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Google De-indexes Talk.Origins, Won't Say Why UPDATED

J. J. Ramsey writes "Talk.Origins is an archive with thousands of pages exposing creationist pseudoscience. Rather mysteriously, Google pulled the plug on its search engine, giving only the vague reason: 'No pages from your site are currently included in Google's index due to violations of the webmaster guidelines.' This was apparently triggered by a recent cracking of the site that added 'hidden links to non-topical sites,' but Google won't say just what the violations were. Talk.Origins webmaster Wesley R. Elsberry believes that this Google policy harms honest webmasters." From the article: "My mission, whether I liked it or not, was to find and fix whatever problem the [Talk.Origins Archive] might have, with no guidance as to what the problem was and nothing at all about where to start looking... I was extremely lucky. The damage to my site was limited and in the first place that I happened to look. Other honest webmasters might not be so lucky. They may have to undertake an arduous process of vetting pages, essentially having to second-guess the mind of the cracker in trying to locate a problem that Google knows the exact location of." Thanks to an alert reader who sent in Matt's blog posting about how Google handles hacked sites.

9 of 575 comments (clear)

  1. huh? by Average_Joe_Sixpack · · Score: 3, Funny
    1. Re:huh? by bytesex · · Score: 3, Funny

      evolutionism, homosexualism - they're all new, and evil ! Better stick to the good old isms such as religionism, wifebeatism and alcoholism.

      --
      Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
  2. Caped Hacker by derubergeek · · Score: 4, Funny

    This was quite obviously the work of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

    --
    Trust me. This is an inactive account. Regardless of what the /. bean counters might report.
  3. Re:probably just bad algorithms by suv4x4 · · Score: 3, Funny
    While it's natural to sympathise with the victimized website, it doesn't follow that Google is doing something Evil(TM) in this instance


    They really trademarked that? Shit, they don't really leave people much choice than being good these days.

  4. Re:Whine, Whine, Whine by identity0 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Heresy! Google sees all, Google knows all! Google is a man, a spider, and the holy page in one!

    Brin 3:14 "And Google so loved the internet, that he sent his only-born son Larry Page to it so that any who believe in him shall not perish but have ever-lasting life in the Googleplex."

    So you see, there *is* a person, Larry Page, who is also the spider that indexes everything and is also the page that serves up results. Only through this holy trinity could results as good as Google's result, thus proving Google's divinity. If the almighty Google has delisted this sinner's page, then we should not be looking at it in the first place, yes? To go against the wishes of Google brings hellfire!

  5. Re:Backups? by grimJester · · Score: 4, Funny

    That presupposes the site was intelligently designed. Starting with that kind of assumptions is completely unscientific.

  6. Re:Words are Meaningless - Public Utility by nacturation · · Score: 5, Funny

    What you're missing is that Google gave him no clue/hint/guide/comment/help on why he was delisted. login: root
    password: ******

    Incorrect login for user "root". You got the first and fourth characters correct, and one other character was correct but in the wrong place. Please try again and/or make use of one of the following clues/hints.

    You can also try one of the following non-root accounts:
    1. admin (8 character password)
    2. backup (6 character password, all lowercase letters)
    3. johndoe (5 character password)
    4. maryjane (7 character password)

    Failing that, if you can't remember any passwords this server is located at 1234 Main Street, Anywhere, USA. The server rack key is located in the desk drawer on the second floor in the manager's office. You can boot with a Knoppix CD (inside the rack) and reset the password after mounting the hard drive.


    Often, helpfulness is at odds with security.
    --
    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
  7. Well I assume by goldcd · · Score: 3, Funny

    the revenue brought into google by having his site indexed, was considerably lower than the cost of having a google employee investigating his problem and givin him a site-audit.
    Weird, eh?

  8. Re:You love to whine, don't you? by BitchKapoor · · Score: 3, Funny
    Is that what the Bible says? No, it isn't. The Bible says Jesus created a perfect, sinless world. Man sinned, and brought the curse of sin and death on mankind -- man's choice, man's free-will.

    This seems contradictory to me. Man is part of the world. How does your definition of perfect and sinless make any sense, if man (as part of the world) is able to introduce sin? That's like saying Windows '95 is stable just because it hasn't crashed yet, even though it could if you run an ill-behaved program. Or a Unix machine that's on the internet with remote logins available for root, with no root password is secure, just because no one's logged in and done anything malicious yet.

    But enter what Jesus did, its anything but. Its grace, compassion, and mercy beyond anything ever known.

    So he made the world, thought it was secure, then man hacked in, jesus realized he fucked it up the first time, so he released a fix? And you worship this dude as being the best? Oh, plus then there's all those little undocumented patches that the church slipstreamed in over the years. Sounds like the christian influence is what ruined the software industry!