FC: Will Google stop indexing web logs? Poor reporting debunked...

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/comment/story/0,12449,959151,00.html

   The blog clog myth
   The row over whether webloggers are distorting Google search results
   is a storm in a teacup, writes Neil McIntosh
   Monday May 19, 2003

[...]

   ...some people have noticed that, for certain kinds
   of Google search the top references dug up by Google often come from
   weblogs. "Gah!" cry the searchers. "Those bloody weblogs are clogging
   up Google!" Among those who consider weblogs to be a mindless
   recycling of links and idle chatter by a vanishingly small number of
   net users, this is seen as a Bad Thing.

   Chief among those articulating this fear is Andrew Orlowski, San
   Francisco-based reporter for the Register, a UK-based tech news
   website. Recently, Orlowski has written a series of pieces accusing
   webloggers of distorting Google search results.

   A key exhibit in his case is the alleged "Googlewashing", or demotion
   down the Google results ranks, of one of his own stories. That story
   had - in turn - accused Google's search results of being heavily
   influenced by a tiny cabal of "big name" webloggers.

   It was an intriguing claim. But it was quite quickly undermined by
   some search engine experts, who called into question Orlowski's
   understanding of Google's admittedly complex technology, which works
   out which pages should be ranked highest in search results.

   Weblogs, by their nature (simple web pages with content that often
   relies, for context and richness, on numerous links, updated
   regularly) are bound to attract the attention of Google - a search
   that works partly by freshness, party by analysing page structure (the

   simpler the better) and mainly by looking at the links within those
   pages.

   Orlowski didn't let this deter him, however. Ten days ago, he wrote
   another story suggesting that Google was ready to fix its "blog noise
   problem" by removing weblogs from its main index and placing them in a
   specialised weblogs search.

   Unsurprisingly, this story sparked a huge online row, with bloggers
   horrified that their pages might be removed from Google proper. Others
   were left questioning the right of Google to decide what should be in
   the net's mainstream.

   But slowly, it is dawning that this claim is implausible too. The
   first big problem with the Register's claims? Google has not done
   anything to suggest it is going to strain out weblogs from its main
   index.

   What sparked Orlowski's second set of claims was a report from
   Reuters. In passing, the wire service story paraphrased Google's chief
   executive, Eric Schmidt, saying the company would soon unveil a
   specific weblog search. This has been expected for a couple of months.

   Nowhere did Schmidt, or the Reuters report, say weblogs would be
   removed from the main Google index.

   Nevertheless, this was the theme of the rest of the Register story,
   which was long on opinions from an unknown US undergraduate student
   and the chief technology officer of a Google rival, but remarkably
   short on comment from Google itself. It was essentially a thesis from
   Orlowski, based on the bald assertion that "it isn't clear if weblogs
   will be removed from the main search results, but precedent suggests
   they will be".

[...]




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