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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 blu
by 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.
- eli 14y agoIIRC, https sites do not send referer, so that makes sense.
- 0x0 14y agohttps sites sends referers only to other https sites (even crossdomain), but not when navigating from https to http.
- pasbesoin 14y agoI'm pleased -- perhaps -- in that enough Googlers read HN that now maybe this blurring BS will be addressed. Of course, it will be addressed by another "true name" purveyor. My head hurts.
- paulsilver 14y agoI can't see those in the HTML, whether I'm logged in or not, but I have used googleoff & googleon in HTML comments before - they're used to control which parts of a page can be ignored when using a Google Search Appliance. So, if Quora use a GSA (or rack of them) to power their site search, they can ensure parts of the page aren't added to the index of the search. This can be helpful if you want to exclude areas that are repeated a lot in the site but are not helpful if you are searching, like navigation or help panels. (Quick edit) googleoff/googleon are completely ignored by normal Google, AFAIK it's only used for their Appliance products.
- elq 14y agoIt looks like they've changed it. I added quora to my list of blocked domains in google immediately after noticing the blurred responses... I don't think I'll remove them.
- 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...