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

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Mon May 19 2003 - 20:00:12 PDT

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    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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