3 ms·

Except your network connection to a site is going to be drastically different than Google's. Case in point: My datacenter directly peers with Comcast, so I get

by timdorr 17y ago

Except your network connection to a site is going to be drastically different than Google's. Case in point: My datacenter directly peers with Comcast, so I get <7ms pings from home. Google gets around 35ms. It would be like comparing the drive to a particular location using completely different starting points. Plus, people would start doing all sorts of tricks to boost their ranking. Serving static, cached files for Google and giving everyone else a slow, dynamic site. It's way too easy to abuse.

mseebach 17y ago
It's a challenge, but one that can be overcome. Google just needs to figure out a reasonable baseline latency to subtract - for that, there's ping, ping the previous host on the route, latency to other hosts with close IPs, GeoIP+a database of baseline latency to sites in the same area etc. And the tricks will be dealt with the same way as now: If you're caught doing them, you're blacklisted. But this will be less of an issue in this case: If you've taken the trouble to set up caches that you can direct Google to -- why not direct your actual users to that too?
- timdorr 17y ago
  But you're assuming location is all that matters. Certain network providers, no matter how close they are to you, just have shitty, overloaded networks. The cache trick is that Google doesn't need to see dynamic content as much as the user does. Example: Any site that's based on user selection to determine customization. I might need to see recommended content that's based on a very complex algorithm that takes a while to generate the page. Whereas Google just needs to see a page. Cache for Google, generate from scratch for everyone else.
  - mseebach 17y ago
    Googles crawlers are located all over the place, and especially for the latency score, they should hit the site from a few different locations, as well as different times of day. The cache trick is the same for not-logged-in users as well as for Google. If you're showing the same page to more than one user (and you should be, for your not-logged-in users), you should cache it and show everyone that. If show Google a few hours old version (that you wouldn't want users to see) you'll be punished with the current rules. If you're only showing content to logged-in users, Google can't see anything, anyway.

by timdorr 17y ago

mseebach 17y ago

It's a challenge, but one that can be overcome. Google just needs to figure out a reasonable baseline latency to subtract - for that, there's ping, ping the previous host on the route, latency to other hosts with close IPs, GeoIP+a database of baseline latency to sites in the same area etc. And the tricks will be dealt with the same way as now: If you're caught doing them, you're blacklisted. But this will be less of an issue in this case: If you've taken the trouble to set up caches that you can direct Google to -- why not direct your actual users to that too?

timdorr 17y ago
But you're assuming location is all that matters. Certain network providers, no matter how close they are to you, just have shitty, overloaded networks. The cache trick is that Google doesn't need to see dynamic content as much as the user does. Example: Any site that's based on user selection to determine customization. I might need to see recommended content that's based on a very complex algorithm that takes a while to generate the page. Whereas Google just needs to see a page. Cache for Google, generate from scratch for everyone else.
- mseebach 17y ago
  Googles crawlers are located all over the place, and especially for the latency score, they should hit the site from a few different locations, as well as different times of day. The cache trick is the same for not-logged-in users as well as for Google. If you're showing the same page to more than one user (and you should be, for your not-logged-in users), you should cache it and show everyone that. If show Google a few hours old version (that you wouldn't want users to see) you'll be punished with the current rules. If you're only showing content to logged-in users, Google can't see anything, anyway.