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That would be great if Google would forget them. Occasionally I'll search for something and see a Mahalo page that seems to have at least a pointer to what I n

That would be great if Google would forget them. Occasionally I'll search for something and see a Mahalo page that seems to have at least a pointer to what I need, when in reality I'm just inundated with AdSense and the content that seemed to be there either isn't anymore or never was (i.e., it was a crappily autogenerated page that has an intro paragraph seemingly from someone's blog or something with no link or other content). The idea is great (curated knowledge could be a boon for consumers and producers), but I think the way they're doing it sucks.

axod 16y ago
Doesn't Google have a feature: [x] Never show me any more results from foo.com I hate that site. Remember my preference. If not, it should do.
- nailer 16y ago
  Alas people who visit Mahalo for no other reason than Jason's linkfarm directed their search their may not hate the site, although the person running the site with real content does.
  - jcalacanis 16y ago
    Take a look at the how to play guitar chords page... it's everything you would want if you did that search. people stay on that page for 20-60 minutes!!! and there are 50 people on that page all the time learning to play guitar chords. sorry it's not how to set up a cassandra cluster, but it is of value to people learning to do something basic. best jcal
    - axod 16y ago
      Cool. If that's the case, if they get everything they need from that page, you can safely remove all of the adsense plastered all over the page right? Since people are sitting on that page learning to play chords, and the content is so awesome.
    - illumin8 16y ago
      Nice. Who did you steal the content from? Or do you just, out of the goodness of your heart, pay a professional guitar player to write content for you and give it away to the Internet for free?
      - nailer 16y ago
        In Jason's defence (I still think he's a scumbag) he pays people to aggregate data from multiple sources. That's about as unethical as writing a paper that cites multiple sources (provided he's actually using a reasonable number of sites and is within fair use). This, of course, doesn't excuse the fake domains and link farming.
    - nailer 16y ago
      It sounds awesome Jason - so why do you need to register a whole bunch of different domains and point to the content, rather than just acquiring real links, like other sites with valuable content do?
l0stman 16y ago
Since this issue has been raised many times on HN, could you show the kind of queries that point back to Mahalo in the results. I use Google daily but it never happened to me.
- daeken 16y ago
  Seconding this. After years of heavy googling, I just came upon my first Mahalo page a few days ago. It was in probably the 6th or 7th position on the first page, and gave me the answer I needed.
illumin8 16y ago
The pages I get in my Google results from Mahalo seem to be along the same lines as the Experts Exchange pages you get. Annoying pages with crap ads all over them that just clog up your results. Google should just blacklist the entire domain and be done with it. Do they really provide any value to the Internet at all?
- Bluem00 16y ago
  If you scroll to the bottom of the very long Experts Exchange page, the question and answers are down there. While I realize your question was meant to be rhetorical, EE has answered my question a few times, and I want to say that they do provide some value, which I suppose is reflected in its page rank.
  - illumin8 16y ago
    Yeah, I realize if you scroll all the way to the bottom and ignore all of the up-selling of premium access, you can see the real answer, but their pages are designed specifically so that you don't notice this and don't bother to scroll so far. I just use Experts Exchange as an example because they seem to be another company that uses SEO gaming techniques to get a PageRank that isn't really justified based on their content. I'll admit, I have gotten an answer or two from EE, but at the same time I also wonder where they stole the real content from. These companies that do SEO rarely generate any real content themselves. They all violate copyright in flagrant ways.

axod 16y ago

Doesn't Google have a feature: [x] Never show me any more results from foo.com I hate that site. Remember my preference. If not, it should do.

nailer 16y ago
Alas people who visit Mahalo for no other reason than Jason's linkfarm directed their search their may not hate the site, although the person running the site with real content does.
- jcalacanis 16y ago
  Take a look at the how to play guitar chords page... it's everything you would want if you did that search. people stay on that page for 20-60 minutes!!! and there are 50 people on that page all the time learning to play guitar chords. sorry it's not how to set up a cassandra cluster, but it is of value to people learning to do something basic. best jcal
  - axod 16y ago
    Cool. If that's the case, if they get everything they need from that page, you can safely remove all of the adsense plastered all over the page right? Since people are sitting on that page learning to play chords, and the content is so awesome.
  - illumin8 16y ago
    Nice. Who did you steal the content from? Or do you just, out of the goodness of your heart, pay a professional guitar player to write content for you and give it away to the Internet for free?
    - nailer 16y ago
      In Jason's defence (I still think he's a scumbag) he pays people to aggregate data from multiple sources. That's about as unethical as writing a paper that cites multiple sources (provided he's actually using a reasonable number of sites and is within fair use). This, of course, doesn't excuse the fake domains and link farming.
  - nailer 16y ago
    It sounds awesome Jason - so why do you need to register a whole bunch of different domains and point to the content, rather than just acquiring real links, like other sites with valuable content do?

l0stman 16y ago

Since this issue has been raised many times on HN, could you show the kind of queries that point back to Mahalo in the results. I use Google daily but it never happened to me.

daeken 16y ago
Seconding this. After years of heavy googling, I just came upon my first Mahalo page a few days ago. It was in probably the 6th or 7th position on the first page, and gave me the answer I needed.

illumin8 16y ago

The pages I get in my Google results from Mahalo seem to be along the same lines as the Experts Exchange pages you get. Annoying pages with crap ads all over them that just clog up your results. Google should just blacklist the entire domain and be done with it. Do they really provide any value to the Internet at all?

Bluem00 16y ago
If you scroll to the bottom of the very long Experts Exchange page, the question and answers are down there. While I realize your question was meant to be rhetorical, EE has answered my question a few times, and I want to say that they do provide some value, which I suppose is reflected in its page rank.
- illumin8 16y ago
  Yeah, I realize if you scroll all the way to the bottom and ignore all of the up-selling of premium access, you can see the real answer, but their pages are designed specifically so that you don't notice this and don't bother to scroll so far. I just use Experts Exchange as an example because they seem to be another company that uses SEO gaming techniques to get a PageRank that isn't really justified based on their content. I'll admit, I have gotten an answer or two from EE, but at the same time I also wonder where they stole the real content from. These companies that do SEO rarely generate any real content themselves. They all violate copyright in flagrant ways.