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If Googleplex Employees Don’t Understand The Webmaster Guidelines, How Can They Expect Webmasters To Adhere To Them?
Searching News Source: http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com
Published: May 28, 2008 - 08:30 am
Story Found By: mvandemar 1823 Days ago
Category: Searching
Some confusion over an interpretation of one of Google Webmaster Guidelines.
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from NickWilsdon 1823 Days ago #
Votes: 1

I think we’ve jumped the shark as far as examining Google’s Guidelines go. It’s become fairly obvious over the last year that they encompass any activity which (1) Google doesn’t approve of, (2) sees as threatening to their business model or (3) has succeeded in manipulating their SERPs. I don’t think we should get bogged down in the details anymore. Maybe just replace them with that last sentence? ;)

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from Rhea 1823 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Sphunn, but I don’t think I agree with the assessment. I’d personally block those pages since you’re not just adding screenshots, but full dupes of cached results. Why did you need the source vs a screenshot? Google’s guideline may be for large automated search results pages, but I think the bottom line is they don’t want to send anyone to something that makes the individual drill down further. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but I do see where the issue is taken to a completely different level by not just providing search results, but using Google’s own results. I know why you did it, but Google can’t measure intent, at least not that well. As for the entire subdirectory getting deindexed, that’s a bit harsh, but so is using "Google’s" content. If you’re going to continue using pages like that place them in their own subdirectory and block the whole thing keeping your images and posts separate.Just my .02 and interested in seeing other’s responses.

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from mvandemar 1823 Days ago #
Votes: 0

@Rhea, there’s no reason I should have to block that content. It’s not duplicate, since the only time I use it is for content that I have strong reason to believe will change. These are not search results in the standard sense, since they are no longer dynamically created. They are strictly stored for historical discussion purposes. I started doing this last year, when people were discussing a post Rand Fishkin did, and were constantly referring to serps that no longer existed, and people kept getting confused.As far as me using "Google’s" content, which in this case is made up of snippets of other people’s websites, considering what they are going through right now for them using Viacom’s content, I doubt that is the actual issue at hand with this.That Guideline really doesn’t apply in this case. Googlebot crawling and indexing html search forms is more of a violation than what I am doing.

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from Rhea 1823 Days ago #
Votes: 1

lol, I agree with the latter.Responding to your Twitter question, let me be clear that I don’t think this should be a violation. Ideally they should deindex just those pages, but not the entire subdirectory. I’m playing devil’s advocate though. I’d be interested in hearing from Google if they’re sophisticated enough to separate pages like this from full subdirectories. I think their arguement would be that most site owners aren’t web savvy enough to do what you did, so it throws a spam flag when they find it. With that in mind they would also probably argue that someone with your level of understanding should be able to make adjustments to avoid this problem.Again, just playing devil’s advocate. As an individual with a harmless situation, you have to see how this behavior can quickly become abused and understand Google’s sensitivity towards it. They can’t measure intent that well. Best protection from the angry Google toddler... prevention. Keep him fed, rested and changed and you reduce the chances of temper tantrums.  ;-)

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from mvandemar 1823 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I still think it has to be something else going on, just no clue what. I mean, banning a subdirectory...?As far as separating the images from the text, I’m pretty sure that’s not confusing them. Someone else suggested that it might be throwing the bot off, but if you think about it Wordpress throws all types of content into a single "uploads" folder when you use it’s built in functionality. The most it will separate is content uploaded at different dates... varying filetypes all get lumped together.In fact, the only thing that should really matter is the mime type. Even extensions are not definitive to what type of content is being delivered, since scripts like PHP and CGI can be used to create images on the fly as well.Love the toddler analogy though. :PIf in fact someone has mistakenly flipped some kind of penalty somewhere based on this, then I think that instead of blindly changing it and saying "oh, yeah, that seems wrong" there should instead be some sort of clarification on the issue. John didn’t actually ever say that was the problem though, just that I should block that content before asking someone to look further.

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