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Google Introduces Domain Blocking To Search

An anonymous reader writes "We recently discussed a new Chrome extension that was introduced to block specified websites from appearing in search results. Now, Google has introduced a new feature that hide results from unwanted domains right from the search page. This is yet another way to find more of what you want on Google by blocking the sites you don't want to see at all in search result. The so-called 'experts exchange' or 'online eHow to guide' would be first on my blocked list." Another neat recent addition was the introduction of Recipe View, which adds depth to food preparation searches.

44 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. Heh... by drosboro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Funny... I just blacklisted Experts-Exchange on my very first search... before I read this article/summary. Apparently I'm not alone in thinking it is the main scourge of the internet. :)

    1. Re:Heh... by hellkyng · · Score: 2

      My first thought when I read this was that it was neat but not all that useful... then I saw I could block Experts-Exchange!!!! Awesome feature!!!

    2. Re:Heh... by MikeDirnt69 · · Score: 2

      Experts-Exchange it's like prostitution: it gives exactly what you need but in the end you know that you can get if for free with some effort.

      --
      Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
    3. Re:Heh... by Anrego · · Score: 2

      As far as I know, that's a glitch. It doesn't happen for everyone.

      As I understand it, they use your user agent to determine whether you are a search engine or not. If you are a search engine, they give you all the answers (this is probably how they get so high in search rankings).. otherwise.. you get the "pay here" page. Essentially your user agent is weird enough that it thinks you are a search engine and is giving you your answers.

      There is an obvious way to exploit this behaviour, but I still prefer to find my information at a less "slime of the earth" site.

    4. Re:Heh... by Hyppy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nah, the site scraper ones are pretty obvious because they'll be repeated verbatim across twenty sites with unrecognizable domain names. Often the "answer" will be incomprehensible, in a foreign language, or just plain wrong. I hate those mailing list aggregator sites for that very reason.

    5. Re:Heh... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ya... Like by scrolling to the end of the page where all the answers are, visible to everyone?

      I keep hearing people say this, but every time I get a search result that hits experts exchange, the answer is obscured and there is no way to see it.

      Are you doing something different than the rest of us? Because I sure as heck don't see the answers there.

      At this point, I'd happily block that from my search results.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    6. Re:Heh... by potHead42 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually it seems they check the Referer: HTTP header, so if you follow a link from Google it will show the answers, but if you enter the URL directly they're hidden (just tested this on Chrome, Opera and Firefox).

    7. Re:Heh... by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2

      Yeah - you can block something. I'm not seeing what I can block, so much as I'm seeing what Google can block. (it's Google that's doing the blocking, after all) I've played with a few things, and it's surprising how much more web there is out there, that I can't see normally. For starters - go to Google labs, and download Namebench. Start up the graphical interface (or the CLI - whatever blows your skirt up) and select the box to "check for censorship".

      Admittedly, MOST of the censorship isn't bad, but the net is indeed censored by Google and several other major DNS lookup providers.

      This is just something for people to think about. After you've thought for a little bit, you might begin to wonder about censorship outside of the good ol' US of A. Personally, I wonder about China, Egypt, Libya - you know, all the places where the politicians might have something to lose if the populace really knows what's going on.

      All of that from a guy who occasionally browses the "darkweb". A large percentage of what is available on the darkweb is truly disgusting - but a person can CHOOSE to look, or not.

      Aside from that - I'm somewhat surprised that tools such as I2P haven't been used more by the various revolutionaries in the mideast.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    8. Re:Heh... by mysidia · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As I understand it, they use your user agent to determine whether you are a search engine or not. If you are a search engine, they give you all the answers (this is probably how they get so high in search rankings).. otherwise.. you get the "pay here" page. Essentially your user agent is weird enough that it thinks you are a search engine and is giving you your answers.

      That would be a violation of Google's rule against cloaking.

      Google Quality guidelines - basic principles
      Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking."

    9. Re:Heh... by Petron · · Score: 4, Informative

      Instead of clicking the link, click on "Cached" instead. Then you can read the answer.

      --
      if (it != oneThing) it = another;
    10. Re:Heh... by HungryHobo · · Score: 2

      Have they changed EE or something? I used to be able to scroll to the bottom of the page to see whatever I needed.

      What's with the hate for it? I've never paid a cent to it but I've got a fair bit of decent info off it in the past.

    11. Re:Heh... by MrEricSir · · Score: 4, Funny

      Why, do you you only get your sex changes from newbies?

      --
      There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    12. Re:Heh... by HungryHobo · · Score: 2

      lol. I think I figured it out.
      No browser extension but search for that link in google.

      If you follow the link from google then you just have to scroll past all the crap about subscribing and ignore the posts claiming they can only be seen with premium. the posts are still at the bottom of the page. same if you view through the google cache.

      :
      http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ruCEKzF5wAQJ:www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Languages/Java/Q_26747126.html+http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Languages/Java/Q_26747126.html&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&source=www.google.co.uk

      look right at the very bottom of the page.

    13. Re:Heh... by gorzek · · Score: 2

      Which is a pretty shitty thing to do and I don't understand why Google doesn't immediately de-index sites that do things like that. If you show a spider substantially different content from what a normal user would see, you are deliberately tainting the search results.

    14. Re:Heh... by lwsimon · · Score: 2

      It's called "cloaking", and I've had sites de-indexed because of it.

      --
      Learn about Photography Basics.
    15. Re:Heh... by HungryHobo · · Score: 2

      actually as long as your referer is google it works. you don't even have to use the cache

  2. The Internet is for... by Kelbear · · Score: 2

    Awesome, this will make it easier to filter out the malicious porn spam websites when I'm doing my...research.

    1. Re:The Internet is for... by smooth+wombat · · Score: 2

      "Google needs to hire some competent UI experts."

      Maybe they can hire the folks who did the Windows 7 interface.~

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  3. Here Goes .... by extraordinaire · · Score: 2

    Huffington Post

    Experts Exchange

    eHow

    1. Re:Here Goes .... by iserlohn · · Score: 2

      Huffington Post? What's the rationale behind that? Or are you just inclined to show us your tea bagging ways?

    2. Re:Here Goes .... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Psychological projection is a psychological defense mechanism where a person unconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, such as to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others have those feelings.

      Any one of a hundred reasons it could be so. You automatically assuming "IT'S TEH ENEMY!!! OMG" says more about you than it does the original poster.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    3. Re:Here Goes .... by netsharc · · Score: 2

      Oh man, I'm a fan of Paul Krugman and Glenn Greenwald, and sometimes, or more precisely, a lot of times, Huffington Post pisses me off. If you look at their site now, it's got DISASTER IN JAPAN in big capital letters. If you scroll down you'll have "Jon Stewart DESTROYS Glenn Beck" (substitute the names with people's names when one criticizes the other), "WATCH: Dramatic Video of Tsunami". And usually somewhere there's "Megan Fox' bares her cleavage!" (substitute Megan Fox with any hot actress)

      It's a disgusting site focused on getting your eyeballs to view their ads (thank FSM I use Proxomitron, but actually I should block the whole site), so it will write the biggest attention grabbing bullshit to do so. There's another Slashdot thread talking about scammers exploiting disasters for profit, and what Huffington Post does isn't very much different from that: using video of disasters for ad impressions.

      Not that the US (cable) news is any different, it talks about things that will grab the viewer's attention ("#WINNING #TigerBlood"!!) because their attention means they might stick around to see the ads, which means money...

      --
      What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
  4. Now that is a useful feature by 0racle · · Score: 2

    Expertsexchange can go strait to hell.

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    1. Re:Now that is a useful feature by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's a bit bigoted of slashdot to LGBT community.
      Leave Expert Sex Change Alone.

  5. My ideal list by Abstrackt · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My ideal list would automatically exclude variations on "be the first to review..." when researching a purchase but just keeping expert sexchange out of the results is already a huge improvement.

    --
    They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
  6. Re:What's wrong with Experts Exchange by Hyppy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The "End" key on my keyboard works wonderfully for scrolling to the bottom of the EE page. It's a problem of whether or not any other sites even have the answer I'm looking for. If I can find it in a more convenient format, I'm generally all ears, but most of the other sites that look relevant in searches are just one of the hundreds of poor copies of email/newsletter digests that are never answered. Those bass-ackwards email aggregators would be the absolute first thing on my list to block.

  7. Re:What's wrong with Experts Exchange by GPLDAN · · Score: 4, Funny

    Experts Exchange is the Charlie Sheen of IT Knowledge websites. Slashdot, on the other hand, is the Jules Verne of IT knowledge. No, I don't understand my analogy either.

  8. Experts Exchange is great, here's how to read it by Khopesh · · Score: 4, Informative
    There are three ways to read the meat in those experts-exchange links.
    • Click on the Google Cache link and scroll to the bottom. After all the censored answers and a really large navigation bar, you'll see the real answers.
    • Spoof your browser's User Agent to be Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html) using any of a plethora of extensions (I use Prefbar).
    • Using the Greasemonkey add-on, install a userscript that does it for you, like Experts-Exchange Answers.
    --
    Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
  9. Endless possibilities by jandersen · · Score: 3, Funny

    Another neat recent addition was the introduction of Recipe View, which adds depth to food preparation searches.

    I wonder what it would make of:

    Bukkake udon: Cold udon served with various toppings liberally sprinkled on top

    - from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udon#Cold

  10. Re:Prediction by nschubach · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There's nothing worse than going to a page that uses your search to return their own search...

    Except maybe that one site (don't even remember what it was called) that shows stackoverflow questions and only the accepted answers with a tiny link pointing back to the whole discussion on stack.

    --
    Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  11. Re:No, I can't. by Tridus · · Score: 4, Informative

    If your referrer is from Google, they put the answer at the bottom of the page because Google's TOS would blacklist them if they didn't.

    If you're coming at it virtually any other way, they don't put the answer there.

    --
    -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
  12. Re:What's wrong with Experts Exchange by msauve · · Score: 2

    "Experts Exchange is the Charlie Sheen of IT Knowledge websites."

    Smokin'?

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  13. Re:What's wrong with Experts Exchange by tzenes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think there is a bit of history here youre missing.

    Originally, EE was a free site (like wikipedia) where people contributed to the benefit of all. Now at some point the makers of EE "sold out" and the new owners threw up the membership fee.

    Now I can see why you might think "so what," but for those of us who contributed only to have someone cash in on out hard work leaves a bad taste in our mouths. We thought we were making the world a better place, but really we were building someone elses' empire

  14. Now do the same with YouTube, Please by LA+Thierry · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I used to love browsing YouTube to discover truly funny or interesting random videos, but for quite a while now it's been overwhelmed by "YouTube celebrities" (*coughs* trolls). Please allow us to block videos from particular uploaders. In return we'll both benefit: I'll get what I want- a world without that Tard family, that unsexy guy or that fake community channel all of whom are polluting my YouTube experience. And you'll give me a reason to log into YouTube, which might please your advertisers.

  15. Experts-Exchange vs StackOverflow by Zouden · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I find that Experts-Exchange is all but gone from my (IT-related) search results, supplanted entirely by StackOverflow. I think EE were in trouble even without this Google feature.

    --
    "A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
  16. Re:Complaining about free stuff by nschubach · · Score: 2

    Actually, that may explain why the guy in the cube behind me is always grinding his mouse wheel... it's starting to get annoying listening to *grind* *grind* *grind* *grind* *grind* *grind* *grind* *grind* *grind* click *grind* *grind* *grind* *grind* *grind* *grind* *grind* *grind* click all day long.

    --
    Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  17. Experts Exchange trick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Experts Exchange let google crawlers see the full content to boost their search ranks. Open the cached page in a search and scroll right to the bottom for the answers.

  18. Re:What's wrong with Experts Exchange by Speare · · Score: 2

    Now I can see why you might think "so what," but for those of us who contributed only to have someone cash in on out hard work leaves a bad taste in our mouths. We thought we were making the world a better place, but really we were building someone elses' empire

    I agree with your sentiment entirely, and I am a fan/collaborator of Open Source software. But in this case it does remind me of the phrase, "If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer. You're the product being sold."

    --
    [ .sig file not found ]
  19. Hopefully it will affect page rank by sdguero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It'd be cool if google took users' blacklisting habit as feedback into their algorithm to determine page rank. I'd love to see sites like experts exchange and link farmers get dropped off the first page of results.

  20. First on my blocklist... Slashdot. by BForrester · · Score: 3, Funny

    Man, I hate that fucking site and the idiots who post comments there.

  21. What a stupid implementation by MartinSchou · · Score: 2

    So - if I want to leave out a site from ALL my searches, I first have to search for something this site responds to, visit the site, go back to Google and then search again?

    Why can't I block it without visiting? Why can't I add "-site:example.com" to my search term? Why can't I create a blacklist in my settings? Or upload a blacklist in a text file?

    It seems to me like having to call a phone sex line BEFORE you're able to set up a block for that phone number.

    1. Re:What a stupid implementation by stromthurman · · Score: 4, Informative

      You can manually add sites to block by going to the blocked sites manager:

      http://www.google.com/reviews/t

      --
      I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this margin is too small to contain.
  22. Terms and changing meanings by zooblethorpe · · Score: 4, Informative

    Another neat recent addition was the introduction of Recipe View, which adds depth to food preparation searches.

    I wonder what it would make of:

    Bukkake udon: Cold udon served with various toppings liberally sprinkled on top

    - from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udon#Cold

    Well, there was the udon, and other dishes, well before there was ... that other thing.

    "Bukkake" is from butsu, meaning to hit something, and kakeru, to cover something. Together the meaning is a bit like "to cover something with lots of stuff all at once" -- which, alone, is perfectly innocuous, and could easily refer to food toppings or heavy blankets. It's only in certain other contexts that this gets at all off-color.

    Cheers,

    --
    "What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
    "A four-foot prune."