Topic awaiting preservation: Google going to separate blogs

Its not fully clear what Google are up to but it looks like they will develop a way to separate blogs from other pages:
www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30621.html

I am curious how they are going to define blogs as they aren't much more than a fancy news script. Also while 90% of the contents is rubish I have found quite a number to be extremely useful. It will be interesting to see what comes of this - part of the problem is the way Google assigns page rankings which gives things like blog rolling particular influence.

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Emps

The Emperor dot org

I like the idea of having an option of turing blogs on and off, but I can't understand how Google is going to manage it. Having 'bought' Blogger they might be able to sort out everyone who uses that software to maintain their blogs, but there are still a lot of people around that use other programs that will then go untouched.

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"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio -

95% of 'blog rollers' I've seen are using either greymatter or moveable type, wouldn't be too hard to key on those and filter them out, this theoretical 95%

Jason

hmm...interesting. I don't know if they would be able to filter out ALL of them, but it's going to be interesting to see this working.

Later,

C:\


~Binary is best~

I use the "95% rule" to describe the number of stupid people on the planet.

Jason notes the "95% rule" to describe blog rollers.


Coincidence?


probably.

Couldn't possibly be coincedence =)

95% sounds about right to me...

And unless they go through and sort content by hand (to use a phrase from the print era), they'll only up catching the mindless rabble...

Yes, I think I like this idea.


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Suho: www.liminality.org

But... ... what about Wiki?

Wiki isn't really blog. Blog implies one person posting their view on stuff with, possibly, comments from other people. Wiki is a big collabarative document set

Yes, but they both essentially work the same. How is Google going to distinguish between the two, or forums, or... etc. as they're both just server-side technologies supplying html pages? A few people even use a wiki as a blog. I realize the 'content' of blogs is usually crap and I'm glad Google is doing something like this; I'm just concerned other useful things might get buried in the process.

[Cell 1303]

Hey! There's a line in that article that perfectly describes the average blogger (apparently)

"Dense and incestuous"

[This message has been edited by Skaarjj (edited 10-25-2003).]

Glad to see that google is trying to sanitize the index by removing some of the ejaculate.

One option might be to exclude all by default but have the option for submission/review like the DMOZ/ODP project.

Rooster: I would imagine that Google would err on the side of underfiltering rather than overfiltering... ie, they might base their filtering on blog-specific technologies, such as Blogger or MT.

And anyway, I agree with the idea behind this. I mean, if you're looking for blog content, you should be able to get that, but if you don't want it, you shouldn't have to wade through it.

[Edit: And while I'm at it, would it be too much for The Register to actually proofread its articles before posting them? It's painful to read them sometimes.]

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Suho: www.liminality.org

Blogs (along with forums and wikis) are just another way of easily presenting fine-grained information online and lets be honest if 90% of blogs are rubbish so are 90% of websites out there the problem is the undue prominence that they can get in Google's results which isn't really the blogs fault in the end so I wonder if the changes might be in an attempt to tweak their algorithm to take this into account - we'll see.

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Emps

The Emperor dot org

Ha! They'll never catch us hand-rollers

Yikes ... Hope my Roadside Headlines don't fall by the wayside ...

Pardon my ignorance but what is a "blog roller?"

:::11oh1:::

A blog roller, like blogger or moveable type, is a script that allows you to type up a message to be put into your blog, and it will automatically format it, display it...it also can do things like allow user comments, auto-archiving, etc...and hwen you add your next entry it rolls the current ones down the page and put the new one in the top....at least, that's the way I see it

...whereas a "blog roll" is a list of links to other blogs from your own blog, and is how popular blogs rank so highly on Google. "Blog rolling" would be the act of linking to other blogs, or possibly the act of simply "blogging." A "blog roller" would be blogging software, as Skaarjj said, or it could be a person that blogs, or is that "blogger?" Confusing, is it not?


[EDIT: At least, this is what I've been led to believe ]



[This message has been edited by ozphactor (edited 10-26-2003).]

[This message has been edited by ozphactor (edited 10-26-2003).]

I wasn't aware that people used the term "blog roller." I've heard "blog roll," and Zeldman uses "to roll" as a synonym for "to code" (like ozphactor used above, in "They'll never catch us hand-rollers!"). I think that might contribute to the confusion. If I had to choose between "blog roller" describing either software or a person, I'd choose the person definition, most likely because I'm more influenced by Zeldman and I've never actually used blogging software.


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Suho: www.liminality.org

Yes its not clear what DG means but a blog roll is where you have a list of links to other blogs - this really screws with Google algorithim as the links to the other blogs appear on every page and so they were able to do stuff like Googlebombing through their blog roll and famous bloggers were getting number one position for their Christian names and stuff.

Has anyone really had any problems where blogs were throwing out useless results? I have found them very useful for finding very specific solutions to problems. I do think Google needs to do something about trackback links as they can generate lots of useless results.

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Emps

The Emperor dot org

I never really got the point of trackbacks... I think they should be eliminated completely from Google results. I mean, aren't they just duplicating information that's already out there (worse, actually, since they're merely producing a link with an excerpt of duplicated information)?

Ah, so it was Jason and DG who used it above... I think they are using the term to mean "people who blog roll," just judging by context.


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Suho: www.liminality.org

There's a particular flash developers blog that keeps poluting my google searches and it's really starting to piss me off. He's somehow recording the refering URL from previous google hits and then printing that information on the bottom of several of his pages as HTML links back to google searches. So you go to his site, only to find fuck all information about your problem and a link back to google with the exact same search you just did!

If google can remove that nit wit from my searches, I'll be very thankfull.

Wow, that is just... wrong. Forget blocking him from Google searches... I'd firebomb his server if I knew where it resided


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Suho: www.liminality.org

LOL - I am doing something similar although it must have some information to get in Google in the first place. When used right it can be a very useful tool as it can suggest other potential searches for people.

The only solution is for you to jot down the answers to your searches and kick his ass in Google

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Emps

The Emperor dot org

I notied you had some weird linking stuff happening on your website. I often do a google search on "Dracusis" to see if anyone is using that nick name and your site came up!

But what's worse, I found some little 14 year old counter strike punk has stolen my net nick!... if I ever find him playing ghost recon he's going down...

Dracusis: LOL - I saw that search pop up and assumed it was you

[edit: I'd drawing up a list of other people calling themselves Emperor online so we can go and kick their asses too]

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Emps

The Emperor dot org

I was so pissed off two days ago when I found 'Petskull' was taken on AIM....

had to go with 'PetskullSt'...

[This message has been edited by Petskull (edited 10-29-2003).]

I use Google all the time, but I hardly ever get a blog.
However, I'm sick of About.com polluting whole pages of results.
Is there a switch for that? Like -about.com?

Yes, I would also love to see the death of about.com.

Haha, yes, about.com must die!

In theory, the site sounds like a good idea - have articles written by people who are experts in their respective fields - but more often than not, all they do is clutter my searches with irrelevent results

[EDIT: Oh, and warjournal: -site:www.about.com should do it ]



[This message has been edited by ozphactor (edited 10-30-2003).]

yes...that does indeed do it, but take out the www since about.com works almost exclusivly on different subdomains