undefined | Better HN

0 pointsRegnore2y ago0 comments

> It was removed because it was being gamed from the outset.

'Gamed' as in people would block the most ad-infested pages which just so happened to be the ones which made Google the most money?

0 comments

dazc2y ago

No, 'gamed' as in mass blocking one's competitor's results. If you think ads are bad you should take a peep into the world of 'negative seo'.

I can assure you that any solution you can think of that will improve web search will be used in the exact opposite way you imagine.

You can allow individuals to customize their own search results without having to use that more broadly.

I do this now. There are plenty of chrome plugins to block domains from the results.

flir2y ago

So Google was using the blocklists as a signal of site quality?

Seems the problem's not the blocking itself then, and the whole feature didn't need to be removed, just its use as a metric.

Was that feature not akin to the report button

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse