http://simonwillison.net/2008-05-22T18:09:27+00:00Simon Willison2008-05-22T18:09:27+00:002008-05-22T18:09:27+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2008/May/22/search/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-05-22-n16.html">Search Engine Optimization Through Hoax News</a></strong></p> Devious new black-hat SEO technique: invent a news story that’s pure link-bait. The recent “13 year old steals dad’s credit card to buy hookers” story was a hoax: it was a pure play for PageRank. <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/blackhat">blackhat</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/google">google</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/pagerank">pagerank</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/seo">seo</a></p>

2007-09-25T23:04:32+00:002007-09-25T23:04:32+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2007/Sep/25/firefox/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/25/1622229">Firefox 3 Antiphishing Sends Your URLs To Google</a></strong></p> Stories like this crop up every now and then, but no one ever seems to mention that the Google Toolbar has been doing this since it was released (more than five years ago) provided you have PageRank display turned on. <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/firefox">firefox</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/firefox3">firefox3</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/google">google</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/google-toolbar">google-toolbar</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/mozilla">mozilla</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/pagerank">pagerank</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/privacy">privacy</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/toolbars">toolbars</a></p>

2007-05-29T22:07:23+00:002007-05-29T22:07:23+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2007/May/29/top/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="http://xssed.com/pagerank">Top XSS exploits by PageRank</a></strong></p> Yahoo!, MSN, Google, YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook all feature. <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/facebook">facebook</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/google">google</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/msn">msn</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/pagerank">pagerank</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/security">security</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/xss">xss</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/yahoo">yahoo</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/youtube">youtube</a></p>

2007-05-29T22:03:40+00:002007-05-29T22:03:40+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2007/May/29/xssed/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="http://xssed.com/">XSSed</a></strong></p> Cross-site scripting resource and vulnerabilities archive, including reported (unpatched) holes ordered by PageRank. <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/pagerank">pagerank</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/security">security</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/xss">xss</a></p>

2007-01-22T19:27:46+00:002007-01-22T19:27:46+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2007/Jan/22/nofollow/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-01-22-n21.html">Wikipedia nofollows links</a></strong></p> Wikipedia’s high PageRank means this is likely to have a noticable knock-on effect on the rankings of many other sites. <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/nofollow">nofollow</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/pagerank">pagerank</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/wikipedia">wikipedia</a></p>

2004-02-06T16:58:23+00:002004-02-06T16:58:23+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2004/Feb/6/dangers/#atom-tag

<p>A well documented side effect of the weblog format is that it brings Google PageRank in almost absurd quantities. I'm now the 5th result for <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=simon" title="Google Search: simon">simon</a> on Google, and I've been the top result for <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=simon+willison">simon willison</a> almost since the day I launched. High rankings however are not always a good thing, especially when combined with a comment system. A growing number of bloggers have found themselves at the top position for terms of little or no relevance to the rest of their sites, which in turn can attract truly surreal comments from visitors from search engines who may never have encountered a blog before.</p> <p>I know of a couple of entries on my own blog that are attracting this kind of traffic. The most interesting is probably <a href="/2003/Aug/13/artificialDiamonds/">this entry</a> on <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=artificial+diamonds" title="Google Search: artificial diamonds">artifical diamonds</a>, which has attracted comments from both buyers and sellers of artificial gems. My <a href="/2002/Dec/09/badInterfaceDesignFromMicrosof/">entry</a> on MSN messenger usability problems from 2002 has drawn a steady stream of hilarious comments, no doubt caused in part by its top rating on Google for <a href="http://www.google.com/search?msn+messenger+sucks" title="Google Search: msn messenger sucks">msn messenger sucks</a>. Amusingly, for a long time <a href="http://search.msn.com/">Microsoft's own search engine</a> was giving my page a high rank for a wide variety of less negative messenger related terms.</p> <p>My own experiences of this phenomenon pale in to significance to some of the others I've seen. The most impressive example has to be Jason Kottke's <a href="http://www.kottke.org/03/05/the-matrix-reloaded">brief review</a> of the Matrix Reloaded, which drew over 900 comments from Google strays, developed its own micro-community and resulted in Jason pondering <a href="http://www.kottke.org/03/06/own-conversation">who owns the conversation on my web site?</a> Jason eventually deciding to close and archive the thread after the page grew to more than a megabyte in size.</p> <p>The problem can take on a far more disturbing twist. I won't link directly to these entries for fear of adding to their predicaments, but searches for <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=crime+scene+cleanup" title="Google Search: crime scene cleanup">crime scene cleanup</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=suicide+chat+rooms" title="Google Search: suicide chat rooms">suicide chat rooms</a> both return blogs in the first two results. The former thread is mostly crime scene cleanup companies marketing their services, but the latter is quite frankly disturbing. It's certainly lead me to double check the titles of my entries before posting them.</p> <p>Thankfully, avoiding this kind of unwanted comment traffic is pretty simple. One way is to simply disable comments for entries older than a certain time (generally a couple of weeks), although personally I like to see the occasional comment on old entries. A neater solution proposed by Russell Beattie last year is to simply <a href="http://www.beattie.info/notebook/1003990.html" title="Googler Comments">hide comments from search engine referrals</a>, thus ensuring that random strays won't leave their mark without understanding the nature of your site first.</p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/blogging">blogging</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/jason-kottke">jason-kottke</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/pagerank">pagerank</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/seo">seo</a></p>