I wish every search engine had this feature:

[httpwebwitch]

blacklisting!

If I really hate a site, I would like to blacklist it so it never shows up in my search results.

There is a well-konwn technology "experts" site (you may know the one I mean), which allows itself to be indexed by the bots, but they cloak and hide their content behind a paid subscription. How many times have I been tricked into visiting them looking for the answer to a tech question, and been stopped by their "pay me for this" page?

Blacklist 'em!

Or how about that one that is just a barfed-up directory of tagged articles on other sites? They rank extremely well for a lot of programming terms, but they don't actually have any content.

Blacklist 'em!

What good is the "remove this" feature in Google? When I refresh the SERPs, it's back again. I want a "remove this" that actually removes it - the entire domain - forever.

I want a blacklist that is customized and personalized. Dandy that there are so many ways to keep a list of your favourites. How about a service that lets you keep a list of the ones you hate, and never want to see again?

I've wanted this for a couple of years. At one point I started working on a Firefox extension that did it for me - but all that did was obscure blacklisted links on the page with a black rectangle. I want the ENGINES to do this, so wen I ask for 10 results, I'll get 10 results with my "exclude" list already excluded.

Listen up, Goog and Bing!
I want blacklisting!

Anyone with me here?

[buckworks]

Oooh, yeah, I'll second that! :)

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I'll go along with that. It really annoys me. The SEs should not index any material that is not freely available to view. If the websites are designed to trick the SEs into doing this then they should be banned like any of the rest of us would!

Grrrrr!

[piatkow]

Me too. I was trying to resolve a problem earlier this week and the most useful looking result required payment.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Doesn't this come under Google's definition of Cloaking?

"Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines. Serving up different results based on user agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and removed from the Google index."

What would happen if we all started to report these websites for cloaking?

[topr8]

yes i agree to an extent, but of course they would use the data (eg. that you have blacklisted that site) ... so a whole new spamming can of worms is opened.

BTW. if this is the 'well know technology site' i'm thinking of ...

if you scroll right down to the bottom of the page, i mean all the way down to the bottom below all the blanked out replies, can't you see the answer?

[edited by: topr8 at 10:38 am (utc) on Sep. 18, 2009]

[bhonda]

Man...I'm with you with this.

Literally, word for word.

But topr8, you're right - took me years of getting annoyed with that site before being told that you could do that...it's actually quite useful now!

obviously, first port of call is always WebmasterWorld!

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Wow, I didn't know that. I suppose they have to do that to remain in the index?

[httpwebwitch]

re: the site that I accused of cloaking, they must have changed their ways. For the longest time their "real" content was not visible. I'm pretty sure it was hidden with CSS.

I'd still like to blacklist them, because I'm a spiteful grinch. (until I've had my morning coffee)

@topr8, you're correct; if Goog/Bing use the blacklist data to affect rankings, that would qualify as creating a vulnerability for malicious SEO poisoning. I'd hope they'd be consientious enough not use blacklisting as a factor in their algo.

[kaled]

On the tech site in question, the answer is often at the bottom, but not always. I have tended to avoid it or use the google cache. Whilst I have found answers there, it has also been a source of great annoyance if I've clicked on the link without noticing the website.

Personal black-lists should be possible (I think it's been mooted before) but maybe there's a speed issue. I'd also like to see search engines provide a few options on-page such as number of results, and whether to offer suggestions or not. Sometimes suggestions are useful, especially if you're not sure of a spelling, but other times it's annoying, especially if you're trying to repeat a search done previously.

Kaled.

[rocknbil]

technology "experts" site (you may know the one I mean),

YES. I do. Annoying to the point of disdain. However, remember Oz. The little man behind the curtain doesn't have all the answers, and answers are better found elsewhere. The same gurus you find there are found in many other places.

I've just become more aware when scanning results for this URL.

I'm so glad to see some of the reactions in this thread . . . for years I thought it was just my temperament. LOL

[john_k]

I've seen two of these expert sites that show up often. One always has the answers way down at the bottom. The other doesn't. I use the first often and don't mind doing the scrolling. And the second, I ignore it so completely now that I hardly notice when it shows up in my search results.

As far as the sites allowing Google to index into the pay-for-content, doesn't Google make specific allowance for this? Alot of news and research sites do the same thing. It's not cloaking in the normal manner. That is, they aren't pretending to have content that they don't have.

[blend27]

Are you talking about the one that had its domain name changed to a Hyphenated version of it due to silliness of the meaning? I never found anything useful on that site and don't visit the site at all, it ranks, but not for my group of developers that use SEs to find answers.

[willybfriendly]

I hate to me too, but...

Me Too!

The tech site in question is great example, but there are others too - probably one in every niche.

Ever looked for what a .dll does?

[swa66]

I've tried to report a few networks of sites for cloaking in the past, even to the point where they use up nearly all page one results on some (obscure) keywords. GOOG is given content on all the spammed sites, but the rest of us is given a 301 to a for pay site.

But to this day there never has been action as far as I can tell.

Allowing us a blacklist this site for me "forever" button would be good. Google could then manually review those sites that often get backlisted and see if they might not want to ban them globally for violating the webmaster guidelines.

Seems like cheap quality control input to me.

[httpwebwitch]

>> the one that had its domain name changed to a Hyphenated version of it

yes blend27, that's the one. And I love that story behind the need for hyphenation. classic - hahaha

I didn't intend for this thread to focus on that one site, it's merely an example of one site I would add to my personal blacklist...