4 ms·

> This is far more damning of Google abusing its monopoly, not only on search, but also on the Android platform. No, it’s really not. I just visited celebrityn

by hluska 6y ago

> This is far more damning of Google abusing its monopoly, not only on search, but also on the Android platform. No, it’s really not. I just visited celebritynetworth.com. One article took 462 http requests, loaded 9mb of content and though DOM content loaded in 434ms, it took 1 minute to finish loading everything. The sheer amount of adware on this site is staggering. Let’s put down the pitchforks and put on our critical thinking caps. Does serving all that adware provide anything close to an acceptable user experience?? And if not, doesn’t it look more like this website merely fell out of search engine fashion as things like performance and UX began to trump other factors?

throwaway2048 6y ago
So they deserve to have their content hijacked (unattributed) by Google?
- hluska 6y ago
  Here’s a fun rabbit hole for you to go down. Find CNW’s article on 6ix9ine and compare it to his Wikipedia page. Then take his reported earnings and subtract relevant taxes.
cik2e 6y ago
You’ve totally glossed over the fact that there was an additional slide in the rankings after the site owner went public with this story. And what about the app being banned from the App Store? Why would someone go through the trouble of compiling extensive research for free? Ads pay for things that people want but are unwilling to actually spend dollars on. That’s the state of things, whether we like it or not. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
- hluska 6y ago
  I think that again, we need to put our pitchforks down and think through this critically. Maybe someone from Google did decide that CNW is about to blow the lid on their scam and decide to shit all over its business model. But let’s step back for an instant and think over some other possibilities. Google released some pretty major core updates in 2018 and 2019. A lot of these updates seemed to focus on what the SEO community has taken to refer to as EAT (expertise, authority and trust). Google’s own guidance on some of these indicate a similar theme - they’re interested in sources, quality of analysis and other trust metrics. Some major sites saw some really massive drops over these years. When I checked out CNW earlier on today, I read a couple of articles. There were no sources at all. The net worth calculation seems to be the individual’s reported earnings less state and federal taxes. And the content looks like it was lifted from Wikipedia - in some cases, entire sentences were reprinted word for word. To get that, my browser had to make 426 requests, download 9mb of mostly adware and display ads almost everywhere. Maybe this is all a big Google ploy but I think it’s more likely that their algorithm has changed to favour high quality sites as opposed to sites that used to get search performance because of valuable keywords in their domain. As for their Android app, I’ve never owned a phone that runs Android so I can’t find and download an Android version but I decided to go down the rabbit hole and install CNW in my iPhone. They’ve apparently been ad free for two years, which is nicer than their web experience. But the content is the same kind of stuff as their website - entire sentences seem lifted directly from Wikipedia, their news section is similar, it’s just slightly repackaged stories from other sources. Thanks to today, I now know that Takeshi 6ix9ine made $5m for a livestream which pushed his net worth to a reported $8 million. I’ve never felt so old or out of touch in my life...:)
  - flokie 6y ago
    Just curious - how do you know it's lifted from Wikipedia vs. the other way around? It's quite hard to trace the sources. E.g. did a quick search for Jerry Seinfeld, CNW is a lot more robust than Wikipedia (or the inc. magazine article it cites)
  - arh68 6y ago
    > I now know.. You prove it is an acceptable user experience. Of course it's easy to scroll past ads. When I read Encyclopedia Brittanica, there are no sources. Yes, it's a pain in the butt to grab the book off of the shelf, but it'd still be wrong for Google to copy it. If the data is no better than Wikipedia, why didn't Google copy Wikipedia? With all their PhDs and $100M bonuses, they could not do better. They copied CNW because the CNW dataset was better. The fakes prove it. To deny the CNW's data's worth is illogical, pitchforks or no pitchforks.
toyg 6y ago
Any right or principle worth defending will always apply to you as well as to people you don't like.
- hluska 6y ago
  I get your point but I went down a CNW rabbit hole and I’ve got to tell you, there isn’t a whole lot of original reporting being done. There are no sources and in many cases (6ix9ine is a great example), the content seems to be a rewrite of his Wikipedia page. In other cases, entire sentences are reprinted verbatim from Wikipedia. The net worth calculation is basically reported earnings less relevant taxes. For major celebrities, they seem to rely on publications like Forbes and Business Insider coverage.
ethanwillis 6y ago
Maybe if they served up some of Google's AMP™ pages they would get higher search rankings.
- thefreeman 6y ago
  I know you are being sarcastic but it would result in a 10x better experience for the user.
  - ethanwillis 6y ago
    The joke I'm trying to make is that if they had a much nicer site design it still wouldn't be ranked higher. It would only be ranked higher if and only if Amp was used... because of bias.
- hluska 6y ago
  Actually, they use AMP. I read the 6ix9ine article on AMP and it was a much nicer mobile experience.
mcv 6y ago
That's not the issue OP is addressing. If Google is ranking them lower because it's a slow, crappy, ad-ridden site, that's understandable. It's stealing their data and presenting it as their own that's the problem here. A site being badly designed does not mean they're suddenly not protected by copyright.
- hluska 6y ago
  As I mentioned to another commenter, I took a deep down into the CNW rabbit hole and even downloaded their app. I read a few articles and compared them to the individuals’ Wikipedia pages. The content appears to be a mild rewrite of their Wikipedia pages and in many cases, entire sentences are copied verbatim. As for net worth, near as I can tell, for minor celebrities, they take their reported earnings, subtract relevant taxes and call that their net worth. For major celebrities, they seem to rely on Forbes and/or Business Insider as their sources.

by hluska 6y ago

throwaway2048 6y ago

So they deserve to have their content hijacked (unattributed) by Google?

hluska 6y ago
Here’s a fun rabbit hole for you to go down. Find CNW’s article on 6ix9ine and compare it to his Wikipedia page. Then take his reported earnings and subtract relevant taxes.

cik2e 6y ago

You’ve totally glossed over the fact that there was an additional slide in the rankings after the site owner went public with this story. And what about the app being banned from the App Store? Why would someone go through the trouble of compiling extensive research for free? Ads pay for things that people want but are unwilling to actually spend dollars on. That’s the state of things, whether we like it or not. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

hluska 6y ago
I think that again, we need to put our pitchforks down and think through this critically. Maybe someone from Google did decide that CNW is about to blow the lid on their scam and decide to shit all over its business model. But let’s step back for an instant and think over some other possibilities. Google released some pretty major core updates in 2018 and 2019. A lot of these updates seemed to focus on what the SEO community has taken to refer to as EAT (expertise, authority and trust). Google’s own guidance on some of these indicate a similar theme - they’re interested in sources, quality of analysis and other trust metrics. Some major sites saw some really massive drops over these years. When I checked out CNW earlier on today, I read a couple of articles. There were no sources at all. The net worth calculation seems to be the individual’s reported earnings less state and federal taxes. And the content looks like it was lifted from Wikipedia - in some cases, entire sentences were reprinted word for word. To get that, my browser had to make 426 requests, download 9mb of mostly adware and display ads almost everywhere. Maybe this is all a big Google ploy but I think it’s more likely that their algorithm has changed to favour high quality sites as opposed to sites that used to get search performance because of valuable keywords in their domain. As for their Android app, I’ve never owned a phone that runs Android so I can’t find and download an Android version but I decided to go down the rabbit hole and install CNW in my iPhone. They’ve apparently been ad free for two years, which is nicer than their web experience. But the content is the same kind of stuff as their website - entire sentences seem lifted directly from Wikipedia, their news section is similar, it’s just slightly repackaged stories from other sources. Thanks to today, I now know that Takeshi 6ix9ine made $5m for a livestream which pushed his net worth to a reported $8 million. I’ve never felt so old or out of touch in my life...:)
- flokie 6y ago
  Just curious - how do you know it's lifted from Wikipedia vs. the other way around? It's quite hard to trace the sources. E.g. did a quick search for Jerry Seinfeld, CNW is a lot more robust than Wikipedia (or the inc. magazine article it cites)
- arh68 6y ago
  > I now know.. You prove it is an acceptable user experience. Of course it's easy to scroll past ads. When I read Encyclopedia Brittanica, there are no sources. Yes, it's a pain in the butt to grab the book off of the shelf, but it'd still be wrong for Google to copy it. If the data is no better than Wikipedia, why didn't Google copy Wikipedia? With all their PhDs and $100M bonuses, they could not do better. They copied CNW because the CNW dataset was better. The fakes prove it. To deny the CNW's data's worth is illogical, pitchforks or no pitchforks.

toyg 6y ago

Any right or principle worth defending will always apply to you as well as to people you don't like.

hluska 6y ago
I get your point but I went down a CNW rabbit hole and I’ve got to tell you, there isn’t a whole lot of original reporting being done. There are no sources and in many cases (6ix9ine is a great example), the content seems to be a rewrite of his Wikipedia page. In other cases, entire sentences are reprinted verbatim from Wikipedia. The net worth calculation is basically reported earnings less relevant taxes. For major celebrities, they seem to rely on publications like Forbes and Business Insider coverage.

ethanwillis 6y ago

Maybe if they served up some of Google's AMP™ pages they would get higher search rankings.

thefreeman 6y ago
I know you are being sarcastic but it would result in a 10x better experience for the user.
- ethanwillis 6y ago
  The joke I'm trying to make is that if they had a much nicer site design it still wouldn't be ranked higher. It would only be ranked higher if and only if Amp was used... because of bias.
hluska 6y ago
Actually, they use AMP. I read the 6ix9ine article on AMP and it was a much nicer mobile experience.

mcv 6y ago

That's not the issue OP is addressing. If Google is ranking them lower because it's a slow, crappy, ad-ridden site, that's understandable. It's stealing their data and presenting it as their own that's the problem here. A site being badly designed does not mean they're suddenly not protected by copyright.

hluska 6y ago
As I mentioned to another commenter, I took a deep down into the CNW rabbit hole and even downloaded their app. I read a few articles and compared them to the individuals’ Wikipedia pages. The content appears to be a mild rewrite of their Wikipedia pages and in many cases, entire sentences are copied verbatim. As for net worth, near as I can tell, for minor celebrities, they take their reported earnings, subtract relevant taxes and call that their net worth. For major celebrities, they seem to rely on Forbes and/or Business Insider as their sources.