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Metafilter's founder mathowie takes a much more measured tone about Google's role: "A year and a half ago, we woke up one day to see a 40% decrease in revenue a

by chasing 12y ago

Metafilter's founder mathowie takes a much more measured tone about Google's role: "A year and a half ago, we woke up one day to see a 40% decrease in revenue and traffic to Ask MetaFilter, likely the result of ongoing Google index updates." (http://metatalk.metafilter.com/23245/State-of-MetaFilter http://metatalk.metafilter.com/23245/State-of-MetaFilter) Google changes. The web itself changes. As seminal as Metafilter has been, it doesn't "deserve" the top slots any more than any other content. So I find it a little irritating that David Auerbach at Slate has attempted to overdramatize this into something it's really not.

dredmorbius 12y ago
Even if the prior position were unearned, the point that, perhaps, small changes in Google's algorithms can have dramatic influences over site rankings, with all the concomitant disruption that can entail, argues for conservatism on Google's part. Otherwise you're in the position of the philanthropist who, out of the goodness of his heart, supports some cause unreservedly ... until he doesn't. Suddenly withdrawn support has very real impacts. If there _was_ a specific strike against Metafilter, Google really ought explain. Actually, even if there wasn't. And it argues again against digital sharecropping, though that's harder and harder to avoid.
SoftwareMaven 12y ago
I think Auerbach laid out some cogent reasons why this should be questioned. A gradual decrease over time? Sure, expected. A sudden drop? That's an algorithmic hit, and when a site with good content (that is ranked well by other search engines) is hit negatively by the algorithm, it should be questioned. And, unfortunately, the only way to get Google to consider such a question is if enough people start echoing it.
gojomo 12y ago
Maybe webmasters have to take a "measured tone", lest they anger the "black box" further.
pbreit 12y ago
What do you mean it doesn't "deserve the top slot any more than any other content"? That doesn't make any sense at all. Obviously if it is the "best" answer to the search, then of course it "deserves" a high result. The author lists out some examples where this doesn't seem to be the case. I didn't find the article overdramatizing at all. In fact it was quite measured and completely reasonable. And the timing is obviously consistent with Metafilter's recent announcement. That a high quality site gets chopped in half doesn't bother you at all? And that Google's results seem off? Really, this doesn't deserve a mention?
- TTPrograms 12y ago
  What's the justification that metafilter is in fact the best result for some wide range of queries? The content these days doesn't look drastically superior to Reddit / Stack Overflow etc. The author mainly argues the value of the content by citing threads from 2004 to 2009. In order to make the point that Google has done something wrong here you need to demonstrate that there's actively superior content over there compared to the more mainstream communities, and the author doesn't persuade me.
  - rhizome 12y ago
    The content these days doesn't look drastically superior to Reddit / Stack Overflow etc. There is zero spam, zero meme threads, an engaged and involved membership and, perhaps a glaringly-missing signal on Google's part, consistency over a long time. But even more than that, why would Ask Metafilter threads about e.g. renovating a kitchen rank lower than the 12 effectively-identical content-farm "howtos" from About, WikiHow, et al, that don't involve real people describing real experiences and knowledge? It's really a matter of prioritization, of what Google considers "superior," and I think there are some positive qualities that Google doesn't account for. Metafilter is certainly no worse for the Internet in general than Stack Exchange, doityourself.com, rottentomatoes, or other commonly high-ranked sites.
    - TTPrograms 12y ago
      >There is zero spam, zero meme threads, an engaged and involved membership and, perhaps a glaringly-missing signal on Google's part, consistency over a long time. I don't think this is drastically different from any of their competitors except the Reddit defaults, which are pretty much irrelevant for these purposes anyways (excluding consistency, which I don't really think is relevant when you're searching for something on Google). >But even more than that, why would Ask Metafilter threads about e.g. renovating a kitchen rank lower than the 12 effectively-identical content-farm "howtos" from About, WikiHow, et al, that don't involve real people describing real experiences and knowledge? I think About and WikiHow could lack the depth that Metafilter has, but they're going to win out on accessibility. I think a dedicated subreddit would win out on both fronts. If Google finds that people prefer accessibility, then that's what Google will deliver. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Lagged2Death 12y ago
...it doesn't "deserve" the top slots any more than any other content. I thought the whole deal with inventing Page Rank and all these smart indexing algorithms - the whole raison d'être for Google - was exactly because some content was more deserving than other content. When I do the search for "maybe there is a god," MeFi doesn't show up until page 8 now. The first two pages of results are virtually all videos and lyrics related to a single 12-year-old Christian pop song. Which is available for sale on Google Play. Hmm.
- Lagged2Death 12y ago
  One thing I wanted to mention earlier, didn't have time: The pop song that comprises the first two pages of results for the "maybe there is a god" search is actually called "Mabye There's A Loving God." That's close to the search text, but it's not an exact match. The MeFi page mentioned in the article contains the exact phrase "maybe there is a god" in the title. And it shows up on page eight of my search results. That is ridiculous. You can argue that MeFi wasn't singled out on purpose, that algorithms change and there are bigger benefits elsewhere that I'm not seeing in this case and blah blah blah, and I don't know about any of that. No opinion. But I think you're going to have a hard time arguing that these search results are in any way more accurate, more relevant, or better than the older results were. And that is very much of a piece with recent, more general criticism of Google's search: That it's simply not as good, not as useful, as it used to be.
mbrubeck 12y ago
But this isn't just about MetaFilter dropping out of the top slots. Google is actively accusing other sites of spamming because MetaFilter users linked to them. Google has clearly miscategorized MetaFilter as a spam farm, and is penalizing it and others because of this algorithmic error.

by chasing 12y ago

dredmorbius 12y ago

Even if the prior position were unearned, the point that, perhaps, small changes in Google's algorithms can have dramatic influences over site rankings, with all the concomitant disruption that can entail, argues for conservatism on Google's part. Otherwise you're in the position of the philanthropist who, out of the goodness of his heart, supports some cause unreservedly ... until he doesn't. Suddenly withdrawn support has very real impacts. If there _was_ a specific strike against Metafilter, Google really ought explain. Actually, even if there wasn't. And it argues again against digital sharecropping, though that's harder and harder to avoid.

SoftwareMaven 12y ago

I think Auerbach laid out some cogent reasons why this should be questioned. A gradual decrease over time? Sure, expected. A sudden drop? That's an algorithmic hit, and when a site with good content (that is ranked well by other search engines) is hit negatively by the algorithm, it should be questioned. And, unfortunately, the only way to get Google to consider such a question is if enough people start echoing it.

gojomo 12y ago

Maybe webmasters have to take a "measured tone", lest they anger the "black box" further.

pbreit 12y ago

What do you mean it doesn't "deserve the top slot any more than any other content"? That doesn't make any sense at all. Obviously if it is the "best" answer to the search, then of course it "deserves" a high result. The author lists out some examples where this doesn't seem to be the case. I didn't find the article overdramatizing at all. In fact it was quite measured and completely reasonable. And the timing is obviously consistent with Metafilter's recent announcement. That a high quality site gets chopped in half doesn't bother you at all? And that Google's results seem off? Really, this doesn't deserve a mention?

TTPrograms 12y ago
What's the justification that metafilter is in fact the best result for some wide range of queries? The content these days doesn't look drastically superior to Reddit / Stack Overflow etc. The author mainly argues the value of the content by citing threads from 2004 to 2009. In order to make the point that Google has done something wrong here you need to demonstrate that there's actively superior content over there compared to the more mainstream communities, and the author doesn't persuade me.
- rhizome 12y ago
  The content these days doesn't look drastically superior to Reddit / Stack Overflow etc. There is zero spam, zero meme threads, an engaged and involved membership and, perhaps a glaringly-missing signal on Google's part, consistency over a long time. But even more than that, why would Ask Metafilter threads about e.g. renovating a kitchen rank lower than the 12 effectively-identical content-farm "howtos" from About, WikiHow, et al, that don't involve real people describing real experiences and knowledge? It's really a matter of prioritization, of what Google considers "superior," and I think there are some positive qualities that Google doesn't account for. Metafilter is certainly no worse for the Internet in general than Stack Exchange, doityourself.com, rottentomatoes, or other commonly high-ranked sites.
  - TTPrograms 12y ago
    >There is zero spam, zero meme threads, an engaged and involved membership and, perhaps a glaringly-missing signal on Google's part, consistency over a long time. I don't think this is drastically different from any of their competitors except the Reddit defaults, which are pretty much irrelevant for these purposes anyways (excluding consistency, which I don't really think is relevant when you're searching for something on Google). >But even more than that, why would Ask Metafilter threads about e.g. renovating a kitchen rank lower than the 12 effectively-identical content-farm "howtos" from About, WikiHow, et al, that don't involve real people describing real experiences and knowledge? I think About and WikiHow could lack the depth that Metafilter has, but they're going to win out on accessibility. I think a dedicated subreddit would win out on both fronts. If Google finds that people prefer accessibility, then that's what Google will deliver. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Lagged2Death 12y ago

...it doesn't "deserve" the top slots any more than any other content. I thought the whole deal with inventing Page Rank and all these smart indexing algorithms - the whole raison d'être for Google - was exactly because some content was more deserving than other content. When I do the search for "maybe there is a god," MeFi doesn't show up until page 8 now. The first two pages of results are virtually all videos and lyrics related to a single 12-year-old Christian pop song. Which is available for sale on Google Play. Hmm.

Lagged2Death 12y ago
One thing I wanted to mention earlier, didn't have time: The pop song that comprises the first two pages of results for the "maybe there is a god" search is actually called "Mabye There's A Loving God." That's close to the search text, but it's not an exact match. The MeFi page mentioned in the article contains the exact phrase "maybe there is a god" in the title. And it shows up on page eight of my search results. That is ridiculous. You can argue that MeFi wasn't singled out on purpose, that algorithms change and there are bigger benefits elsewhere that I'm not seeing in this case and blah blah blah, and I don't know about any of that. No opinion. But I think you're going to have a hard time arguing that these search results are in any way more accurate, more relevant, or better than the older results were. And that is very much of a piece with recent, more general criticism of Google's search: That it's simply not as good, not as useful, as it used to be.

mbrubeck 12y ago

But this isn't just about MetaFilter dropping out of the top slots. Google is actively accusing other sites of spamming because MetaFilter users linked to them. Google has clearly miscategorized MetaFilter as a spam farm, and is penalizing it and others because of this algorithmic error.