6 ms·

Yeah I’m not sure it was a good idea of the author to include a link to that search from the article (seems like that would boost the existing results).

blakesterz 6y ago
I think I'd argue that it was a good idea. This isn't me linking to that from my blog that gets 100 views to a post. This is the NY Times linking to that. Love them or hate them, them linking to something will get attention, and I would bet that attention will lead to changes.
- sebastien_b 6y ago
  Good point.
tedunangst 6y ago
I don't see how linking to a search would boost the results.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- lovemenot 6y ago
  Some percentage of the many people following the link from NYT would do so while logged into Chrome. Or maybe Google Analytics is on the web site. Or some other Google property comes into play. Google would then use its apparent popularity to boost its search engine ranking.
  - iso8859-1 6y ago
    Google has to have a method of determining whether a search query originates from a manual request, or if it is a link to the results, such as here. There are many ways this could be detected: The Referer header from old browsers, the massive amount of data that the search query URL contains (the parameters that are not "q"). Probably Google even has session tracking, and the session would be missing everything before the results page. Given that Google applies ML so heavily, and that this query would be an outlier in so many ways, I can't imagine how they wouldn't detect this.
    - lovemenot 6y ago
      >> Google has to have a method of determining whether a search query originates from a manual request, or if its a link to the results The issue was about how it could be risky to one's reputation by linking from a NYT article to a disparaging page. My parent asked how such a risk might arise. I assumed they could not imagine how one's browser, NYT and the target site could conspire to affect rankings. I explained how this might happen. So Google knows there's traffic. Some traffic ranks higher than none, and much traffic ranks higher than some. So, to allow Google to be aware that a well-trafficked site is slating you, is riskier than if it's a site with few visitors because that site will now rank higher.

blakesterz 6y ago

I think I'd argue that it was a good idea. This isn't me linking to that from my blog that gets 100 views to a post. This is the NY Times linking to that. Love them or hate them, them linking to something will get attention, and I would bet that attention will lead to changes.

sebastien_b 6y ago
Good point.

tedunangst 6y ago

I don't see how linking to a search would boost the results.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
lovemenot 6y ago
Some percentage of the many people following the link from NYT would do so while logged into Chrome. Or maybe Google Analytics is on the web site. Or some other Google property comes into play. Google would then use its apparent popularity to boost its search engine ranking.
- iso8859-1 6y ago
  Google has to have a method of determining whether a search query originates from a manual request, or if it is a link to the results, such as here. There are many ways this could be detected: The Referer header from old browsers, the massive amount of data that the search query URL contains (the parameters that are not "q"). Probably Google even has session tracking, and the session would be missing everything before the results page. Given that Google applies ML so heavily, and that this query would be an outlier in so many ways, I can't imagine how they wouldn't detect this.
  - lovemenot 6y ago
    >> Google has to have a method of determining whether a search query originates from a manual request, or if its a link to the results The issue was about how it could be risky to one's reputation by linking from a NYT article to a disparaging page. My parent asked how such a risk might arise. I assumed they could not imagine how one's browser, NYT and the target site could conspire to affect rankings. I explained how this might happen. So Google knows there's traffic. Some traffic ranks higher than none, and much traffic ranks higher than some. So, to allow Google to be aware that a well-trafficked site is slating you, is riskier than if it's a site with few visitors because that site will now rank higher.