Topic awaiting preservation: Google search: "here"

I was thinking about how Google's page ranking system works, and how it uses links to a page to determine what that page is about. You know - we did the google bomb thing, where the idea was to get a ton of links to ozoneasylum.com with "mad scientists" in the link:

<a href="http://www.ozoneasylum.com/">mad scientists</a>

So that anyone who searched for "mad scientists" on Google would get to this page.

Anyway, I was thinking about how annoying it is that lots of people link to things with the word "here," as in, "You can find the example <a href="...">here</a>." (In this case, it would have been better for them to say something like "See the <a href="...">example</a>." But they didn't.)

So I was wondering what would happen if I searched Google for "here." Turns out it's a bunch of popular programs that can be downloaded! Undoubtedly, everyone links to them as "download the program <a href="...">here</a>."

There's Acrobat Reader, Macromedia, RealPlayer, QuickTime, IE, WinZip, Netscape, and Winamp all on the first two pages. Then there are non-download links, such as MapQuest, Yahoo, PayPal, Disney, even Google itself on page 3. And a ton more.

Isn't that cool? A single-word google search bringing up all of those things at once. Of course, it's not very useful, just sort of interesting.

Think of how much more useful Google would be if people actually linked to things correctly.

quote:

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Think of how much more useful Google would be if people actually linked to things correctly.

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I totally agree, Slime. People really need to start linking more responsibly and I have created a page that will advocate and emphasis correct linking and not this generic click here nonesense!!!

You can view it <a href="http://www.linkcorrectlydammit.org/">here</a>.



. . : slicePuzzle

The Good Linking Guide?

Bugs: that link doesn't work

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

*hangs head*... hrmph.
Yep, I'm guilty of that on a regular basis.
Sometimes I even do the ... "it's here, here and here" thing.

I'm quite the opposite -- I usually end up putting my links in nonsensical parts of my sentences in order to avoid the here issue.

From now on, all my hyperlinks will take be placed around the words "the" or "a."

You peaked my curiosity with that Slime...
Searching google for "the"...
The Onion comes up as the #1 result.... (The White House all the way down at 3rd)...
heh.
Just thought I'd share.

Wow, software companies have pretty bad linking practices (and so do all the people that support them apparently)

[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 04-15-2003).]

... and any half-decent, industrial-strength search engine ought to have a stop list which allows it to filter out (and not index) words like prepositions, pronouns, articles, numbers, reflexive verbs etc. etc. It goes along with the lexer, stemmer, soundex interpreter, and all the other tools used to build a searchable collection.


Bug-free software only exisits in two places
A programmer's mind and a salesman's lips

Well, if you use such words *in* your search string, it will exclude them.

However, if you use such words *as* your search string, it's only fair that it look for them.