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Back when I was an SRE at google for their web crawler, I thought they should de-index pinterest (did not get any traction with this). I still think they shoul

Back when I was an SRE at google for their web crawler, I thought they should de-index pinterest (did not get any traction with this). I still think they should de-index pinterest. I add "-site:pinterest.*" to all my image searches.

ryanb 6y ago
Super interesting. A lot of people feel the same way. Why do you think you weren't able to get any traction for this?
- Androider 6y ago
  They probably look at the metrics and see that a lot of people are going to the Pinterest results. That the results are garbage and undermine the Google images search experience is much harder to measure.
  - baxtr 6y ago
    But isn’t this a sign that it’s actually useful for people? At the same time I have to admit that google image search is probably their worst vertical.
    - Tostino 6y ago
      I'd say it's more of a sign of what shows up highest in their index rather than any indication on the quality.
      - Spivak 6y ago
        If people are actually navigating to the results and not bouncing immediately due to the login wall that is a sign that people are finding them useful. Is it that weird to believe that lots of people have Pinterest logins?
        Tostino 6y ago
        With image search more than other types of search IMO, because the source of the image is less prominent than the image itself, so ignoring specific domains is harder. I've clicked Pinterest links over and over in google search when on my phone when I had no interest in them, but it's hard to avoid because it isn't always clear what is what.
  - panpanna 6y ago
    Welcome to the future. Everything is decided by AI based on data we don't really understand.
    - coding123 6y ago
      If only there was a way to track the number of seconds they spent on pinterest until the back button was hit and... factor that in as a feature in ML. voila.
      - wanderr 6y ago
        I don't think it's that simple. When a user goes back to image search results, is it because they are unsatisfied with the result they clicked on, or are they looking for even more, hoping to compare? And when a user closes out instead of doing back, is it because they got what they wanted or because the results were so garbage they gave up? Based on my own usage of image search results I don't think you would be able to tell when I was happy with the results or when I wasn't. But you can probably tell that my usage of image search went down when it started getting shitty due to this spam.
        pfranz 6y ago
        What are your use-cases for image search? Mine are pretty straightforward; find a higher quality/uncropped version or to find the source (article, recipe, or photo set). Use case #1 I click through save and exit. Use case #2 I engage like I would for web (text) search. #1 might be confused for not finding the intended result, but could be discerned after looking a bit more. Also, if a lot of people add in "-site:pinterest.*" (or click on pinterest sites but come back, then find the intended result) that might be a hint it's not adding real value.
        wanderr 6y ago
        I think my use cases are pretty varied, anything from looking for pictures of a place I'm considering going hiking, looking for different views of a product I'm considering purchasing, looking for other examples of an artists art, to trying to figure out where some image originated
sp332 6y ago
This is much more difficult with Bing than it should be. I have to add a bunch of separate pinterest.* domains.
whywhywhywhy 6y ago
You would have made my week if you have managed to convince them to do that. At the worst point Pintrest's spamming of Google Image Search pretty much rendered the service next to useless. It wasn't a "growth hack" it was spam, plain and simple.
dawnerd 6y ago
Yeah I don’t get it. Panda was supposed to clean up results - and it did for a while. Seems priorities changed. Kinda makes me wonder if someone higher up at Google is invested in Pinterest.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  Panda was lead by Amit Singhal who was very serious about search relevance. He was kicked out for his sexual behavior though (and also because the leadership wanted to go towards more complex machine learning, while Amit believed in the more explainable models at that time).
  - getTruthy 6y ago
    > He was kicked out for his sexual behavior That's a serious charge. To my, knowledge, sexual harassment was alleged but not proven. Can you point to any evidence supporting your allegation? Let's not forget that it's easy to allege but our legal system requires proof. Justin Bieber and Chris D'Elia were recently alleged to have done bad things; both have provided evidence that the alleged misdeeds never happened. Justin Bieber is suing for defamation. Here's some info about the D'Elia allegations: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8459337/Chris-DElia-releases-email-exchanges-accusers.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8459337/Chris-DElia...
mattigames 6y ago
Yeah, photo stock sites and pinterest (and pinterest-like sites) should be opt-in when using google image search.
superasn 6y ago
I wish we could do the same for Shutterstock and all these useless stock image websites that have totally hacked Google image search yet Google won't do anything about them for some reason.
- microtherion 6y ago
  And lyrics search sites that index songs for which they don't actually have lyrics.
  - dspillett 6y ago
    And the many TV/film sites that list "release date", "air date", renewal, season N+1, and so forth, in their page titles & tags even though the page does not contain that information.
- nine_k 6y ago
  How do you search for previews of commercially available images then? What I would like is an open protocol for media licenses. Some media-license.txt file with names of images (and wildcards) and license info. hero.jpg CC0 *.PNG PD # public domain # A free preview of a proprietary image. Teaser.jpg preview Everything not marked is considered proprietary, like now by default. Then sites like shutterstock could clearly mark their previews of real images, and galleries of free images could mark their images as free to use, etc. This could be reflected in the search engines' UI.
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    Doesn't Google support this already as an advanced search feature?
- duskwuff 6y ago
  Huh? I don't see anything wrong with that. If you search for an image and Google shows you that photo on a stock imagery site, I'd count that as a win -- they've correctly pointed you to the source of the image, rather than a downstream licensee of the image.
devin 6y ago
Any other flags you throw on searches?
daltonlp 6y ago
There's an extension for that :) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unpinterested/gefaihkenmchjmcpcbpdijpoknfjpbfe?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unpinterested/gefa...
- Luc 6y ago
  There's also a Firefox version of Unpinterested. It's great. Adds '-site:pinterest.*' to every image search.
- leppr 6y ago
  And for a client side-only solution: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/1682-google-hit-hider-by-domain-search-filter-block-sites https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/1682-google-hit-hider-by-d...
stickfigure 6y ago
> add "-site:pinterest.*" to all my image searches You just made my day. I don't know why I never thought of that.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kenned3 6y ago
It really is unfortunate that you were not able to make any traction on this. Pinterest really is among the scurge of the internet.
nullc 6y ago
Thank you for trying. Pinterest really makes google image search a lot less useful. Almost every time I use GIS there is an initial stage of "Fck I forgot to add -site:pinterest.".
cft 6y ago
The same recommendation (add -site:pinterest.com) has 77k upvotes in r/LifeProTips https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/hejbl0/lpt_when_using_google_add_pinterest_sans_quotes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/hejbl0/lpt_whe...
bane 6y ago
I run a plugin in Chrome that does that automatically for image searches. The pinterest results are pure trash and never provide me with what I'm looking for, but take up an excessive quantity of results for every search.

ryanb 6y ago

Super interesting. A lot of people feel the same way. Why do you think you weren't able to get any traction for this?

Androider 6y ago
They probably look at the metrics and see that a lot of people are going to the Pinterest results. That the results are garbage and undermine the Google images search experience is much harder to measure.
- baxtr 6y ago
  But isn’t this a sign that it’s actually useful for people? At the same time I have to admit that google image search is probably their worst vertical.
  - Tostino 6y ago
    I'd say it's more of a sign of what shows up highest in their index rather than any indication on the quality.
    - Spivak 6y ago
      If people are actually navigating to the results and not bouncing immediately due to the login wall that is a sign that people are finding them useful. Is it that weird to believe that lots of people have Pinterest logins?
      - Tostino 6y ago
        With image search more than other types of search IMO, because the source of the image is less prominent than the image itself, so ignoring specific domains is harder. I've clicked Pinterest links over and over in google search when on my phone when I had no interest in them, but it's hard to avoid because it isn't always clear what is what.
- panpanna 6y ago
  Welcome to the future. Everything is decided by AI based on data we don't really understand.
  - coding123 6y ago
    If only there was a way to track the number of seconds they spent on pinterest until the back button was hit and... factor that in as a feature in ML. voila.
    - wanderr 6y ago
      I don't think it's that simple. When a user goes back to image search results, is it because they are unsatisfied with the result they clicked on, or are they looking for even more, hoping to compare? And when a user closes out instead of doing back, is it because they got what they wanted or because the results were so garbage they gave up? Based on my own usage of image search results I don't think you would be able to tell when I was happy with the results or when I wasn't. But you can probably tell that my usage of image search went down when it started getting shitty due to this spam.
      - pfranz 6y ago
        What are your use-cases for image search? Mine are pretty straightforward; find a higher quality/uncropped version or to find the source (article, recipe, or photo set). Use case #1 I click through save and exit. Use case #2 I engage like I would for web (text) search. #1 might be confused for not finding the intended result, but could be discerned after looking a bit more. Also, if a lot of people add in "-site:pinterest.*" (or click on pinterest sites but come back, then find the intended result) that might be a hint it's not adding real value.
        wanderr 6y ago
        I think my use cases are pretty varied, anything from looking for pictures of a place I'm considering going hiking, looking for different views of a product I'm considering purchasing, looking for other examples of an artists art, to trying to figure out where some image originated

sp332 6y ago

This is much more difficult with Bing than it should be. I have to add a bunch of separate pinterest.* domains.

whywhywhywhy 6y ago

You would have made my week if you have managed to convince them to do that. At the worst point Pintrest's spamming of Google Image Search pretty much rendered the service next to useless. It wasn't a "growth hack" it was spam, plain and simple.

dawnerd 6y ago

Yeah I don’t get it. Panda was supposed to clean up results - and it did for a while. Seems priorities changed. Kinda makes me wonder if someone higher up at Google is invested in Pinterest.

xiphias2 6y ago
Panda was lead by Amit Singhal who was very serious about search relevance. He was kicked out for his sexual behavior though (and also because the leadership wanted to go towards more complex machine learning, while Amit believed in the more explainable models at that time).
- getTruthy 6y ago
  > He was kicked out for his sexual behavior That's a serious charge. To my, knowledge, sexual harassment was alleged but not proven. Can you point to any evidence supporting your allegation? Let's not forget that it's easy to allege but our legal system requires proof. Justin Bieber and Chris D'Elia were recently alleged to have done bad things; both have provided evidence that the alleged misdeeds never happened. Justin Bieber is suing for defamation. Here's some info about the D'Elia allegations: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8459337/Chris-DElia-releases-email-exchanges-accusers.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8459337/Chris-DElia...

mattigames 6y ago

Yeah, photo stock sites and pinterest (and pinterest-like sites) should be opt-in when using google image search.

superasn 6y ago

I wish we could do the same for Shutterstock and all these useless stock image websites that have totally hacked Google image search yet Google won't do anything about them for some reason.

microtherion 6y ago
And lyrics search sites that index songs for which they don't actually have lyrics.
- dspillett 6y ago
  And the many TV/film sites that list "release date", "air date", renewal, season N+1, and so forth, in their page titles & tags even though the page does not contain that information.
nine_k 6y ago
How do you search for previews of commercially available images then? What I would like is an open protocol for media licenses. Some media-license.txt file with names of images (and wildcards) and license info. hero.jpg CC0 *.PNG PD # public domain # A free preview of a proprietary image. Teaser.jpg preview Everything not marked is considered proprietary, like now by default. Then sites like shutterstock could clearly mark their previews of real images, and galleries of free images could mark their images as free to use, etc. This could be reflected in the search engines' UI.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  Doesn't Google support this already as an advanced search feature?
duskwuff 6y ago
Huh? I don't see anything wrong with that. If you search for an image and Google shows you that photo on a stock imagery site, I'd count that as a win -- they've correctly pointed you to the source of the image, rather than a downstream licensee of the image.

devin 6y ago

Any other flags you throw on searches?

daltonlp 6y ago

There's an extension for that :) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unpinterested/gefaihkenmchjmcpcbpdijpoknfjpbfe?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unpinterested/gefa...

Luc 6y ago
There's also a Firefox version of Unpinterested. It's great. Adds '-site:pinterest.*' to every image search.
leppr 6y ago
And for a client side-only solution: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/1682-google-hit-hider-by-domain-search-filter-block-sites https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/1682-google-hit-hider-by-d...

stickfigure 6y ago

> add "-site:pinterest.*" to all my image searches You just made my day. I don't know why I never thought of that.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kenned3 6y ago

It really is unfortunate that you were not able to make any traction on this. Pinterest really is among the scurge of the internet.

nullc 6y ago

Thank you for trying. Pinterest really makes google image search a lot less useful. Almost every time I use GIS there is an initial stage of "Fck I forgot to add -site:pinterest.".

cft 6y ago

The same recommendation (add -site:pinterest.com) has 77k upvotes in r/LifeProTips https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/hejbl0/lpt_when_using_google_add_pinterest_sans_quotes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/hejbl0/lpt_whe...

bane 6y ago

I run a plugin in Chrome that does that automatically for image searches. The pinterest results are pure trash and never provide me with what I'm looking for, but take up an excessive quantity of results for every search.