Is Google Breaking Their Own Rules? 552
flood6 writes "Threadwatch is carrying a story about Google getting caught doing things they ban other websites for. Here is a page as viewed by the public and the same page as viewed by a search engine (their cache)." Note that the titles in the cache are employing classic keyword stuffing, presumably to improve rankings.
Why would they have to do this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
that being said, there's a lot more fishier things google does without giving any explanation at all(with googleads etc..).
basically they got the same stance as everyone else who's big enough: "we can do whatever we fucking want including not giving you your money and you can't do shit about it, read the fine print that says 'all your base are belong to us'."
One thing I'd point out (Score:5, Interesting)
The keywords Google added to their title are limited in number and relevant to the actual page. This is rather different from the practice of a lot of SEOs of stuffing with several dozens of keywords and stuffing keywords that have nothing to do with the content of the page itself. And I notice that a lot of the SEOs squawking about this issue are among the worst offenders for high-volume irrelevant-keyword stuffing. Something to think about.
Irony? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are there other examples out there?
Note that they've done this (Score:3, Interesting)
There IS a difference. (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it shifty and underhanded? Indeed, but Google has had a history of being a benign company, and as such do not deserve the same treatment as an actively malicious company.
By the same logic which you have applied here, what would you be feeling if the names "Mother Teresa" and "Osama Bin Laden" were transposed?
Re:Why would they have to do this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:1, Interesting)
Absolutely. People tend to forget that Microsoft is a corporation. They can do whatever they want with their software. Their goal in life is to keep you buying their goods and using their software so that they can lock you in and sell you more! Its all about money. Google is not making software out of the goodness of their heart.
I would argue that Google is less of a threat to a person's personal data and PC health than Microsoft is. So, perhaps Microsoft should be held to a higher standard? Yes, they can do what they want, but what's the worst THEY could do compared to the worst Google could do?
Who is more evil? (Score:3, Interesting)
Begin using other engines and break the homogenization of the search engine market. We are better off with competition and multiple viable search services.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I hear your point but I would have used Sun instead of Microsoft. Since Microsoft has been convicted of abusing its monopoly power, they can't do whatever they want - hence the conviction.
Re:Brittant Spears (Score:5, Interesting)
http://labs.google.com/britney.html [google.com]
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
The page was a google cache page. Have you ever been served a google cache page as part of a Google search? I am fairly certain I haven't so I don't believe that this page would be a 'preference' in their search engine.
Second, does anyone have ANY evidence that this page only has the keywords in the title BECAUSE it is cached. This could very easily be what the page WAS when it was cached, and someone changed the title at some point.
The whole article sounds like FUD to me.
By the way, to quickly get to a Google cache, try this bookmarklet:
::Google Cache for this page
NAME:
LOCATION:
javascript:document.location.href= 'http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:' +document.location.href.replace(/http:\/\//,'')
Re:So what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Simple answer: no. (Score:2, Interesting)
So you get a page in the cache where their title includes words used in the search. These words don't actually appear in the normal page. You also got a blurb at the top of the page saying "This is Google's cache..." That doesn't appear on the normal page either. So what the hell are you trolling about?
You may just have won non-story-of-the-week.
Agreed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yup. Looks to me like they're using the technique internally to file things orderly, since they're generating content that directly populates the database. The nice, handy newline between the keywords and the actual title in the HTML source also makes it trivial for scripts to strip it out later. If they were trying to hide something, they'd teach their cacher to delete the "secret" keywords.
In contrast, for ad hoc "discovered" content, such as what a web spider crawling the rest of the web might find, such practices are hardly benign. Google can trust its own vision of how it wants its database to look, but not the intentions Mr. XXX HardCore Anal Sluts, or the guy that has Ad0be Ph0t0sh0p for 75% off, or worse yet, the guy who wants to "verify your account-holder information"...
--JoeRe:So what? (Score:1, Interesting)
Either everyone, or no one, should be able to pollute their title tag
It's the title element, not tag. I wish people would stop calling everything remotely related to the web a tag, damnit.
Google's aim is to provide relevant results when somebody searches for something. They decide what is relevant and what isn't. They apparently think that this particular instance is a case where their generic algorithm doesn't work as well as it should, so they've used a quick hack to work around it.
Other people are not stuffing keywords into their title elements to increase the relevancy of the search results. They are doing it so they get higher rankings, to the detriment of the relevancy of the search results.
Yes, it's the same technique, but it has opposite consequences. I don't particularly like the way Google solved this problem, but nothing important has changed here: Google determine what is relevant and what isn't. If you don't like that, then use another search engine. Personally, I find that Google gives me better results than any other search engine, so I figure they are doing the job well.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think Microsoft should be allowed to bundle all relevant technologies to their OS. Anyone who fails to search for alternatives when their machines get rooted should also punish Microsoft for their past lack of attention to security. Because of their market dominance, however, that punishment rarely comes.
The unfortunate thing about holding Microsoft to the same standard as everyone else is:
1) They are a monopoly and they use their market position to kill off competing technologies, even those that may have a greater positive impact on security than their own products,
2) They have a market cap that allows them to influence, sometimes adversely, the direction of technology development through legislative means, and
3) They have the largest installed base which means their former lack of interest in security impacts the performance and safety of the entire internet.
I don't want everyone in the world using the software I use. That would mean malicious shits would be writing more exploits for the stuff I use. I also object to a system where monopolists determine which technologies are created instead of a market-based system that decides which ones succeed. By using legislative pressure, monopolies force all consumers into one holding pen and literally steal cash and productivity from them.
No one born after the break up of Ma Bell would understand that last point.
Why bother? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't pay companies for broadcast TV, but there is still a regulatory agency to prevent abuses (like an illegal monopoly.)
Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway nothing special really... I had google ads on my wedding web site, and
Thing is, I never clicked an ad from any address that was my own, or that I logged into my adsense account with. (My fiance's house OTOH...)