10 ms·
Blogwashing
- pjc50 7y agoNot a particularly detailed post and, as it says, it's an old SEO trick. But if people want an answer as to why the blogosphere is dead and everything's on centralised silos: this is why. Any decentralised system that doesn't take spamfighting into account from the beginning will drown under it as soon as it becomes popular.
- WA 7y agoI don't follow your conclusion. This isn't spam, it's just an updated timestamp. Furthermore: Google IS centralized. This isn't about decentralization, but about a central platform (Google) showing the "wrong" date and maybe even treating these blogs in a preferred way. Not sure what this has to do with blogs being decentralized.
- pjc50 7y agoThe blog itself, as a whole, is spam.
- bagacrap 7y agoIs the blogosphere dead though? I see links to tons of previously unknown to me blogs on this site. The community has moderated the spam out. Thanks guys!
- golergka 7y agoThis site is a centralized system in some sense though?... As in, centralized source of moderation and authority, at least.
- rchaud 7y agoIt is "dead" in the sense that you are more likely to comment on the post on a third party site like HN or Reddit. A decade ago the conversation would be happening on the author's site, in the comments section. That died off because bots and click farms flooded comment boxes with spam and chased away legitimate visitors. Authors of popular blogs didn't want to handle comment moderation, and once they started encouraging discussion directly on FB, Reddit or HN, it was game over.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- flagpack 7y agoIt’s not just the blogosphere that is dying because of this „trick“. Some bigger mainstream media houses (at least in Germany) do the same thing to their news. They change the date and headline so often that you happen to click the same news several times in one or two weeks, only to realize „oh, that again, but with a totally misleading headline“
- nicoburns 7y agoHonestly, I feel like this is Google's fault. It shouldn't be prioritising new content as much as it does. The best articles are often "classics" from several years ago that haven't changed because they haven't needed to.
- swalsh 7y agoWhen I'm looking for a book, I usually look for older but still popular books. New but highly rated books are hit or miss, but those old ones that people still recommend have consistently been great reads.
- mlthoughts2018 7y agoI find this is especially true of fiction or infotainment books. Older fiction and popularized non-fiction usually deals with many of the same social issues faced today, but because it has stood up to the test of time, often more effectively. Whether it’s gender identity issues, technological warfare, jingoist politicians, class struggles, leadership advice, etc., somebody already wrote about it more effectively than the huge majority of modern writers churning out books.
- code_duck 7y agoI have missed so much media over the past 20 years that I operate like this. I'm not concerned with whether music or games are new or not. Media that came out 5 or 15 years ago is just as new to me as something that came out this year, and there's a much larger selection.
- mikepurvis 7y agoThere's a whole community of video gamers who do this: https://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/ Cost is the most obvious motivator, but for me it's more about filtering for quality in order to best allocate my limited adult gaming hours— why sink the time and money into a just-released title that might turn out to be the next Anthem or Fallout 76, when you can wait a few years about pick it up for $10-15 once it's a known winner? That said, even within r/patientgamers, there's a spectrum in terms of just how patient some people are. For example, some people are just getting into stuff from the Xbox 360 era, whereas others are already talking about whether RDR2 has stood the test of time or not, ha.
- WA 7y agoWhat? I thought I read somewhere on Google's webdev infos that they know when an article was first created vs. updated. Not sure if this "old trick" still improves the ranking of an article, but surely enough, it baits people into clicking on a link. I noticed it a couple times myself. Stuff that's obviously an older article appears in the SERPs as if it was published a few days ago.
- sct202 7y agoIt could be a self fulfilling thing, if the CTR increases on a search listing (because it appears newer to the user) that listing generally moves up because of higher CTR.
- ravivyas 7y agoActually, a lot of sites keep updated posts with new information, which is useful. Which I believe makes it harder for Google to figure out who is gaming SEO and who are providing actual value.
- zo1 7y agoHow so? Could they not ML-detect the main body/content of the post and do a simple diff to previous "crawls" of the same content? You would think this gets picked up and somehow "resolved" because it's essentially a duplicate post or entry in their crawled pages DB.
- lolc 7y ago> Could they not > ML-detect the main body/content > a simple diff > previous "crawls" > the same content Yeah, I could do that in an afternoon :^)
- ravivyas 7y agoIf there is just a change in date and no change in content it could. But if the content changed, Google may not directly be able to state if the content was useful or not.
- dbatten 7y agoAm I the only one who still bristles when people say blog but mean blog post? Or is this generally accepted now?
- cmsd2 7y agowhat's a blog? oh you mean a weblog. /s
- petercooper 7y agoI seem to recall we called them online diaries or e/n sites before that :-D
- dbatten 7y agoI'm assuming your point is that words get shortened for convenience and that that's OK. That's a fair point. It's also true that language doesn't always evolve in ways that make sense, and I get that. With that being said, there's a huge difference between shortening "weblog" into "blog" and shortening "blog post" into "blog": First, when "weblog" was shortened to "blog," "blog" didn't already mean something (and certainly didn't mean anything in the relevant context). When "blog post" got shortened to "blog," "blog" already had a meaning - AND it already had a meaning _in the context of the internet_. One of these leads to confusion, one of them doesn't. Second, when "weblog" was shortened to "blog," we didn't already have a shorthand way of saying "weblog." But we've been shortening "blog post" to "post" basically since the beginning. There was no reason to shorten it to "blog" also. "Post" was just fine. I'd argue that a more fair comparison would be if, after using "blog" for a while, we decided to shorten "weblog" into "web" instead. It would have been silly, because "web" already meant something, and because we already had a shorthand version of "weblog" (i.e., "blog") - so why did we need another? But I guess your sarcasm and the down votes answer my question anyway. The internet has accepted "blog" as meaning "blog post." I might as well get on board.
- nickjj 7y agoHow does everyone feel about only showing the updated date on the blog post itself but keeping the real / original published time in the meta tags? I do that on my site mainly to keep things less cluttered. Every post has an "Updated on November 12th 2019 in #docker #flask" line at the top of the post and that date is either the original published date or the last time I updated the content in the post, but the meta tags are always the correct values (ie. I don't refresh the published date with the updated date). But now it's making me think I should include both the "Posted on" date as well as a separate "Updated on" date in the presentation of the page itself to be crystal clear. My only concern with that is that will eliminate some vertical space on the page because I can't fit all of that on 1 line cleanly. I would have to break the dates and tags onto 2 lines. For example, this is what a current line looks like: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/make-your-static-files-production-ready-with-flask-static-digest https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/make-your-static-files-produc...
- markosaric 7y agoOn some of my sites, I only list the updated date too. I prefer to keep it simple for the average visitor. The reason is that these topics are more time sensitive so I regularly update all the posts to list latest information, advice etc. Having the original date there might give a bad impression to some and they may think the content is old and outdated.
- ddevault 7y agoAnother thing I see a lot is scammers scraping my blog's RSS feed and re-publishing my articles on their site, then filling it with adware. Sometimes the page they show to googlebot is completely unrelated to the page you get when clicking through.
- imgabe 7y agoI thought Google heavily penalized your site if the human version was different from the googlebot version
- kevingadd 7y agoHow do they detect that? Presumably human review, which can't possibly cover every malicious page on the internet. I assume if you report the site they queue it up to be scanned by a human, unless their solution is just to have versions of googlebot that are harder to detect - possible, but if someone is already going out of their way to trick googlebot, I don't know how well this would work in practice. As a starting point, your not-googlebot needs to spider sites differently from googlebot (so it can't be detected by traffic analysis), imitate average user hardware well (GPU acceleration + high GPU performance, more realistically slow network, slower CPU hardware, etc), use network addresses not obviously Google's, and imitate user behavior (plausible input events, scrolling, etc). This is within Google's capabilities but is definitely an undertaking and SEO types could eventually identify their strategies.
- ses1984 7y ago>How do they detect that? Easy, their crawler has a google bot user agent. Then they sample some number of links with a human like user agent, and diff the output, plug the diff into some algorithm to assess the score.
- jellicle 7y agoThe fact that Pinterest links still appear in every search suggests this isn't true, or isn't very true.
- 7y ago
- geocrasher 7y agoIf I wrote an article in 2015 and freshen it up with more relevant links, better writing, or some other thing, is it still published in 2015? Should I re-date it? Am I "gaming" the system by doing that? Or am I notifying my readers (all 3 of them!) that there is fresh content? This is actually a real question from me, and I'd love feedback. I look back on my stuff from a few years ago and the blog posts need fixing up, be it for SEO, for my more up to date 'voice' or because I switched to Gutenberg and removed janky slider plugins that haven't been updated since 2014. Should I re-date? Or leave them as-is?
- ghaff 7y agoI would re-date and just include a short note to that effect if I had updates of any material nature.
- dna_polymerase 7y agoOn some topics a new post, titled "X Revisited in 2019" would be the option I'd go for, updating the old article with the link to the new post (without updating the date in the old post). Granted this would be my personal preference. From an SEO point of view this doesn't make sense, at all.
- dorfsmay 7y agoOften dates are extremely relevant, for example a 10 year old hardware review won't be as relevant as a new one. On the other hand, blogs don:t have to be static, some programing technique might still be relevant, but need to be updated for a new version of the language. Solution: put a "first published" and a "last updated" date, or use a wiki that makes the revisions available online and a way to link to the different revisions.
- mroche 7y agoA variant of that, but something I’d like to see is listing initial publication and current revision/update status (including initial). Then at the bottom of the post put a summary of each update so readers know how the post has evolved.
- 7y ago
- codingslave 7y agoSearch is just getting worse and worse, its a problem that probably nobody can solve with the current paradigm. I think in a few years there will be a significant opening in the search market for an algorithm that manages to structure information differently
- tambourine_man 7y agoOr, some public database of the crawled web where we can apply our own algorithm. I've always dreamed of a grep for the web, for instance. Trying to Google for code is a pain, even when quoted/verbatim.
- istjohn 7y agoThis exists: commoncrawl.org
- pjc50 7y agoSearch is a battleground. There are huge amounts of money to be made from "worsening" your search results by steering them to inferior products. So search engines and blackhat SEO are locked in a permanent struggle.
- semiotagonal 7y agoYes. Don't hate the player, hate the game. If the visibility of your work is determined by it's "freshness", then freshening up makes sense. If everyone does this, then Google et al will have to find a better criterion to rank by.
- Spooky23 7y agoThat’s because the web is dead. Lots of passion projects that would have been on a blog or websites are locked into Facebook or even Twitter threads. My local historical society decided to produce lots of content and exclusively post to Facebook. It’s incredibly dumb, but people seek the easiest path.
- codingslave 7y ago
- jellicle 7y agoVast numbers of people are currently employed writing/updating articles with titles like "What You Need To Know About Cats In Mid-November 2019". This is Google's fault.
- UserIsUnused 7y agoAnd it's a 5 year old article that has just edited the title. you still see the comments from 3 years ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- PretzelFisch 7y agoI don't really see the harm in re-dating a blog to keep it high in search results. There is a lot of information that once publishes stays relevant and informative for years, to get dinged on seo because it is stale says more about google then the blog authors. Also they have an image which doesn't tell you if a links url was updated in an edit.
- mfer 7y agoThe "freshness" issue is one that causes problems and subtly sets priorities. Problems come up when looking for older content on purpose. A lot of older content is very relevant still today. I know people who could not find something they knew existed in Google. Switched to Bing and it came right to the top. The difference was the way newer content was prioritized. Google doing this sets priorities. It says that newer is more important. Is that true? Many would argue it's not. Google says it is and "advises" people where to go based on that. I find these worth considering.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- lessname 7y agoThat's not just a thing done by blogs. Several "news" sites like (german) t3n.de do this. Or some sites like cnet.com etc... mostly content like "The best CMS as of {insert year here}" - so mostly things you can use years later. However, it doesn't help if the library isn't receiving any updates anymore. I don't think it's just to get a better search ranking but also to manipulate users (they want to use up-to-date software/etc)
- flagpack 7y agoI‘ve been working for an online news network in Germany for several years. They hire people (mostly students) to do nothing but update their old articles on at least a weekly basis. Even too a point where it becomes almost unreadable because of so many useless and non-contextual updates. But it works in terms of ad revenue from google traffic.
- jakobegger 7y agoAnother great trick is just increasing version numbers in your blog posts! People look for content relevant to their version number, so you should just make sure you have copies of your content with all the version numbers people might search for! And with version numbers, you are not limited to dates in the past, you can even write articles about the future! Here's a brilliant example: https://gorails.com/setup/ubuntu/20.04 https://gorails.com/setup/ubuntu/20.04 How to set up Rails on Ubuntu 20.04, which will be released in April next year. You can already read the guide today! Some of the links might not work yet, because obviously you can't download Ubuntu 20.04 yet, but once it's released, those guys are bound to be the first ones who had a guide out!
- cardiffspaceman 7y agoBut won't their article be old in April, and get less viewership than the one some other author is holding back until day-of?
- disneysockputty 7y agoSir, this behavior is identical to what a Blackhat SEO spammer does. Ymmv.
- antjanus 7y agoI can't be the only one thinking that: 1. it's possible the author double checks the content each year and redates so that visitors know it still applies 2. the author updates the article to be current and redates it It's a little weird to say this is "blogwashing". It's pretty common (for me at least) to check the date of an article when it's a tutorial so I know if it's current or not. And I've seen this happen before where authors append a "changelog" to the article at the end so you know that it's up to date.
- mikorym 7y ago> It's almost 2020... Google knows about this Google also knows about vertical search [1] and actively destroys anyone who pops up with a good new algorithm and hope for a startup. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_search https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_search. I am pretty sure there has been a HN frontpage article about a couple with a vertical search startup that was legally and practically destroyed by Google.
- jessriedel 7y agoFirst, does this have anything to do with the OP article? Second, care to link to anything to substantiate your claims?
- mikorym 7y ago> what does this have to do with OP OP made the point that Google does not want to address this problem and may even facilitate it (maybe passively). However, they have actively prevented progress on search engines that may be more difficult to SEO engineer/hack (because of their specificity) and particularly have prevented people with good vertical search algorithms from building a business (read: actively sabotaged their business). [1] In any case, Google known as well to quash any other small projects that they feel challenges them. [2] [3] [4] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/magazine/the-case-against-google.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/magazine/the-case-against... and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16420004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16420004 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19553941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19553941 web browser [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 person's idea taken after interview [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324 business References [2]–[4] are not specifically important; there are easily a dozen such kind of complaints if you just search for "google" on HN.
- jessriedel 7y agoWouldn't leaving a persistent flaw in Google search results which could be avoided by using a vertical search engine be an example of Google assisting vertical-search start-ups?
- vinaypai 7y agoInteresting that the text in the search bar in the screenshot says "AWS Pinpoint Alternatives" doesn't actually line up with the text at the bottom where it says "Searches related to Send with SES — AWS Pinpoint Alternative" and you only see 5 pages of results. The text at the bottom should repeat the search phrase verbatim. I get completely different results on Google if I actually search for the phrase in the search bar, with no sign of the blog in question. I see zero evidence that the scummy SEO tactic actually works and a lot more evidence of a faked "Google" screenshot.
- zafiro17 7y agoPrioritizing new content is going to exacerbate a lot of already existing problems with the WWW. I won't echo the already good list of reasons why old content is relevant. But I will point out it will usher in a new era of re-showing you old content that has been repurposed "as new" via minor edits. And it's going to also help convince a growing audience of web surfers that only the latest/greatest is worth knowing about. That in turn puts additional pressure on content producers to obsess endlessly over SEO tricks and gimmicks. In sum, this worsens the user's experience by prioritizing things that benefit Google. And this, of course, should be no surprise to anybody who has watched Google's business decisions over the past 4 or 5 years.
- stebann 7y agoYes, exactly that. Also Google doesn't take actions when you report something or they just dismissed the reports: spam-blogging, spam results when you're looking for references, badly translated news sites copying content from legitimate sources, and the list goes on.
- myrryr 7y agoOh gods I hate this, when I'm looking for how to get something done on a framework which has gone under big changes, I need to look up the articles within the last 6 months. But this bullshit makes that really hard.
- wbillingsley 7y agoFrankly, I don't see a problem with this if it is done consciously rather than automatically. * Usually, I'm interested in currency not recency. If, say, a technical article was written in 2015, I don't exactly care that it was written in 2015 but do care very much whether it's outdated today or not. APIs change, etc. If the blogger has re-dated the article, that suggests they believe it is still current, which is useful information to me. (* - Caveat: no, I've never redated a blog article myself. But I am only a very infrequent blogger anyway.)
- rchaud 7y agoThis is 100% Google's fault. They discourage both "old content" and "thin content", so guess what happens? Content writers create posts like "Ultimate Beginnner's guide to X in 2019" articles and just update the post title and "Last updated" metadata each year. Nobody's going to create a brand new guide to building muscle or whatever if the core information doesn't change year to year.
- stebann 7y agoOld way sharing is in danger when big guys like Google don't fight back spam and black-hat SEO. I try to do my search on different search engines so older content- sometimes well established articles on programming - and meaningful new content can both go to surface. Since four or five years ago if you search something with Google then sponsored content goes first, sometimes it's just brand propaganda.
- s_gourichon 7y agoSome Blog November 13th 2422 This week, Groaar and Mrumfm have been experimenting a new invention. We are considering calling it "wheel". Will keep you informed. Comments This is old news. Our tribe has been using it for eons.