5 ms·

How could this be solved though? There are few easy-to-attain signals that will help you to differentiate search results in a way that approximates the opinion

by lhnz 15y ago

How could this be solved though? There are few easy-to-attain signals that will help you to differentiate search results in a way that approximates the opinion of an intelligent human. I believe we have reached the point in which Google's search results are only useful for one reason: speed of information retrieval. If you wish to get high quality information you visit sources that you trust. These are either (a) content providers that have provided high quality information to you previously, or in the cases in which you've not had to search for some information before (b) socially curated information from user communities in which you trust and are a part of. Here's an example: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=mp3+player+reviews http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=mp3+player+reviews Most of the content rated highly by Google has either nothing to do with reviews or is hideously out-of-date, note the 2007 'reviews' in the second result down. It's junk all the way down. For a lot of people the Google search bar has been denigrated to a fancy URL bar; it takes them to places only when they know where they're going: you avoid browsing for fun. So what can be done... An extension that allows you to join an invite-only group of Hacker News users who will remove any rubbish search results from Google? Using the +1 as a signal to try and make the search results better? I can only see the former idea as being difficult to game. The latter would be unused apart from for very popular searches to the extent that a determined spammer with a botnet wishing to cheat would probably be able to affect many search results. Better minds might know better ways.

yaakov34 15y ago
Hey, I come here to offer useless kvetching and complaints, not solutions :). Seriously, if I knew how to solve it, I'd be the CTO of Google. But I'll make a couple of guesses. I think they need to go for a lot more human input. It goes against the grain of everything they do, they want to solve everything algorithmically. But SEO is just too good at abusing algorithms. I think they need to get more humans involved, and force the SEO guys to tone it down. And one tiny specific suggestion: drop the strong signal of a search term being in the domain name. Maybe leave it for proper names, but drop it for all generic words, please. It used to be a good signal. It used to be that when you saw your search echoed in the domain name, you knew you found what you wanted. Now, I cuss and skip it, because I know it's spam. It's been abused beyond belief. EDIT: Yes, lots of people suggest "going social" on the problem. That's a lot harder for most people to manage than just using a search box. And searching for "trusted social group for reviews" is just going to take you to mytrustedsocialgroupforreviews.com. Guess what's there.
- jaredmck 15y ago
  Search term in domain name should not have as much value as it currently does. Along similar lines, I think link anchor text is way overweighted as it's fairly easy to game for commercial searches and not at all common for the type of "editorial link" model pagerank assumed. As it stands, link buying is rampant: as risky as black hat techniques are for real businesses, if you're building diverse spam web properties through a scalable model, it's not really risky at all. it's not like google can give you a permaban.
- beaumartinez 15y ago
  > Drop the strong signal of a search term being in the domain name [...] It's been abused beyond belief. I whole-heartedly agree—but people still search for "facebook.com login" and similarly trivial queries. If Google broke returning "facebook.com/login" for these it'd lose a lot of its value for these people.
  - jaredmck 15y ago
    I can only imagine how many links facebook login has across the web from their widgets. Don't think we have to worry about them falling out of the top spot for that query, in fact if they did google would likely get a visit from the DOJ soon after...
    - msbarnett 15y ago
      The Facebook login page did fall out of the top spot last year in favor of a ReadWriteWeb story about changes to the Facebook login page. The comment thread rapidly filled with deeply confused people complaining that they couldn't figure out how to log in on this new page.
    - jokermatt999 15y ago
      Here's a link to a RWW story about what msbarnett is talking about: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_illiteracy_how_much_is_your_fault.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_illiteracy_how_much... It surprised me at first, but I really forget what it's like to be tech illiterate.
asciilifeform 15y ago
> How could this be solved though? We aren't talking about tornadoes or earthquakes. Let's remember that spammers are people. How would we "solve" people who spread toxic waste on city streets? That is exactly the way to deal with spammers. They have names, addresses, bank accounts, finally bodies. All of these could be located and dealt with if law enforcement officials felt like it. Until spammers are dealt with in exactly the same way as other types of miscreants who love to piss in our collective soup, the problem will persist and grow arbitrarily worse.
- jarrett 15y ago
  I doubt you could ban the type of spam we're talking about. Sure, it's already illegal to send spam emails. But that's because email can reasonably be defined. Not so for spam sites. What makes a site "spammy?" As reflected in this thread, a site is spammy if it a) ranks better than it should in search, b) fails to provide useful content, and c) is commercial. Which of these can be turned into an objective test? Just (c), I would venture. And that's clearly unworkable. (a) and (b) are far too subjective and vague to be codified. Also, I think any effective ban would run far afoul of the 1st Amendment. Even if you could carve out a narrow 1st Amendment exception for certain kinds well-defined spammy conduct, spammers would inevitably just skirt around the edges of that. They'd adapt just like they always do.
  - asciilifeform 15y ago
    > spammers would inevitably just skirt around the edges Imagine if spam were treated in the same way as child porn, the apparent "root password to the US Constitution." Or the way drug smuggling is treated in East Asia.
- chadgeidel 15y ago
  I love this idea, but who decides what "spam" is? There's a lot of spam I get that I don't like, but isn't much different than other marketing efforts. It's not all V1agr4 emails and 419 scams. IMHO this is akin to the "pornography" issue. What is "pornography"? "I know it when I see it".
- 15y ago
immortalbeast 15y ago
mp3 player reviews? easy 1) you buy an iPod. 2) or You ask your friends on Facebook 3) or You ask your followers on Twitter

by lhnz 15y ago

yaakov34 15y ago

Hey, I come here to offer useless kvetching and complaints, not solutions :). Seriously, if I knew how to solve it, I'd be the CTO of Google. But I'll make a couple of guesses. I think they need to go for a lot more human input. It goes against the grain of everything they do, they want to solve everything algorithmically. But SEO is just too good at abusing algorithms. I think they need to get more humans involved, and force the SEO guys to tone it down. And one tiny specific suggestion: drop the strong signal of a search term being in the domain name. Maybe leave it for proper names, but drop it for all generic words, please. It used to be a good signal. It used to be that when you saw your search echoed in the domain name, you knew you found what you wanted. Now, I cuss and skip it, because I know it's spam. It's been abused beyond belief. EDIT: Yes, lots of people suggest "going social" on the problem. That's a lot harder for most people to manage than just using a search box. And searching for "trusted social group for reviews" is just going to take you to mytrustedsocialgroupforreviews.com. Guess what's there.

jaredmck 15y ago
Search term in domain name should not have as much value as it currently does. Along similar lines, I think link anchor text is way overweighted as it's fairly easy to game for commercial searches and not at all common for the type of "editorial link" model pagerank assumed. As it stands, link buying is rampant: as risky as black hat techniques are for real businesses, if you're building diverse spam web properties through a scalable model, it's not really risky at all. it's not like google can give you a permaban.
beaumartinez 15y ago
> Drop the strong signal of a search term being in the domain name [...] It's been abused beyond belief. I whole-heartedly agree—but people still search for "facebook.com login" and similarly trivial queries. If Google broke returning "facebook.com/login" for these it'd lose a lot of its value for these people.
- jaredmck 15y ago
  I can only imagine how many links facebook login has across the web from their widgets. Don't think we have to worry about them falling out of the top spot for that query, in fact if they did google would likely get a visit from the DOJ soon after...
  - msbarnett 15y ago
    The Facebook login page did fall out of the top spot last year in favor of a ReadWriteWeb story about changes to the Facebook login page. The comment thread rapidly filled with deeply confused people complaining that they couldn't figure out how to log in on this new page.
  - jokermatt999 15y ago
    Here's a link to a RWW story about what msbarnett is talking about: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_illiteracy_how_much_is_your_fault.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_illiteracy_how_much... It surprised me at first, but I really forget what it's like to be tech illiterate.

asciilifeform 15y ago

> How could this be solved though? We aren't talking about tornadoes or earthquakes. Let's remember that spammers are people. How would we "solve" people who spread toxic waste on city streets? That is exactly the way to deal with spammers. They have names, addresses, bank accounts, finally bodies. All of these could be located and dealt with if law enforcement officials felt like it. Until spammers are dealt with in exactly the same way as other types of miscreants who love to piss in our collective soup, the problem will persist and grow arbitrarily worse.

jarrett 15y ago
I doubt you could ban the type of spam we're talking about. Sure, it's already illegal to send spam emails. But that's because email can reasonably be defined. Not so for spam sites. What makes a site "spammy?" As reflected in this thread, a site is spammy if it a) ranks better than it should in search, b) fails to provide useful content, and c) is commercial. Which of these can be turned into an objective test? Just (c), I would venture. And that's clearly unworkable. (a) and (b) are far too subjective and vague to be codified. Also, I think any effective ban would run far afoul of the 1st Amendment. Even if you could carve out a narrow 1st Amendment exception for certain kinds well-defined spammy conduct, spammers would inevitably just skirt around the edges of that. They'd adapt just like they always do.
- asciilifeform 15y ago
  > spammers would inevitably just skirt around the edges Imagine if spam were treated in the same way as child porn, the apparent "root password to the US Constitution." Or the way drug smuggling is treated in East Asia.
chadgeidel 15y ago
I love this idea, but who decides what "spam" is? There's a lot of spam I get that I don't like, but isn't much different than other marketing efforts. It's not all V1agr4 emails and 419 scams. IMHO this is akin to the "pornography" issue. What is "pornography"? "I know it when I see it".
15y ago

immortalbeast 15y ago

mp3 player reviews? easy 1) you buy an iPod. 2) or You ask your friends on Facebook 3) or You ask your followers on Twitter