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Pages are primarily written for display & human consumption. Whatever was left of the "semantic HTML" went out the window when everyone switched to the JS SPA f
by Nextgrid 3y ago
Pages are primarily written for display & human consumption. Whatever was left of the "semantic HTML" went out the window when everyone switched to the JS SPA fad.
As far as I know there is no "right" way to design a JS SPA overlay/loginwall in a way that search engines ignore it - it's not like Pinterest is intentionally ignoring a spec or designing a page that misleads search engine crawlers (other engines seem to handle Pinterest just fine). Outright denying access to search engines could be wrong because logged-in Pinterest users may actually want those results, so that's not a good solution either.
The fault is ultimately on Google for ignoring this high-profile issue for such a long time because it contributes to their bottom-line, even though a very simple, low-tech fix (easier than making the crawler recognize such loginwalls reliably) could be to just allow users to make their own decision as to whether to block the domain, like Kagi has done.
- jrflowers 3y ago> it's not like Pinterest is intentionally ignoring a spec or designing a page that misleads search engine crawlers And > The problem is that their pages exploit a flaw in Google's crawler… I apparently misunderstood your phrasing of “exploit” to mean something intentional. You submit that Pinterest is unintentionally exploiting a flaw in a way that both drives traffic to them and ruins search. I suppose in my shit soup analogy, the thing you’d explain is that there’s shit in the bowl because the laws of physics coincidentally allow shit to rest in a bowl.
- Nextgrid 3y agoApologies - I've edited my original comment to make it clearer that I meant "exploit" in a non-intentional way.
- jrflowers 3y agoIs there a possibly extant universe wherein Pinterest is acting both intentionally and destructively to the detriment of everyone else? I’d like to add that Hanlon’s razor is a fun bit of internet lore wherein we pretend humans do not act intentionally that’s based on, uhhh…