Google Launches MILLIONS of Doorway Pages
I mentioned this in our last post but it probably deserves a post of its own. ;)
Google has long claimed that search results inside search results are a poor user experience. They also claim their use of your content is fair use because it is only for ranking and distribution purposes.
Take a look at Google's deskbar subdomain. Google has created MILLIONS of pages on this subdomain:
These pages ARE ranking in the search results:
Google's quest to become the web is leading them to produce a lot of half done products (is eHow's content written at a higher level than Matt Cutts writes) & an increasing variety of bugs. These of course create opportunity for some folks, but a whole lot of pain for many folks who have done nothing wrong other than trusting Google to be competent & fair.
I understand ready, fire, aim on on beta tests or things for start ups, but should Google be doing this sort of silliness with a search service millions depend on?
So much of their originality algorithms determine what is the true source on the internet; the moment bugs like this appear, that trustworthiness is tarnished, and the people who poured sweat blood and tears into a product can be wiped out with a flip of a deskbar.google.com launch.
Comments
Here's hoping it's just sloppy work from some of the new generation of Googlers, and that the web spam team is still busy with "other projects" and not 100% paying attention.
I'd hate to think Google has decided to operate like this for the long term. Sad if that's the case (and I bet hard for some of the first generation of Googler's to stomach).
Reading level refers to complexity, not intelligence. Matt Cutts has a very spare, well-edited writing style. He uses short words and short sentences.
That's a good way to lower your "grade level," but it doesn't mean the writing is bad.
I get that Matt writes with great clarity. And his pages contain many short 3rd party comments on them, which often use great clarity as well. But I just find anything that says none of his writing is advanced & something like 1/4th of eHow's is ... well isn't that a bit weird?
For example sake I could have used my own blog instead of Matt's, but I thought some people would have seen the usage of any SEO sites as self-aggrandizing, self-serving and/or irrelevant...thus I compared to Matt's blog instead as a neutral 3rd party site people are familiar with.
your dig at matt's writing is surprising. we both know that his blog is not a google product, so it's odd that you're trying to call it a half done google product. i also agree with bryne; writing at a lower grade level is a good thing to do to reach a wider audience.
I wasn't taking a dig at Matt's writing. Matt is brilliant.
eHow writers, however, are generally *not* brilliant. (And those who are brilliant realize they are getting paid pennies on the Dollar for their work, so they likely quit soon or rush through work and do a half-assed job: just like any of the other content mills).
Thus something that tells me the content eHow is pumping out is above the level of a guy writing about convoluted & complex information retrieval issues is at best laughable.
I wasn't taking a dig at Matt's writing, rather I was taking a dig at that reading level filter.
This is a great post and just another sign of a continuing trend of Google seeing what they can get away with. They know they hold all the cards, and they seem to take advantage of that more and more often lately. More signs of this are the disputes they're having with Yelp and TripAdvisor over use of their user reviews in serps, and despite AdSense's recent stance against copyright violations, I've personally seen them ignore obvious violations. It is a shame to see a company that started off with such high ethical standards let them slip like this.
Why are these pages ranking in the search results?
Is there anything about them we can learn from as far as ranking our pages? Hummmm......
OR,.....Does Google rank anything they want to whenever they want to and therefore there is nothing to learn from the construction of these pages?
Seriously! Why are they ranking? Are we missing something?
I think not. This is simply another one of Googles completely nonsensical shenanigans.
What in the world are they doing? What a joke!
They're Google for goodness sake.
Well....actually there's no goodness about it. :-)
JohnRobbins
gotcha. it's easy to get lost in your posts sometimes. there's a lot of ideas coming together in each one. sorry for the mix up.
If you do a search for site:deskbar.google.com, it is no longer indexed on google. Perhaps they have listened, or am I missing something?
I think in the past 45 days something has happened to cause them to remove it from the index - perhaps they are watching :).
Add new comment