on an evaluation that takes no longer then x seconds.

  26. Coral cache link by dagnabit · · Score: 2, Funny

    Original server is /.ed. Coral cache link here.

    1. Re:Coral cache link by fabu10u$ · · Score: 1
      500 Internal Server Error
      Damn! We even slashdotted Coral!
      --
      They say the mind is the first thing to ... uh, what's that saying again?
  27. 15 minutes by clheiny · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Fifteen minutes on /., and the server (IIS .Net) is toast.

    Hmmmm. Wasn't there a "crash IIS" contest or something like that going on in the past couple or three week?

    --
    Racing is an addiction that makes heroin look like a vague hankering for something crunchy.
  28. Step one to duplicating Google's Success by alta · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Don't use .net

    --
    Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
  29. Re:Pamela Jones EXPOSED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pamela Jones is a 61-year-old Jehovah's Witness who lives in a shabby genteel garden apartment in desperate need of an interior decorator on a heavily trafficked commercial road at 304 North Central Avenue in Hartsdale, New York. Hartsdale is in Westchester and Westchester is IBM territory.

  30. FAQs by null+etc. · · Score: 1
    In addition to evaluating and scoring web page content, the ranking of web pages are admittedly still influenced by the frequency of page or site updates. What's new and interesting is what Google takes into account in determining the freshness of a web page.

    Since the story submission didn't end the post with a question, I feel compelled to add one:

    How will this affect the ranking of insightful FAQs, which by nature my not change frequently?

    Another shout-out poll to my homeboy Slashdotters: Do you pronounce FAQs as "F-A-Q's" or "Faks"?

    1. Re:FAQs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fax

    2. Re:FAQs by eluusive · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I say F-A-Q not FAQ. I pronounce IRC I-R-C not Irck. It makes me go irck when somebody says erck for IRC. I pronounce MySQL as My-S-Q-L not My Sequel. #$*#@$%&)(@#&%()*#@&%)(*#@% However, I do pronounce LASER as laser the word. Laser is no longer just an acronym.

    3. Re:FAQs by n3k5 · · Score: 1
      However, I do pronounce LASER as laser the word. Laser is no longer just an acronym.
      It's nice that you care about intelligible pronunciation, but I'd like to inform you that an acronym is not what you think it is. If you look the term up in a dictionary, you should find out that acronyms, like LASER (actually I'd spell that Laser according to my style guide but in this particular case that point is moot anyway, because it has turned into the word laser) are meant to be pronounced as words. SQL is not an acronym, it's an abbreviation.
      --
      but what do i know, i'm just a model.
    4. Re:FAQs by warpup · · Score: 2, Funny

      I like the pronunciation Fah - cue.

    5. Re:FAQs by oscartheduck · · Score: 0

      I pronounce mysql as my skwill

      --
      How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
    6. Re:FAQs by MrCopilot · · Score: 1
      I pronounce FAQ in my head "ef Ay Cue".

      If I am speaking to someone or reading a web page out loud, I always pronounce it: Frequently Asked Questions.

      The number of people who have said "Oh, THATs what FACK means" is staggering. Easy, there you go buddy. Never get an 11 drunk.

      --
      OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
    7. Re:FAQs by eluusive · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I was confusing acronym and abbreviation. I thought they were the same thing until I just now looked it up. Very interesting.

    8. Re:FAQs by amichalo · · Score: 1

      You are an idiot. Please move along.

      --
      I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
    9. Re:FAQs by MrCopilot · · Score: 1
      No!No! No. I'm here to Kick Ass & Chew Bubble Gum, and I'm all out of bubble gum. Get it straight, or We'll send Roddy Piper over to see how much gum you have.

      Name Calling. Very Clever. I now return you to your regular time wating activities.

      --
      OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
  31. Straight off the PR newswire... almost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slashdot: Googlenews for googlenerds. Googlestuff that googlematters.

  32. Google's crackdown is coming by Animats · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It's clear that Google is gearing up for a crackdown on search engine spamming. They've already started to kill off "link farms". They're checking spam blacklists. And they're not stopping there.

    Note that Google is now looking at domain ownership information. This may result in a much lower level of bogus information in domain registrations. It's probably a good idea to make sure that your domain registration information, business license, D&B rating, on-site contact info, and SSL certificates all match.

    "Domain cloaking" will probably mean that you don't appear anywhere the top in Google. So that's on the way out.

    1. Re:Google's crackdown is coming by centipetalforce · · Score: 1

      I do agree. It's also been mentioned on Webmasterworld from an official Google document saying how one year domain registrations are considered a frequent use of spammers. So register at least three years.

  33. Wrong. by pdevor · · Score: 1

    Truthfully, a search for "Tiger" should point to Apple's OS because that's what most people are looking for. I think you're thinking of wikipedia.

    1. Re:Wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would somebody be looking for Apple's OS Tiger? Does it run on a PC?

    2. Re:Wrong. by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      Truthfully, a search for "Tiger" should point to Apple's OS because that's what most people are looking for.

      No, that's the tack that Google has taken (i.e. Group think) because it works better than any other method. That doesn't meant that it's the "correct" design. The "correct" design should give you results relavent to what you searched for. i.e. "Tiger" or "Tigers" should give you info about furry creatures (and potentially furry creatures in advertising and sports), because that's what you searched for.

      OTOH "OS X Tiger", "Apple Tiger", "Mac Tiger", "Tiger Computers", "Tiger Direct", and "Tiger Software" should all give results for either Apple or Tiger Direct because that is what you asked for.

      If search engines can reach that stage, then we can finally start installing Computer Libraries in warp-capable starships.

    3. Re:Wrong. by TuringTest · · Score: 1

      The "correct" design should give you results relavent to what you searched for. i.e. "Tiger" or "Tigers" should give you info about furry creatures (and potentially furry creatures in advertising and sports), because that's what you searched for.

      That's what Answers.com does. Also when you google for tigers. But the word "Tiger" is the name of an important operating system, and that's what Google should find.

      --
      Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
    4. Re:Wrong. by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      But the word "Tiger" is the name of an important operating system

      No! No! No! It's name is NOT "Tiger". The name of the OS is "Mac OS X 10.4: Tiger". "Tiger" is a short name used once the original name has been established. If I walked up to someone on the street and asked him "What do you think of Tiger?" he's look at me like a looney! (Or at least ask "What do you mean?")

      If I asked the same person, "What do you think of Mac OS X Tiger?" I'd either get an opinion or an "I'm not familiar with Tiger." (Note that the responder will probably switch to the short name AFTER the long name has been established!)

  34. Search Engine Spam by Jewelry+Mall · · Score: 1

    It will be great if it works. I like how google tries new things to get the most relevant results. I hope this one doesnt backfire. How often do webmasters update how to fix a broken disk or how to patch an older version of Solaris. If you only get the newest results, you will likely get blogs and rss feed results for your broken disk.... as they are updated often.

    1. Re:Search Engine Spam by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 1

      They talked about that in the article. In a nutshell, if new pages keep linking to old pages, then the old page's trust rating goes up, and it ranks higher in searches because the new links indicqate to Google that the page is still relevant.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  35. Google's Click History Asset by 4of12 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google has millions upon millions of click history on their search results that say what it is people really are looking for, as well as which ones appeared good fodder for first clicking.

    No one else has such a large database of what humans have actually picked.

    Such a click history and search term history asset is worth even more if it gets correlated with Evil Direct Marketing information from the cookie traders.

    Although, it seems possible that large ISPs could also grab and analyze their members Google interactions to figure out people's tastes, assuming such interactions remain unencrypted.

    I have to wonder how many companies with static IP addresses have, unbeknownst to them, built up extensive history logs at Google showing their search term preferences and click selections. If I were a technology startup with a hot idea to research I'd be a little more paranoid about something like that.

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
    1. Re:Google's Click History Asset by eluusive · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Click history? Incase you hadn't noticed google links are direct. There's no link to a google page that redirects. So,then, by what method do they obtain this mystical click information on me?

    2. Re:Google's Click History Asset by Thing+1 · · Score: 0
      I think if you click "Back" it sends some data to Google. If you refine your search, obviously Google hears it.

      Me, I use it with Mozilla so I'm opening multiple tabs when I want to see the links; I almost never use the Back button, at all.

      So my browsing habits may not be the most optimal, when it comes to Google's mining.

      That said, Google may have agreements with other websites, so that when Google "refers" a user to the other website, the other website will notify Google. This would make sense if the other website were offered some sort of discount on advertising or something, to encourage them to participate.

      --
      I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
    3. Re:Google's Click History Asset by daeley · · Score: 3, Informative

      Incase you hadn't noticed google links are direct.

      You sure about that? Try copying and pasting a Google results link.

      For example, let's search Google for "elluusive". The first result was your slashdot "homepage", at http://slashdot.org/~eluusive, which at first glance seems to be a direct link. But if you right-click on the link and copy it, paste it somewhere and you'll find something along these lines:

      http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http%3A// slashdot.org/~eluusive&ei=A_-AQubaOq2gYNujqccO

      --
      I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
    4. Re:Google's Click History Asset by uprock_x · · Score: 1

      Exactly. I just found a whole page of this by searching 'web proxy' without the quotes and going down the search results to about page 6 or so. Interesting, when I reloaded the page all of that /url?sa= stuff was gone and the links were direct again. Seems like a new Firefox extension (and something for other browsers too) is required to kill that stone cold.

    5. Re:Google's Click History Asset by F�an�ro · · Score: 4, Informative
      with onmousedown events.

      Each link in the search results on google has a onmousedown event attached.

      If you have javascript enabled and click on it, then your browser will also execute the javascript, which sends a get request to google. They do log each link you click on.

      check the source of any google search page.
      The function that gets called for each onmousedown is called clk():
      function clk(el,ct,cd){if(document.images){(new Image()).src="/url?sa=T&ct="+escape(ct)+"&cd="+esc ape(cd)+"&url="+escape(el.href).replace(/\+/g,"%2B ")+"&ei=gwKBQoX7GJKmQcONmN4B";}return true;}
    6. Re:Google's Click History Asset by laze2000 · · Score: 1

      In the google search I just did, while the links are direct, they also are overloaded with javascript to track what you clicked...

    7. Re:Google's Click History Asset by Juergen+Kreileder · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Exactly. I just found a whole page of this by searching 'web proxy' without the quotes and going down the search results to about page 6 or so. Interesting, when I reloaded the page all of that /url?sa= stuff was gone and the links were direct again.

      I guess it's a Google feature. They use the click-tracking URLs very sparingly. That makes it harder for SEOs to manipulate rankings that way.

    8. Re:Google's Click History Asset by br0ck · · Score: 1

      Seems like a new Firefox extension (and something for other browsers too) is required to kill that stone cold.

      Might jumplink do the trick?

    9. Re:Google's Click History Asset by Nemi · · Score: 1

      Not in my page there isn't. No onmousedown events at all.

    10. Re:Google's Click History Asset by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Its also fairly simple to note that someone clicked a link then immediately returned to the results list by noting the "if-modified" request from the user's browser.

      A quick return would indicate that the page was not in fact what the user had requested.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    11. Re:Google's Click History Asset by F�an�ro · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Ok, this is geting weird

      i look at this page:
      http://www.google.com/search?q=test

      The first result link looks like this:
      <a href=http://www.ets.org/toefl/ onmousedown="return clk(this,'res',1)">Welcome to TOEFL: The <b>Test</b> of English as a Foreign Language</a>
      at least in IE.
      In opera the javascript is missing

      try this (remove the space before the ?):
      wget --user-agent="Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)" "http://www.google.de/search
      ?q=test"
      compared to this:
      wget --user-agent="." "http://www.google.de/search
      ?q=test"
      the first page contains the javascript but the second does not, at least on my system.

      Can anyone confirm that?

    12. Re:Google's Click History Asset by protactin · · Score: 1

      Though surely no browser would actually attempt to revalidate a Google search result page after only a few seconds, especially via the Back button?

      Not that Google appears to send a Last-Modified header anyway.

    13. Re:Google's Click History Asset by hankwang · · Score: 1
      Ok, this is geting weird

      Even weirder: compare

      This is for me, from the Netherlands. Note that the SERPs are identical otherwise (hl and lr parameters).
    14. Re:Google's Click History Asset by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guys, I bet you own a Gmail account, aren't you ? There's a new features that allow you to save your Google search history, based on your Gmail accounting.

      So mousedown evented are the link about this purpose, try to connect to your gmail then go google a serch, and you'll verify your theory (have a look upper right).

      But at least a thing is sure, the recent Urchin buy, GWA and Google Search History, let us think Google is trying to obtain information they could/should not reach without our agreement.

      The problem is our believe.

    15. Re:Google's Click History Asset by epee1221 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have to wonder about the effectiveness of using click histories. It seems to me that the only way any site is going to get a lot of clicks from google is if they're already near the top to begin with. A site that is good but new will be buried so far down that nobody will actually get to it. Is there any way around this?

      --
      "The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
    16. Re:Google's Click History Asset by F�an�ro · · Score: 1

      while I own a gmail account, I can get the tracking javascript even when using wget.

      (no cookies --> no way for google to check whether I have gmail)

      It is not per se evil that google is tracking external links, but it is interesting to know.

      At least their current method does not interfere with my browsers ability to display visited links in another color.

    17. Re:Google's Click History Asset by F�an�ro · · Score: 1

      i get logging javascript on any of these links in IE, but none if I visit them with opera

    18. Re:Google's Click History Asset by hankwang · · Score: 1
      i get logging javascript on any of these links in IE, but none if I visit them with opera

      Hmm, I used Opera 7.5x/Linux. And I get href-clicklogs for the .nl version rather than javascripts.

    19. Re:Google's Click History Asset by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      Same for 8.0/win

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    20. Re:Google's Click History Asset by MikeBabcock · · Score: 1

      There was actually a discussion about how this could be handled recently, in the Firefox 1.1 discussion.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    21. Re:Google's Click History Asset by eluusive · · Score: 1
      (no cookies --> no way for google to check whether I have gmail)
      This isn't exactly true. There are other non-cookie methods of unique identification. If you say, logged into your Gmail account first. (Such as storing info based on IP for a certain time) They're not persistant between sessions though.
    22. Re:Google's Click History Asset by eluusive · · Score: 1

      With firefox I receive: Welcome to TOEFL: The Test of English as a Foreign Language No Javascripts or Redirects.

    23. Re:Google's Click History Asset by eluusive · · Score: 1

      It seems there are mysterious things going on depending on your user agent. I am using FireFox and experience no such behavior. Just copies the URL for me like it should. See other thread items for other strange behavior between IE and FireFox.

    24. Re:Google's Click History Asset by daeley · · Score: 1

      I did do that in FireFox, but apparently there are strange things afoot at the Circle K. :)

      --
      I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
    25. Re:Google's Click History Asset by hawk · · Score: 1

      This is actually why I don't use firefox--I can't middle click a link to get a new window.

      (No, I *don't* like tabs!)

      hawk

    26. Re:Google's Click History Asset by mdfst13 · · Score: 1

      "(No, I *don't* like tabs!)"

      Amen.

  36. Attn: Google(TM) and Apple(TM) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Please direct ALL google/applevertisments to mailto:cmdrtaco@slashdot.org along with obligatory paypal payment.

    Thanks,
    Rob Malda

  37. Thank goodness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I've been running a fairly popular website now for over two years, the main search term for it yields us at about position 6, a URL that hasn't even been online for that entire time is ranked 5. Maby now we can finally get moved up over the non-existent website.

  38. Re:10 Comments and the site is down by willCode4Beer.com · · Score: 1

    Even worse is letting the default error page get treturned instead of providing a custom one or sending a 302.

    Seems most of the pages returned from google feeding this error code(0x80004005) are about people using MS Access behind the web server. Now I like to raz on MS as much as the next guy but, this may just be a case of the wrong tool for the job. Access on a public web site is just a plain bad idea.

    OTOH, even if its not Access the nature of the article suggests that any reasonable site would employ caching and not bang the database with every request. OF course, I admit that without seeing the site or their code its all just speculation.

    I think we can expect poor results from any tool misapplied.

    --
    ----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
  39. Two Keys: Data Mining and Delay by RonBurk · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The first big mistake webmasters make when trying to understand how Google ranks search results is failing to grasp the idea of data mining. The Google folks come from a data mining background, the constantly write about data mining algorithms, it would be highly surprising if the bulk of the Google algorithm was not constructed via data mining.

    What does that mean? At the highest level, it means that most of the Google algorithm is constructed by a machine. You give the machine human-constructed examples of how to rank a sample set of pages (notice those want ads where Google is hiring people who can inspect and assess the quality of web pages?) and it then uses essentially brute-force techniques to test every possible combination of your ranking variables to find the simplest formula that ranks pages the same way the human did.

    There is no human at Google "twisting dials" to alter individual parameters of a formula. The machine constructs the algorithm, and it can therefore easily be so complex that no human can understand it. Tweaking the algorithm becomes a process of changing or adding to your "training set" of human-ranked pages, and letting the data mining process come up with a revised algorithm.

    For example, Google could invent a new variable called "category", and identify each page as belonging to category Astronomy, Botulism, Country, [...] and Other. Once that variable is thrown into the mix, then the Google "aglorithm" is essentially free to vary wildly from one type of subject matter to the next. For example, you might see someone with a Real Estate site swearing up and down that inbound links are no longer as important, while someone with an Astronomy site might swear that, no, inbound links are more important than ever. You can see exactly this kind of bickering in most of the forums that people who hope to do Search Engine Optimization frequent.

    The other big mistake people make in trying to see how to game the Google algorithm is "delay". In studying how people manage (or fail to manage) complex systems, psychologists learned that people generally would fail if a delay was introduced between their actions and the results of their actions.

    In one very simple test, people were charged with trying to stabilize the temperature in a virtual refridgerator. They had one dial, and there was exactly one piece of feedback: the current temperature in the fridge. However, they were not explicitly told that there was a delay between moving the dial and when the results of that action would stabilize.

    The responses of those test subjects was eerily similar to what we see in Google-gaming webmasters these days. Some people swore up and down that some human behind the scenes was directly tweaking the results to thwart whatever they did. Others became frustrated and decided that nothing they did really mattered, so they would just swing the dial back and forth between its minimum and maximum settings.

    What does this have to do with Google? These days, Google can change their algorithm relatively frequently, and the algorithm can vary by the relative date of various things. The net sum is, there's a delay between when your page is first ranked and when it is likely to arrive at a relatively stable ranking. This can drive webmasters nuts as they think they've done something clever to rank their page high, but then it drops a week later. Although it doesn't occur to them, the important question is: did the change cause the high ranking or did it cause the sudden decline?

    The few people who did master the simple refridgerator system? Well, they sounded more like some of the people who are more successful at gaming Google. Those folks tend to say things like: "just make one change and then leave it alone for a while to see what happens."

    Can you still game the Google algorithm? Undoubtedly in specific cases. But it's getting harder. The Google algorithm was always complex, but what's changing is that the days when a few variables (such as inbound link count) generally swamped the effects of all the others is drawing to a close. We are approaching the day when the best technique to rank highly with Google will be: sit down at your keyboard and make more good content every day.

    1. Re:Two Keys: Data Mining and Delay by cpeterso · · Score: 1


      Maybe Google should introduce some randomization into their search algorithms? Like a game of Rock Paper Scissors, SEOs can't guess Google's next move if even Google doesn't know its next move! :)

    2. Re:Two Keys: Data Mining and Delay by jrtom · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The parent post is largely composed of misinformation, ignorance and irrelevance. I'd suggest to its author that it might be a good idea to do some basic research before posting on a subject which is, I suspect, outside his area of expertise.

      (1) What you have described as Google's "algorithm" is a distortion of one particular technique used in data mining (actually machine learning, but we'll let the vocabulary slide); furthermore, no one other than a first-year AI/machine learning student would use exhaustive search in parameter space ("brute force") to come up with a solution. In fact, a very brief search on your favorite search engine (for, say, "PageRank algorithm") would reveal that the basic algorithm is actually very simple, and does not in fact involve learning from labeled examples, as you suggest. (More recent versions of the Google ranking mechanism may safely be assumed to be more sophisticated, but I'd bet serious cash that they're nothing like what you describe.)

      (2) PageRank--the basic algorithm, that is--is not, and never has been, based, even in part, on inbound link count. This can also be easily verified by a few minutes' research as above.

      (3) Your refrigerator example doesn't actually support your point. If Google's ranking algorithm is continually changing, as you suggest, then you can never know whether any change you made had any effect on your ranking. (And "algorithm can vary by the relative date of various things"? Say what?)

    3. Re:Two Keys: Data Mining and Delay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      jtrom, you are an idiot

  40. Web page "freshness?" A good thing... by Eric+Damron · · Score: 2, Informative

    There seems to be a lot of weight put on web page freshness. I host a friend's site containing the collection of poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. She lived in the 1800s so one cannot expect to see any new material from her.

    The site is mostly static but is rich with cultural value. It's currently the number one hit on Google. I'm hoping that Google's emphasis on "freshness" won't make his site fall in ranking.

    --
    The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
  41. Re:MOD DOWN!! TROLL. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope you die in real life.

  42. another reason why to cache by willCode4Beer.com · · Score: 1

    seaching the error code seems to indicate a database connectivity error.

    Disclaimer: I'm a J2EE dev so my opinion may not count.
    It appears that they are either not properly implementing connection pooling and running out of connections. Or the database is being overloaded by failing to implement caching to non changing data.

    Maybe they just aren't used to developing for a high traffic web site.

    --
    ----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
  43. Re:Pamela Jones EXPOSED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anonymous Coward is a pimply, hog-nosed freak living in his parent's basement, surrounded by well-thumbed copies of Maxim.

  44. seo gets more difficult by mcguyver · · Score: 1

    People expect seo to get more complex as time goes on. This isn't news and SEO is not going to dissapear. What will happen is people with little motivation or resources will be further discouraged to do SEO as competition increases. That's it. Trustrank will take over Pagerank. Link history will become more important than simply having links. Easily created seo tools such as linkfarms and blog spammers will decrease in value. Everyone expects these things to happen. SEO will always existly largely because there will always be a need to rank higher in search engines.

  45. My Last Google Article by Cheirdal · · Score: 0, Troll

    This is the last article I'm ever reading about Google on here. Does Google pay Slashdot to cover them every day? I'm personally sick of seeing Google articles. It's a search engine, it's not a cure for cancer. I don't see any noticeable improvements in finding things on the web between Google and Alta Vista yet every day a new article hailing Google as the search engine to end all search engines appears on Slashdot. The short-lived NlightN search engine back in the mid 90's indexed a lot more than Google does and it included indexing of phrases and individual words, including stop words like 'the'. So lets all herald Google for not being as good as a search engine that was out in 1995.

    1. Re:My Last Google Article by voorko02 · · Score: 1

      Wait, are you telling me that someone found a cure for cancer and instead slashdot posted an article about Google?

      I certainly hope you took the time to complain about the article posted about the play Spamalot, and the one on the latest reviews of Star Wars. I imagine you're just complaining to complain and didn't even take the time to come up with a coherent arguement (as is evident by the lame "Slashdot must be paid by google", do you honestly think Google needs to advertise?). So what "News for Nerds" should have been posted instead?

    2. Re:My Last Google Article by Cheirdal · · Score: 1

      The 25th anniversary of Pac Man was over looked for one, if you're looking for news for nerds. I'd much rather read a Pac Man article than a daily dose of "Google exec blows nose. Is Kleenex with lotion really better?"

      Maybe I'm just becoming jaded but the whole charm of Slashdot is starting to wear thin. New Google articles every day and at least one Bill Gates borg post a day too. The inane fighting to be the first person to post something "witty" at the beginning of every article wears thin too. I think the whole Karma thing leads to people posting BS posts to get +5 Karma for some "funny" comment they make and I see a lot of people using moderation to troll by giving anyone that disagrees with their point of view a troll rating. When I moderate and meta moderate I always give a fair rating to what I'm rating whether I agree with the person's viewpoint or not.

    3. Re:My Last Google Article by voorko02 · · Score: 1

      I agree with you on the inane fighting to post something funny and the karma whoring. I also tire of the repeated "Slashdot is being paid", cliched responses I feel I see too much of. I wish people would say what they mean, rather than bitch about everything. You think its a useless article, either don't read it, submit something better, or post why its not news, but don't just complain. There is much too much of that here as it is.

      At the same time, I do get the feeling that article submissions are based more on what topic will generate the most responses (not necessarily thoughtful responses), as opposed to which article is the most news worthy. I think that is an inherent issue with the type of site Slashdot is. Its not a news site dispite its catchy slogan. Its a website for people to discuss the news.

  46. Wait a second. by ThePromenader · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Isn't this "page update frequency" hullaballoo a bit premature? If Google wants relevant results I can only see update frequency being but a minor factor in any page rank determination algorithms. For example: Informations sites (historical information, dictionaries, encyclopedias, collections, etc...) are often at once the most relevant (if info is what you're looking for) and the least updated sites. I can't really imagine the Oxford Faculty meeting every week to decide new words for their dictionary to retain their www.oed.com pagerank. Just imagine what it would do to the English language : )

    Seriously, this little article is going to get Webmasters thinking a little more but I don't see anything to panic about. Not yet, anyways.

    --

    No, no sig. Really.

    ThePromenader
    1. Re:Wait a second. by BenByer · · Score: 1

      I can't really imagine the Oxford Faculty meeting every week to decide new words for their dictionary to retain their www.oed.com pagerank. Just imagine what it would do to the English language : )

      Not much biznatch, not much.

  47. solution to get reliable results by Geofs · · Score: 1

    one solution to get really reliable results is to rank any non-registered commercial pages as low as possible and to have a strong policy for commercial subscribers (and affordable registration fee). when searching, i get drowned in 'best price' advertising, price comparison sites and all this kind of irrelevant stuff. i'm usually looking for technical specs, good reviews,... if poeple cheat, spam,... it's to sell something. from my experience, most irrelevant results point to sites trying to sell something. so lowering the number of results pointing to sites trying to sell something should automatically improve the relevance of the results. btw, if companies don't want to register and respect google policy concerning web page contents, there are chances that their page should get a low ranking.

  48. How a company *uses* patents determines evil by jeff67 · · Score: 1

    A patent itself is like any other tool: a gun, a can of spray paint, an email service. How you use a tool is where evil can arise. If I randomly shoot children - evil. If I paint my tag on public buildings - evil. If I spam - evil.

    If I use a patent to economically enrich myself but as a result impede the use of information - possibly evil.

    If I patent something then create a free license for it so that no one can restrict its use through commercial monopoly - good.

    I'm not saying that Google is using their PageRank patent for good, just that simply owning patents is an evil-neutral stance. It all comes down to use.

  49. Re:Pamela Jones EXPOSED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I actually have a beautiful girlfriend and a 200k per year consulting job. I doubt if you can say either of that for yourself.

    Thanks for playing.

  50. A Modest Proposal to Fight Bad Pages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about the following button on the Goole Toolbar:
    "This page is Spam."
    Google could take into account how many people report a page as spam, who they are (trusted users or aggressive competitors?) and aggregate results. While not determinative, lots of "This is Spam" reports on a page could trigger some sort of heightened scrutiny (maybe put it back in sandbox).

    1. Re:A Modest Proposal to Fight Bad Pages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about you take a deep breath ?

      You've explained yourself why it is not a good idea, so the only questions that remain are what is a 'spam page'? And why feel that nominating one tremendously powerful commercial company to rule on what is a worthwhile site or not may still have some merit ?

  51. content based weighting of referring pages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    weighting the number of referrals by common content and proximity of search terms in referrer and referenced page makes it much more difficult to inflate rank.

    i.e.
    -references are weighted very lightly if there is no other content in common and heavily if there is a lot of similar maaterial.
    -references are also weighted based on the 'distance' between search terms in the refering and referenced page.

  52. oops by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Page = broke, its been slashdotted to the brink of system failure ;D

  53. What about harmful link spam? by mejesster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It seems nobody has asked the question: what if a spammer wants to lower the rank of more reputable companies? If a spammer link spams a site that is already fairly popular, couldn't it harm the page rank of a company that has nothing to do with the spam?

    --
    MacroHard - Boning you in a big way! (TM)
  54. Member rank by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    They should have a member rank function...and run it like wikipedia. When you click on a link that does a bad job at answering your query you should be able to score it with a unique id or something.

    This could then lead into making everything google displayed as linking to a blog.

    Shameless linkage http://laborassistance.com/

  55. How to stop spamming? Get rid of weblogs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How to stop spamming? Get rid of weblogs.

  56. Re:10 Comments and the site is down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It only takes 1 comment to bring your mom to her knees. However, in her defense, she can handle hundreds of guys a night.

  57. Google rhymes with "GOD" by peter303 · · Score: 1

    Or at least they start out spelling the same way.
    Its not nice to fool Mother Nature.

    1. Re:Google rhymes with "GOD" by flibberdi · · Score: 1

      Internet sales are run by the good(TM) folks at Google AND DMOZ!! If you have an ebusiness you better get into DMOZ, at ANY cost!! One more time:

      get listed on DMOZ an ANY cost!!

      Can I too get to be an DMOZ editor?? That would be grand..

  58. uh uh.... by uprock_x · · Score: 1

    Incase you hadn't noticed google links are direct

    oh no not quite. Very recently they started changing all the search results links to (something like, I can't quite remember):

    http://google.com?url=http://websiteyouclicked.com

    This seemed to be an experiment which lasted a few days as I recall and seems to be abandonded for now at least. Up until a few days ago on google.co.uk I could still find those url= links by going way down the search results..I'm trying to find an example for you now but I can't find one this second.

    I was surprised there wasn't a big outcry about this at the time

    Also a bit of fancy javascript could probably also grab what you clicked and send it to google.

    1. Re:uh uh.... by SirTalon42 · · Score: 1

      I thought they would do a redirect for like a certain % of the searches, there is a symbol you can add so it will always redirect you (I can't remember off the top of my head).

    2. Re:uh uh.... by gumbo · · Score: 1

      This isn't new, they've been doing this a small percentage of the time for a while now.

    3. Re:uh uh.... by adpowers · · Score: 1

      Tilde. If you use [~] in your search query, it will always redirect you, I believe. The ~ is actually a really cool feature. If you search for [~vehicle], it returns Car Talk as one of the top results, with Car highlighted (meaning that was a search term). It is almost a fuzzy search. They do this automatically with some queries. If you search for [lotr], you get direct links to Lord of the Rings (with that highlighted, meaning it searched it for you). This is one of the big things they are researching, I believe, using synonyms in search queries. One example that is given in Google presentation is [bay area cooking class]. If the query was taken directly, you would get limited results. However, if they also searched synonyms, they would find more potential results. Bay Area could mean San Francisco or Oakland, cooking could also be culinary, and class could also be course. They are trying to bring fuzzy searches to users, without user interaction. I'm sure this search history feature will help in that quest. There might be more than one Bay Area, but if you are constantly searching for San Francisco or zip codes in that area, they can know which Bay Area you are talking about. I imagine search history might lead to more personal search results.

      Also, if you are logged in to search history, every link has the redirector. They have to know what links you click on to give you your history, so they include the redirect. If you haven't tried the search history thing yet, I'd recommend it. I have over 700 searches for far in the history and it is becoming quite interesting. I'd love for them to provide a personal zeitgeist. It still has some bugs, and can be slow occasionally, but it has lots of potential, and is better than Yahoo's or A9's search history (both of which I have used occasionally).

      Andrew

  59. Re:Pamela Jones EXPOSED by zerbot · · Score: 1

    Maureen? Is that you?

  60. Mod parent up (n/t) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No modpoints here. Mod parent up!

  61. So What About The Rest by my_haz · · Score: 1

    Is this a sign of "evil google" that some are waiting for? I mean all this optimization is directed at comerce, it does prevent spam (low paying/no paying customers) in favor of legit webmasters. At first this seems like a win-win, and it is if what you are looking for is to purchase something, but how will this optimization help me find things like how to tie a box knot, who first called statistics worse then "damn lies," or how to intigrate ln(cos(x))? Most of my searches are in search of some fact or another how will this help me?

  62. Content still RULEZ! Film at 11 by Tsu+Dho+Nimh · · Score: 1
    Reading this patent, I'm still amazed that the "Search Engine Optimization" consultants haven't realized that absolutely nothing can outrank a well-constructed site (hierarchical) with concise content-rich text about something interesting or informative. Real sites with real products have nothing to fear from these changes.

    Maybe the SEOs do realize it, but can't resist the offer of easy money from the thousands of MLM and "me too" sites trying to sell useless crap.

  63. SEQUEL by naph · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "The history of SQL and relational databases traces back to E.F. Codd, an IBM researcher who first published an article on the relational database idea in June 1970. Codd's article started a flurry of research, including a major project at IBM. Part of this project was a database query language named SEQUEL, an acronym for Structured English Query Language. The name was later changed to SQL for legal reasons, but many people still pronounce it SEQUEL to this day."

    http://www.provue.com/proVUE/Fact_SQLServer.html

    just a bit of history.

    --
    "if i'd known it was harmless, i'd have killed it myself"
  64. Cracked the code alright... by wintermute740 · · Score: 1

    And in return, /. has cracked the site's code ;)

  65. Find Me - Google by JCOTTON · · Score: 1

    One of my gripes is that Google can not find me. I have put my personal identification information on a page, e.g. complete name, schools attended, cities lived in, etc. If I enter these into Google, it still will not find that page. I would think that my page with my specific info would be unique, and someone searching for this page with this specific info should be able to find it.

    1. Re:Find Me - Google by JCOTTON · · Score: 1

      A current search on Dogpile finds me via Yahoo.

  66. Not very current... by kieronbm · · Score: 0

    For those who didn't read to the bottom of the article: "Left on 5/9/2005 2:47:21 PM by Anonymous Comments: I looked over the Google patent application. One of the salient facts about the application is that it was filed 12/31/03, with origins going back to 9/30/03. Given this topic relates to what I understand is a dynamic cataloging technology, the fact that the patent application is over 18 months old (not 2 mos. old as the article indicates) limits the relevance of this analysis."

  67. Re:Web page "freshness?" A good thing... by Tsu+Dho+Nimh · · Score: 1
    "poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox"

    They also measure the increase in incoming links, because a steady increase indicates that the site continues to be of interest. Also, if the site has links from university Lit departments and other "high influence" sites, those links count heavily.

    The only way for me to knock your friend's site out of the top 10 would be to put up a site with equally interesting content about poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, get equally high-quality links to it, and ... that's too much work. I'd link to it rather than try to duplicate it.

    Special interest sites, such as your friend's site, and sites selling a product they make themselves are easy to get high ranks for - in their niche. The sites that are scrambling for position are the ones re-selling Tahitian Noni juice and other common commodities.

  68. Oooh! I found it! Me! Me! What do I win? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's the one about the database, right?

  69. I don't care by Le+Marteau · · Score: 1

    ... as long as however they change Google, searches for steaming load still return William Shatner as the number one hit.

    --
    Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
  70. Your Privacy Means Nothing by duerra · · Score: 1
    I remember when everybody had a fit because Intel was including a unique identifier in the new P4s.

    It just goes to show you how all the hollaring about privacy will just result in pointless noise-making anyway. Companies know that they can invade people's privacy and ultimately it just doesn't really matter, and nobody's going to stop them. They're going to get away with it, people are going to spy on you, and guess what? You're gonna accept it. As long as they wrap it in pretty paper, we as a society have a history of taking the bait damn near EVERY SINGLE TIME.

    The proof is in the pudding, folks. There was lots of noise over Social Security Numbers back in the day. How many of you have SSN's?
    Lots of noise over drug testing and whether people should be allowed to do what they want to their own bodies. How many of us still accept a drug test when we apply for a new job?
    There was lots of noise of Windows XP activiation. How many of you use Windows XP?
    Lots of noise over Gmail's mail scanning. How many of you use Gmail?
    Lots of noise over this Real ID stuff. How many of us are going to have Real ID's?
    Lots of noise over all this DRM stuff. How many of us still buy music from iTMS?
    Lots of noise over this RFID stuff. How many of us are going to have RFID's implanted into our hands or forheads...... you get the idea.

    The government knows it. Corporations know it. They just have to give it time. You'll accept it. Eventually you'll stop complaining, and they will have their way. You'll be forced into compliance without ever "really" accepting it. They just have to do it methodically. All it takes is a little bait, and a bit of time. It won't be long until we don't really have any concept of privacy anymore anyway, and people will wonder what all the hoop-holla was about to begin with. There are countless examples. These are just a couple.

    Sleep well!

    1. Re:Your Privacy Means Nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And guess what - you too will accept it!

      Furthermore - you'll also grab the first chance
      you get if you could get endless power by
      doing the same... ...it's in our nature.

    2. Re:Your Privacy Means Nothing by duerra · · Score: 1

      Most people would either be lying, not honest with themselves, or just plain don't know themselves very well if they were to disagree with that.

  71. Re:Web page "freshness?" A good thing... by BrianPan · · Score: 1

    > She lived in the 1800s so one cannot expect to see any new material from her....
    > I'm hoping that Google's emphasis on "freshness" won't make his site fall in ranking.

    So you're afraid that your friend's page is going to be bumped by a page that more frequently updates these poems from the 1800s?

  72. Interesting to watch the code working by PhreakOfTime · · Score: 1
    Actually, they did themselves one better and demonstrated that they are, in fact, not an evil company.
    Instead of the links they were using before of;

    http://google.com?url=http://websiteyouclicked.c om

    Google is now using what seems to be a geographically-based IP to generate these 'links'.

    In doing so, they not only eliminate a large amount of DNS traffic, they are also partitioning off the computation based on the area of the country you are searching from. FYI - In my location the IP is 64.233.167.104

  73. an explanation of the patent by QuakerOatmeal · · Score: 0

    A co-worker of mine wrote an article on the google patents that might help people understand the them without sifting through the legal mumbo-jumbo.

    His article can be found at:
    http://www.socengine.com/seo/guide/google-historic al-data-patent.html

  74. Shared hosting account can handle a slashdotting by Rikardon · · Score: 1

    Using lighttpd instead of Apache, a shared hosting account on TextDrive took a "full-frontal slashdotting" -- and that was generating pages in PHP from a database backend. Without affecting the other sites on the same server!

  75. Re:Pamela Jones EXPOSED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe you should get back to enjoying the life you claim to have ;-)

  76. Looks like the right relevancy to me by dave1g · · Score: 1

    The results are below, First, is a website about tigers being endangered. Second, is TigerDirect the company that owns the trademark "Tiger" in relation to computers. Third is the Mac OS "Tiger". Fourth is a rescue facility for large cats. Fifth is some UK goverment program titled Tiger.

    So I call you an idiot.

    google results for tiger below

    5 TIGERS : The Tiger Information Center
    Dedicated to providing information to help preserve the remaining five subspecies of tigers. News, research, a kid's section, and a live tiger cub cam feed ...
    www.5tigers.org/ - 16k - May 9, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

    TigerDirect.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Desktop Computers ...
    Large stock of components. Also offers great bundles with CPUs already included.
    www.tigerdirect.com/

    Apple - Mac OS X ... Mac OS X Tiger delivers 200+ new features which make it easier than ever to find, ... Mac OS X Tiger will change the way you use a computer. ...
    www.apple.com/macosx/

    Tiger Haven
    A sanctuary for lions, tigers, jaguars, cougars and leopards in need. Includes background, virtual tour, photos, and how to help. Kingston, Tennessee.
    www.tigerhaven.org/

    Tailored Interactive Guidance on Employment Rights - TIGER Home Page
    The TIGER (Tailored Interactive Guidance on Employment Rights) web site is designed to provide a user-friendly guide through UK employment law.
    www.tiger.gov.uk/

  77. Re:Pamela Jones EXPOSED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I actually only work maybe 10 hours a week maximum doing consulting. I could make loads more if I wanted to do more contract jobs as a consultant but I am living very comfortably with the work I have now.

    I enjoy spending time with my girlfriend (will probably be wife in a year or so) and working on various hobbies. Having free time on the internet is one of the things I have time for and I don't feel ashamed doing it.

  78. Google will track bookmarks, cache, and favorites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From the article:

    What's interesting though is Google is interested in tracking the behavior of web surfers through bookmarks, cache, favorites, and temporary files (most likely with the Google toolbar and/or the Google desktop search tool).

  79. Higer rank for valid code by kinema · · Score: 1

    Something I would love to see is sites that are composed of valid XHTML placed higher in the ranks then totaly invalid/outdated code (sorry Slashdot).

    1. Re:Higer rank for valid code by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yea.. but the point of search engine algorhythms are to defeat people who are trying to artificially influence the results, and return the most relevant pages to users. unfortunately, nonvalid xhtml isnt necessarily married to being NON RELEVANT. hey, i hate sloppy code as much as the next guy, esp sloppy code that wont work in ()OBSCURE-BROWSER; but that just doesn't corellate to relevance. For instance, if someone types in "news for nerds".. on the Kinema engine, they will probably end up with some blog from random nerdy dude, instead of /. (which of course would have been the most relevant, albeit bloated and non-w3c-compliant, result).

      And i would be the first to say "well screw it, let them do it anyway and maybe it will influence sites that want good ranking to fix their code, which after all would be for the better of society in some small way." Except, honestly, 85%+ of sites with exceptionally good SERPS and PR, don't even pay attention to their page ranking (and thus wouldnt even be aware of google's change, nor care if they were aware). This was a fact that vexed the hell out of me at my last job, when I was tasked with a $5k/month budget to move our PR5 to a PR7, and several of the PR7 sites we were affilliated with didnt even know what PR was haha.

      (disclaimer: it's 6:30am, i haven't slept yet.. hope this made sense)

  80. To fix Google dramatically, STOP ALL SPAMDEXING! by iamcf13 · · Score: 1

    Their index is filled with MILLIONS of pages from one particular e-commerce site alone!

    If all sites were limited to ONE AND ONLY ONE webpage from a bona-fide unique web domain, Google would probably need only a fraction of the computer systems to store and process 4 billion webpages.

    This would also get rid of all the e-commerce affiliates who have set up shop in some directory on some public hompage webserver and not paid for their own domain.

    This would also improve the performance and search results given out by Google by not having to index and catalogue more than one page of an e-commerce site.

  81. Re:To fix Google dramatically, STOP ALL SPAMDEXING by wolverine1999 · · Score: 1

    If all sites were limited to ONE page only of any domain it would not be a search engine. It would be a joke. I know local sites which call themselves search engines when they are a directory instead.

    Google is not that kind of site. It is a search service and to be useful it must search a large number of pages from every site. But there is a limit to the number, I believe.

  82. Re:Web page "freshness?" A good thing... by william.gunn · · Score: 1

    Right, and TFA specifically mentions that sites that need freshness(however that's determined) are the ones which are given bonuses for being updated, whereas sites with essentially static info don't get either a boost or a penalty.

  83. dynamic vs. static by uf22 · · Score: 1

    This article talks quite a bit about "freshness" and suggests updating your pages frequently so that the "modified-by" header changes.

    How does this apply to dynamic content, specifically dynamic content hidden behind apache mod-rewrite to look and act static. I would assume that any time googlebot hits such a url it will see a file listed as modified. This is especially true if the content varies dynamically with things like, for instance, 'latest comments' or 'newest' boxes and the like.

    In this way, every page on my new site is always "fresh" to some degree as small pieces are constantly changing and random. Anyone want to venture a guess as to how Google treats this situation?

    Personally I think this whole "freshness" idea is misguided. It just doesn't make much sense.

    --
    Have you ever asked yourself, Is It Normal?.
    1. Re:dynamic vs. static by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this type of stuff is addressed in a few ways. IANASEO-EXPERT but no one else replied to you yet, so here comes my answer anyway ;) 1: human editors.. if a human editor can catch onto what you are doing, then ultimately it's going to hurt you. i'm not sure if you were asking "what if people do $THIS to trick google?" or "my page does this, how will google rank it now?" ..but yea, even if googlebots think you content is a lot more dynamic than it is, if the staticness of it is obvious to a human editor, you rank will reflect that (and if it appears this is a result of nefarious intervention on your part.. i.e. cloaking, whatever, your rank will REALLY refelct that).

      2: duplicate content. most sites that have dynamic elements (i.e. blogs with "leave a comment" areas, etc) are pretty well sorted by google already afaik. duplicate content is easily recognized by google.. for instance the "regular story" pages in my blog versus the ones with "all comments visible".. one any story that has 1 comment.. google isnt going to rank the "full story" page very highly, because a signifigant portion of it is dupe content. i'd imagine this concept carries over to their "freshness" checker as well.. minor things getting updated (especially minor things that appear to be comment form related and stuff like that) probably wont affect ranking that much.

      more or less, i look at google like "how would i create a formula that deals with these scenarios".. and then i multiply the complexity and accuracy by tenfold.. since google has a few people better at math than i ;) ..their goal is to return relevant results to their users, and pages that frequently add and update content have always been considered "more relevant" in many cases by google.. this is the reason that so many bloggers (the more powerful ones anyway) have ammassed such a consolidation of PR.. because of frequent, varied, keyword dense, human-written updates. Also, the fact that the more well known bloggers have a ton of inbound links definitely doesn't hurt them any, but yea, anyhoo

  84. Re:To fix Google dramatically, STOP ALL SPAMDEXING by iamcf13 · · Score: 1

    The large info/e-commerce sites already have a built-in search engine for their site ALREADY on that site's homepage. Why 'force' Google to do that job for them (via their 'Add URL' page) and clutter up their (already spamdexed) index?

    Google is SO spamdexed right now that if you want to find GENUINE product reviews you have to use search terms somewhat like this:

    foobarproduct -shipping -checkout -shopping -cart -[name of that big e-commerce site that has 'spamdexed' Google]

    Would be great if there was a -https Google option that worked properly. This option would probably be all that is needed to blow all the e-commerce sites away that are on or link to a HTTPS URL. Of course, this would also deep-six legitimate, non e-commerce sites that choose to host their site on a HTTPS URL -- I've come accross a few such sites.

    It's getting harder and harder to avoid sales pitches when you are trying to use Google to find useful, non-commercial information. My ideas would go a long way to solve the current problem with spamdexing within Google.

    Too bad you can't get away from the 'Sponsored Links' on the right hand side of Google's return results -- I just ignore them virtually all the time.

  85. pagerank != inbound links? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    say what? "never has been, based, even in part, on inbound link count."

    ..um, unless i am insanely high on crack and misreading what you are saying, you are COMPLETELY mistaken. google PR is definitely weighted towards inbound and reciprocal linking, and (to put it into very simple terms) inbound PR is divided amongst various pages linked to from the originating site. If PAGE A links to SITE B and has a PR of 4, and SITE B is the only page linked, then all the weight of that PR 4 gets passed to SITE B (with some sort of modifier, obviously). I am by no means an SEO expert, but i am 99% sure of this fact.

    If you have evidence to support your claim (that inbound links do not affect PR) please post it.. because this concept (inbound/reciprocal links = GOOGLE LOVE) is one of the fundamental tenets of 'successful' SEO nowadays (or at least it was the last time I worked a fulltime job that required me to understand SEO to any basic degree.. which wasnt /that/ long ago). Here is a link if you want to do some checking to find someone to support the veracity of your claims.