Author Topic: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?  (Read 2009 times)

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Offline coppercone2Topic starter

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should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« on: January 16, 2021, 08:23:35 am »
Would anyone else like to see a google paywall filter for news and such?

Is anything in the works about this issue right now? I find it annoying, it brings the utility of the search engine down unless you are looking to spend money. perhaps reclassify the results to show up under google shopping??
 

Offline amyk

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2021, 09:18:56 pm »
Keep in mind where Google's primary revenue comes from, and you can see why they'd never do such a thing.
 

Offline JohnnyMalaria

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2021, 09:43:33 pm »
Use Bing. I find the results much more relevant.
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2021, 10:46:01 pm »
Would anyone else like to see a google paywall filter for news and such?

Is anything in the works about this issue right now? I find it annoying, it brings the utility of the search engine down unless you are looking to spend money. perhaps reclassify the results to show up under google shopping??
Google isn't in the business of pleasing you. If they could generate revenue pissing you off continually they'd do it without question.
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2021, 10:46:40 pm »
Use Bing. I find the results much more relevant.
Now there's a combination of words I never expected to see.
 
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Offline langwadt

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2021, 10:47:48 pm »
Would anyone else like to see a google paywall filter for news and such?

Is anything in the works about this issue right now? I find it annoying, it brings the utility of the search engine down unless you are looking to spend money. perhaps reclassify the results to show up under google shopping??

some sites pretend to be free by letting the google bot in for free
 

Offline tom66

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2021, 11:00:28 pm »
some sites pretend to be free by letting the google bot in for free

Google has been clamping down on things like that.  Googlebot doesn't always advertise itself as Googlebot, and if it detects you're serving content that's tailored to Google,  goodbye top spot.
 

Offline coppercone2Topic starter

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2021, 11:31:41 pm »
Would anyone else like to see a google paywall filter for news and such?

Is anything in the works about this issue right now? I find it annoying, it brings the utility of the search engine down unless you are looking to spend money. perhaps reclassify the results to show up under google shopping??
Google isn't in the business of pleasing you. If they could generate revenue pissing you off continually they'd do it without question.

what google is in the business of is making sure that Bing does not show up in google thread. A decade ago that would be like saying to use elmers glue to gel your hair, now it seems like a serious replacement. If enough people switch default search to Bing from Google they might get fucked.
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #8 on: January 17, 2021, 01:10:05 am »
what google is in the business of is making sure that Bing does not show up in google thread. A decade ago that would be like saying to use elmers glue to gel your hair, now it seems like a serious replacement. If enough people switch default search to Bing from Google they might get fucked.
Again, if they're making money they don't give two shits. Remember Microsoft bring hell-bent on destroying Linux? They've transformed their business and are now actively selling Linux options. Google isn't a search engine company and hasn't been in a long time. Keeping you happy isn't a requirement for their business, whether you use Google or not.
 

Offline JohnnyMalaria

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #9 on: January 17, 2021, 04:17:14 am »
Use Bing. I find the results much more relevant.
Now there's a combination of words I never expected to see.

I'm known for doing the unexpected. People expect it.
 

Offline AlexJackson

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #10 on: January 17, 2021, 03:20:13 pm »
Would anyone else like to see a google paywall filter for news and such?

Is anything in the works about this issue right now? I find it annoying, it brings the utility of the search engine down unless you are looking to spend money. perhaps reclassify the results to show up under google shopping??

some sites pretend to be free by letting the google bot in for free

Years ago, I used to have my browser's useragent set as a legitimate googlebot agent (but with a comcast IP, go figure). It was amazing how nice the web was, but as soon as I used a normal user agent, things got hostile. Invasive ads, paywalls, crappy scripting, etc. Nowadays with the likes of cloudflare, and site security, doing that now throws all kinds of issues, or doesnt change a thing since it checks against IPs vs user agents. It may work on some old sites that haven't updated anything in the last 15 years.

Nowadays I have to use other engines to get results. Google is the last resort. It also seems all of them have gotten worse in the last decade too. I can do a search for stuff, "animal house" -movie... and only see results about the movie... Deleting the "-movie" query, and I get all kinds of useless mixed results. When did search booleans change to default "or" on all the words in a search query? Another time I was looking at php create select menu libraries, and my search query got so long, one of google's "related searches" was.... "how to hire a hitman".... "Childrens vitamins"... "parental dna testing"... What? Bing was out in the deep end too, but not that far out there.
 

Offline David Hess

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #11 on: January 17, 2021, 06:30:36 pm »
I always wish that Google had a way to make a list of excluded sites for search results.  Pinterest would be at the top of mine.

But I agree, it would be nice to be able to exclude all pay sites from search results.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2021, 06:57:31 pm by David Hess »
 

Offline Nominal Animal

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #12 on: January 17, 2021, 06:44:00 pm »
I fondly remember the times when +term and -term ensured term was/was not in the resulting pages, and when "multi-word phrase" was treated as an exact search term..

But I don't really blame Google.  I blame the massive crowds of idiots, who are so stupid that they need/prefer services that treat them as idiots.

While there is more and more content available out there, less and less of it is actually useful; most of it is just, well, entertainment.
 

Offline coppercone2Topic starter

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #13 on: January 17, 2021, 08:35:27 pm »
what google is in the business of is making sure that Bing does not show up in google thread. A decade ago that would be like saying to use elmers glue to gel your hair, now it seems like a serious replacement. If enough people switch default search to Bing from Google they might get fucked.
Again, if they're making money they don't give two shits. Remember Microsoft bring hell-bent on destroying Linux? They've transformed their business and are now actively selling Linux options. Google isn't a search engine company and hasn't been in a long time. Keeping you happy isn't a requirement for their business, whether you use Google or not.

that is short term business thinking. their success at other services is because of the name, people go 'oh yea google that is pretty good I bet they can do other stuff good'.

i.e. old ibm

talk about ibm now and it is a joke

Eventually when it sucks enough another provider is going to win because they are associated with bringing you higher quality stuff. In like 2007 you were almost considered a noob if you are using Bing search. Now its actually better some times, in a pure performance sense, without politics inserted into it.

I find duckduckgo actually gave me useful information I needed on some search terms, google was giving me irrelevant trash. I was used to getting answers from search engines not corporate offers.

I wonder how skewed political knowledge is now just based on what articles are free (so what slant you end up getting for free when you want to research a story). Political education :palm:. There is probobly a generation of young people with some messed up world view because they put together a narrative from a cobble together of information based solely on price.

I almost imagine the mind of such a person to be a shanty put up by robinson crusoe with whatever the sea decided to give them for free. Talk about political disruption! i don't know if its well cultured or totally insane. (landing gear used to hold up bamboo and suit case pieces ???). I doubt you end up with a nice fusion of different 'political cultures' this way. I am imagining arduinos powered by hot wire resistors and germanium rectifiers here. I am educated about issue #1 because I got a free link on the first click but issue #2 gave me 3 paywalls in a row so I decided to give up and read a youtube comment to educate myself.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2021, 08:47:30 pm by coppercone2 »
 

Offline cdev

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #14 on: January 17, 2021, 09:05:22 pm »
This is a matter of principle for them. Being a company that has shamelessly commercialized free everything.

Would anyone else like to see a google paywall filter for news and such?

Is anything in the works about this issue right now? I find it annoying, it brings the utility of the search engine down unless you are looking to spend money. perhaps reclassify the results to show up under google shopping??

So the answer is no, they would never do that. Really, they should be broken up. Setting up a search engine is not rocket science.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2021, 09:08:25 pm by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline coppercone2Topic starter

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Re: should google derank or seperate paywalled websites?
« Reply #15 on: January 17, 2021, 09:59:37 pm »
how about a tab that says 'google shopping for news' rather then product shopping :-DD
 


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