3 ms·

Your rant doesn't make sense because your starting point "Google is evil and despicable for making rules for the Internet" is incoherent. Both Google's action

by fpgeek 15y ago

Your rant doesn't make sense because your starting point "Google is evil and despicable for making rules for the Internet" is incoherent. Both Google's action and Google's inaction "make rules for the Internet". In an alternate universe where Google didn't implement this penalty, attacks using this kind of client-side redirection could easily be common and a serious problem. In that universe, alternate-saurik could come to Hacker News and complain that "Google is evil and despicable for not clamping down on these client-side hacks that are almost always used by attackers, not legitimate developers." Google has to make choices. Those choices are going to feel like "rules for the Internet" for many people they influence. That's unavoidable. If you're going to criticize Google for this sort of issue, you need to focus on the details of those choices. In this case, your lack of attention to detail makes it clear you're not making a credible case.

saurik 15y ago
In my rant I provided a specific example of how Google's rules regarding content cloaking make it difficult to search or build sites like Hacker News (and will now further point out that Yahoo provides that feature); I have also provided evidence that Google disrecommends doing A/B testing using some mechanisms as it may be considered cloaking, and that webmasters should first deindex their content from Google. I can even, if you demand, find other videos from Google (also from Matt Cutts) that show that the heavily-hedged suggestion in this video to serve different content from the server (even small snippets of text, such as titles or breadcrumbs) that is not based on IP address (and thereby might not be stable for GoogleBot) is also highly dangerous and can lead to Google believing that you are cloaking. I therefore take issue with the fact that, once I misunderstood this specific article, that somehow means that all of the other research that I've done on this matter, and even the arguments that I state in my rant (where the specific paragraph that is currently under contention I am backing up with evidence outside of this single article, which is from someone none of us have ever heard of and for all we know could be lying about what Google did anyway) are now void.
saurik 15y ago
(Also, if you spent any time at all to look into who I am, what I do, or the things that I stand for, you'd realize that your appeal to alternate-saurik in a world where Google built an open system that was capable of being abused doesn't really have much basis, and is honestly a little insulting.)

by fpgeek 15y ago

saurik 15y ago

In my rant I provided a specific example of how Google's rules regarding content cloaking make it difficult to search or build sites like Hacker News (and will now further point out that Yahoo provides that feature); I have also provided evidence that Google disrecommends doing A/B testing using some mechanisms as it may be considered cloaking, and that webmasters should first deindex their content from Google. I can even, if you demand, find other videos from Google (also from Matt Cutts) that show that the heavily-hedged suggestion in this video to serve different content from the server (even small snippets of text, such as titles or breadcrumbs) that is not based on IP address (and thereby might not be stable for GoogleBot) is also highly dangerous and can lead to Google believing that you are cloaking. I therefore take issue with the fact that, once I misunderstood this specific article, that somehow means that all of the other research that I've done on this matter, and even the arguments that I state in my rant (where the specific paragraph that is currently under contention I am backing up with evidence outside of this single article, which is from someone none of us have ever heard of and for all we know could be lying about what Google did anyway) are now void.

saurik 15y ago

(Also, if you spent any time at all to look into who I am, what I do, or the things that I stand for, you'd realize that your appeal to alternate-saurik in a world where Google built an open system that was capable of being abused doesn't really have much basis, and is honestly a little insulting.)