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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.""
So will this make it easier or harder to find porn?
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
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*
To crush artificial link inflation and hear the lamintations of search engine spam
The linked article is slashgoogled. It's a googlewar. Googlers are all googling.
You can't handle the truth.
Cracking the Google Code... Under the GoogleScope
...if you thought you cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out ... guess again.
... guess again.
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:
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
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
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?
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.
But when I search on Tiger, a mail-order company's site still comes up above Apple's. Is anyone at Google listening?
you will be googleated. Or googleaten. Whichever.
Borgle.
You can't handle the truth.
It's about your right to not see search results filled with complete crap.
...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?
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,
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.
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."
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
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".
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.
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?
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.
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.
Original server is /.ed. Coral cache link here.
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
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!
"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."
Starsucks
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"?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
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?
Philosophy.
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."
thanks for the reality check, my linux bias make me want to jump on MS errors. :P
(typical slashdotter)
Please direct ALL google/applevertisments to mailto:cmdrtaco@slashdot.org along with obligatory paypal payment.
Thanks,
Rob Malda
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.
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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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
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.
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!
I believe the law referenced is the ULIE - Universal Law of Internet Etiquette.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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)
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.
Or at least they start out spelling the same way.
Its not nice to fool Mother Nature.
Incase you hadn't noticed google links are direct
m
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.co
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.
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.
The Slashdotting generally happens because the site's bandwidth is completely saturated, which is why slashdotting is considered similar to a DDoS attack.
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
Maureen? Is that you?
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.
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?
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
"You're new here aren't you?"
:P
Dam, I keep forgetting to use that lower UID# I purchased on ebay.
"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.htmljust a bit of history.
"if i'd known it was harmless, i'd have killed it myself"
And in return, /. has cracked the site's code ;)
--
www.nitemarecafe.com
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.
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.
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.
... 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
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?
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!
A community-oriented lyrics site
You must be new. Welcome to Slashdot!
A community-oriented lyrics site
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.
> 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?
new is what new does.
:P
redundant: forgot to use my lower UID# purchased from ebay.
hEhEhE, I'm no 5-digit-er myself.
A community-oriented lyrics site
What is even funnier is that I don't normally get this many replies to posts.
:P
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.
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
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.
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!
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!
For rejection, yes.
I've submitted a few articles for rejection, myself. I'm starting understand how "Red" felt! (Shawshank Redemption).
A community-oriented lyrics site
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.
...
...
... 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. ...
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
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/
lol, you could put " was here" in your journal" before you give up.
/. community could moderate submissions.
It would be nice if the
Its clearly biased otherwise.
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.
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).
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.
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.
SCIREV.NET - fanfics,reviews & more
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!
A community-oriented lyrics site
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?
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.
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?.
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.
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.