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One of the signals that we've said that we use in the Panda algorithm that launched in April is how many users blocked a particular site. A new launch last wee

One of the signals that we've said that we use in the Panda algorithm that launched in April is how many users blocked a particular site. A new launch last week is that you can now import blocked sites from Chrome into Google.com. That way your blocked sites will work wherever you sign in. More info: http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/10/export-your-sites-blocklist-from-chrome.html http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/10/export-your-sites-b...

tomjen3 15y ago
That reminds me, have you removed the blocking function or does it only work in Chrome? I tried to find a manual for a particular dishwasher today. Holy crap was the search results useless. With the exception of a site which didn't load and one which was a list of people who wanted to know if anybody else had the manual all other results of the three first pages where made for adsense sites or sites designed to harvest email address. Which would have been one thing, but not one of them had the damn manual (one tried to suggest the manual for a Macbook air!?). So it seems you still have a long way to go with Panda. But the reason I ask is that I couldn't figure out how to ban those sites (I was using my iPad at the time).
- ghshephard 15y ago
  Which dishwasher manual where you searching for? I'd like to do a comparative study of the various search engines and see what I can get.
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    WQP8-9001 My search terms were: WQP8 9001 user guide and WQP8 9001 manual
- Maxious 15y ago
  For me, it works such that you go to a crappy site, navigate backwards to the search results and then a link "- Block all crappysite.com results" appears. It also mentions you need to be "signed in to search".
  - pygy_ 15y ago
    It would be nice if it also worked when you open a site in a tab too.
    - 1880 15y ago
      You can directly block sites here: http://www.google.com/reviews/t http://www.google.com/reviews/t
DanBC 15y ago
Please can I draw your attention to this Stack Exchange question, about Google Chrome blocking (as a potential phishing site) a question on Security Stack Exchange? (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/110081/question-on-se-site-being-reported-as-a-phishing-site http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/110081/question-on-s...) If Google is blocking a site would that affect their ranking?
jwdunne 15y ago
Is this the only reason why Stack Exchange has been hit or are there other big factors too? It'd be interesting to know.
- misterbee 15y ago
  Experts Exchange, not Stack Exchange
  - jwdunne 15y ago
    Yes, sorry about that. I meant Experts Exchange.
  - DanBC 15y ago
    sharp drop in alexa rankings in 2q 2011 - (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/110788/167162 http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/110788/167162) >Both Stack Overflow and The Hyphenated Site (EE) sites are affected, EE in fact goes way down and Super User also notices a drop after reaching a record in the same time while Stack Overflow goes sharply down Obviously, Alexa sucks, and all web stats suck.
    - tluyben2 15y ago
      For an indication they are not so bad. They trail behind usually, but for big swings they seem to be good enough indicators. Both EE and SO went down after Panda and never recovered. So did tons of other sites, genuine or not. And a lot of spammy sites (there appeared a ton of new (Russian) sites in the index using subdomains (x.bla.com) instead of directories (bla.com/x) which seems to work now in fooling Google that it's 'quality' and sites with no own content (Markosweb as nice example) only grew larger. So Google is a long way from achieving their goal while good sites get punished.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Why doesn't Google block sites manually (sites that are obviously bad)? Off-topic, but I've always thought this is the main reason Google Blog Search isn't very good. In the quest to make an all-algorithm blog search, Google sacrificed having one at all. If they had simple restricted the search to blogspot.com, wordpress.com, and typepad.com, and applied the normal spam filters, it could have been pretty good!
- megablast 15y ago
  Maybe you have never heard of the anti-trust investigation into Google, where various sites have suggest Google manipulate their index already.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    A search engine's function is site discrimination.
    - praptak 15y ago
      This does not mean that every kind of discrimination is equally good. Dunking a site by an algorithm (sensible disclaimers apply) looks much better in court than a decision made by a human. The latter is vulnerable to questioning based on (supposed) hidden motives.

tomjen3 15y ago

That reminds me, have you removed the blocking function or does it only work in Chrome? I tried to find a manual for a particular dishwasher today. Holy crap was the search results useless. With the exception of a site which didn't load and one which was a list of people who wanted to know if anybody else had the manual all other results of the three first pages where made for adsense sites or sites designed to harvest email address. Which would have been one thing, but not one of them had the damn manual (one tried to suggest the manual for a Macbook air!?). So it seems you still have a long way to go with Panda. But the reason I ask is that I couldn't figure out how to ban those sites (I was using my iPad at the time).

ghshephard 15y ago
Which dishwasher manual where you searching for? I'd like to do a comparative study of the various search engines and see what I can get.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  WQP8-9001 My search terms were: WQP8 9001 user guide and WQP8 9001 manual
Maxious 15y ago
For me, it works such that you go to a crappy site, navigate backwards to the search results and then a link "- Block all crappysite.com results" appears. It also mentions you need to be "signed in to search".
- pygy_ 15y ago
  It would be nice if it also worked when you open a site in a tab too.
  - 1880 15y ago
    You can directly block sites here: http://www.google.com/reviews/t http://www.google.com/reviews/t

DanBC 15y ago

Please can I draw your attention to this Stack Exchange question, about Google Chrome blocking (as a potential phishing site) a question on Security Stack Exchange? (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/110081/question-on-se-site-being-reported-as-a-phishing-site http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/110081/question-on-s...) If Google is blocking a site would that affect their ranking?

jwdunne 15y ago

Is this the only reason why Stack Exchange has been hit or are there other big factors too? It'd be interesting to know.

misterbee 15y ago
Experts Exchange, not Stack Exchange
- jwdunne 15y ago
  Yes, sorry about that. I meant Experts Exchange.
- DanBC 15y ago
  sharp drop in alexa rankings in 2q 2011 - (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/110788/167162 http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/110788/167162) >Both Stack Overflow and The Hyphenated Site (EE) sites are affected, EE in fact goes way down and Super User also notices a drop after reaching a record in the same time while Stack Overflow goes sharply down Obviously, Alexa sucks, and all web stats suck.
  - tluyben2 15y ago
    For an indication they are not so bad. They trail behind usually, but for big swings they seem to be good enough indicators. Both EE and SO went down after Panda and never recovered. So did tons of other sites, genuine or not. And a lot of spammy sites (there appeared a ton of new (Russian) sites in the index using subdomains (x.bla.com) instead of directories (bla.com/x) which seems to work now in fooling Google that it's 'quality' and sites with no own content (Markosweb as nice example) only grew larger. So Google is a long way from achieving their goal while good sites get punished.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

Why doesn't Google block sites manually (sites that are obviously bad)? Off-topic, but I've always thought this is the main reason Google Blog Search isn't very good. In the quest to make an all-algorithm blog search, Google sacrificed having one at all. If they had simple restricted the search to blogspot.com, wordpress.com, and typepad.com, and applied the normal spam filters, it could have been pretty good!

megablast 15y ago
Maybe you have never heard of the anti-trust investigation into Google, where various sites have suggest Google manipulate their index already.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  A search engine's function is site discrimination.
  - praptak 15y ago
    This does not mean that every kind of discrimination is equally good. Dunking a site by an algorithm (sensible disclaimers apply) looks much better in court than a decision made by a human. The latter is vulnerable to questioning based on (supposed) hidden motives.