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Quora has gone the way of expert-sexchange, showing up in Google search results for interesting questions, but then overlaying/replacing most answers with blur
by 0x0 14y ago
Quora has gone the way of expert-sexchange, showing up in Google search results for interesting questions, but then overlaying/replacing most answers with blur and "sign up to read".
Borderline SERP cloaking, to say the least.
- iaskwhy 14y agoIt's actually worse because with expert-sexchange you can scroll to the bottom to read the answers. Not so much with Quora, right?
- irahul 14y ago> Quora has gone the way of expert-sexchange, showing up in Google search results for interesting questions, but then overlaying/replacing most answers with blur and "sign up to read". This shit doesn't fly with Google. Delivering different content to Google bot and the user coming through search makes Google looks like a fool, since the user is unable to find the content he searched for. That is why expert-sexchange shows answers at the bottom when Google is your referrer. If Quora is pulling up this shit, Google will penalize it. I think it's more likely Quora is simply hiding content behind css.
- 0x0 14y agoIt looks like what they are doing are obfuscating with CSS. See for example: http://www.quora.com/Bayesian-Inference/How-do-Bayesian-algorithms-work-for-the-identification-of-spam http://www.quora.com/Bayesian-Inference/How-do-Bayesian-algo... The answers are in a span with class "blurred_answer", which has css styles: "color: transparent; text-shadow: 0 0 7px #777". Which in effect makes the text completely unreadable to humans. This is just one step above "color: #fff; background-color: #fff". Scummy.
- cantrevealname 14y agoI don't see missing or blurred text in your example, http://www.quora.com/Bayesian-Inference/How-do-Bayesian-algorithms-work-for-the-identification-of-spam http://www.quora.com/Bayesian-Inference/How-do-Bayesian-algo... I checked with two different browsers (Opera and Firefox under Windows). Could this mean that the Quora PR machine is up in full swing trying to undo damage (at least in the case of specific links that people cite)?
- wamatt 14y agoInteresting, it's not blurred for me either, although the other day I remember it was. I tried this in Firefox and Chrome in both normal and Private/Incognito modes.
- 0x0 14y agoDid you scroll all the way down? Still blurry here: http://imgur.com/Bbifs http://imgur.com/Bbifs (on google chrome) Although I see in the html source there are some html comments "googleoff". I've never heard of those before. I guess "googleon"'ing the first answer is enough to get google juice while staying within the letter of rules, it's still really spammy. (Plus, how does that play with other search engines?)
- cantrevealname 14y agoYes, you're right, I can see the blurring in certain cases now. If I go to the link you cited directly it is not blurred. But I if search for "How do Bayesian algorithms work" in Google, then click the link that Google finds, then it is blurred. Once you get the blurred Quora page, then even going to the link directly will get you a blurred page. If you delete all the Quora cookies, then it'll be back to being readable (non-blurred). Interestingly, if you use Google's encrypted service ( https://encrypted.google.com/ https://encrypted.google.com/ ) to search for "How do Bayesian algorithms work", you'll get a non-blurred Quora page.
- primigenus 14y agoUnreadable to humans with sight. Screen readers don't care! :-)
- kmfrk 14y agoMatt Cutts does, though. I'm sure he'll look into it, if we ask him. :)
- brador 14y agoJust do "select all" (CTRL+A) to see all Quora hidden content. Source: http://nerdr.com/see-quora-answers-without-signing-up/ http://nerdr.com/see-quora-answers-without-signing-up/
- abecedarius 14y agoI just tried, didn't work. (Firefox on a Mac, select all with command-A.) Presumably I could View Source or something; but hey, there's no shortage of info on the web without the silly hoops.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- antics 14y agoI know this is not on topic, but I wrote that answer! It's a huge kick to see it on a random HN comment. :D
- bobds 14y ago> This shit doesn't fly with Google. Not only does this shit fly but Google are doing it on their own websites. EDIT: I'm guessing you don't believe me. Try clicking on a Google Groups link. This article has another example: http://www.seobook.com/googles-youtube-caught-cloaking-spam-google-users-increase-ad-revenues http://www.seobook.com/googles-youtube-caught-cloaking-spam-... Google repeatedly violates the "guidelines" they try to force on other webmasters.
- mozan_sykol 14y agoCorrect. A lot of people blindly believe that Google can do no evil - I used to be one of them. But now I have come to realize that given that they are a public company, they will do whatever pleases their shareholders.
- irahul 14y ago> Not only does this shit fly but Google are doing it on their own websites. I am not claiming Google is benevolent. As I mentioned above, if a user searches for "rails select in query" and the user clicks on experts-exchange result summary showing partial answer only to be taken to the page where answers are hidden, the user failed to find something on Google. May be he will blame experts-exchange, but he will blame Google as well. > EDIT: I'm guessing you don't believe me. I am guessing you were downvoted. I didn't downvote you. If fact, you can't downvote immediate replies to your post. Since you directly replied to my post, the downvote link doesn't appear for me for your reply.
- bobds 14y agoI just want to point out that search results like Quora or Experts-exchange, are definitely not going away. Some websites might be penalized here and there but I haven't seen any consistent efforts to stop them. In fact, Google wants even more such results. See First Click Free: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=74536 http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&... Oh and here are 240 million login-walled pages: https://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:groups.google.com/group https://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:groups.google.com/grou...
- theballwatcher 14y agoI don't think that should be the case here. They have blurred answers enclosed in googleoff/googleon tags - which should make sure that they don't get indexed.
- kmfrk 14y agoI have always assumed this was what Quora is about, but I have never seen a Quora result show up in a Google search? Is this supposed to be the case for a company with that focus, or am I just not using the right queries?
- swanson 14y agoChrome user script to unblur the answers: https://gist.github.com/3208442 https://gist.github.com/3208442
- dinkumthinkum 14y agoI find it easier just to block the site.
- dredmorbius 14y agoOne reason both are in my results blacklist.
- yuhong 14y agoAt least Quora don't require you to pay.