Blekko shows your other sites with the same adsense pub id

[koan]

If you search the domain name of a site that contains adsense ads with blekko, it displays a link called "adsense" in the results and if you click on it, it'll display all the other sites it knows using the same adsense pub id. I know some other sites provide this service, but at least people have to pay for it so it's not public information for any casual visitors, or worse, people who will reuse that info in some mashed up, scrappy site.

Considering this is rather personal information, I'm deliberating blocking this new search engine in my robots.txt file as it isn't really bringing any traffic, it's using my bandwidth and it's already pushing some boundaries regarding my privacy. As a webmaster, I know we should be open to new search technologies and give a chance to new comers, but what have I to gain really by allowing them to crawl my sites so far if the negatives outweigh the positives?

[martinibuster]

You're not missing anything. No other search engine has ever given out that information. Only blekko does that.

I've searched my publisher id in the past and the worst I could find were incompetent scrapers who copy/pasted my source code.

[incrediBILL]

You're not missing anything. No other search engine has ever given out that information. Only blekko does that.

I'm curious, Brett must know something or he wouldn't just throw that out there, would he?

[Brett_Tabke]

My bad. I backtracked someone through their adsense code this summer. Bill has pointed out, it must have been through an adsense search. I thought I had used google to backtrack them, but it must have been through another service. (we subscribe to most of the url tool/engines)

[nmfam]

Ironically, if you search for your pub ID via Blekko, it will return results of a couple other engines (no name engines, not Y or B) that also make this data accessible. Did for me anyway. ;)

[piatkow]

Never heard of these guys until I found this thread.
They have taken the description of the site from DMOZ which looks like a rip off of Google who did the same thing
Checking the Adsense link they include pages deleted up to a year ago.
Their cache has stripped out Adsense ads and Amazon affiliate links and also ordinary images. In my view that is no longer a legitimate cache but straight forwared theft of my intellectual property.

[nmfam]

Theft because they're showing your content without showing your ads? How do you feel about Google showing excerpts of your content on their serps that had the answers people are looking for (increasingly targeted) and now even snapshot views of your site, such that they don't need to visit your site as often to get what they need? And Google just shows their own ads on these serps. Is that theft? :)

[wheel]

You're talking about two entirely different things. Showing excerpts or snippets is well known as fair use. Showing entire PAGES of content is another matter entirely. I don't understand how anyone can see that as anything other than theft - made worse by the fact that they publish it even when asked not to through the use of the noarchive tag.

Google's useage is no excuse - lots of folks don't like what Google's doing either.

[piatkow]

@nmfam
The topic of this thread is Blekko not Google. What I think about G is not relevant to my complaint that Blekko are a bunch of theiving "love children",

[nmfam]

Wheel & Piatkow - I disagree with ya both. Step back a step or two from your complaining and consider it from a bigger picture. The world is shades of gray, and that's all that seperates these two things. if you're going to say something is wrong, then the boundaries of what is right and wrong need to be defined too. Otherwise, you're arbitrarily assuming the world to be black and white.

IMO - Its the same issue, with 2 contendors playing the same game, just in different ways, and arguably at different levels.

> "Showing excerpts or snippets is well known as fair use."

Ha ..... ooooookay. So if I beat up your little brother every day and steal his lunch money, that too becomes fair use at some point, if enough time passes, or not enough social resistance is mounted against me?

Bottom line - they're both using other people's content for their own gain, without compensation being paid to the person from whom they're borrowing. The differences here are trivial really, particularly when you see where Google is going with this in the next couple years.

[netmeg]

But does not fall under the scope of THIS item, which is about Blekko proving the link to AdSense information. There's another item in the alternate search engine forum where you can post about that.

I don't really understand why Blekko is providing a link to that information. To what purpose? I was intrigued by the idea of Blekko when I first took out an account while it was in beta, but I have to say I'm pretty disappointed; between this and the NOARCHIVE issue, I not only won't use it, but I'll probably end up blocking all my and my clients' sites from it.

I wouldn't say I had an expectation of privacy; maybe "discretion" is a better word. I mean, my bra size is no state secret, and anyone who's ever met and who knows about such things could probably make an educated guess. But that doesn't mean I want a link to it in a search engine. I feel the same way about my AdSense (and Analytics) accounts.

[onepointone]

No other search engine has ever given out that information

hmm, when I search Google using 'pub-################', it shows most of my adsense sites, either directly or through 3rd party (info finder sites).
Same with other pub id's.

I guess I'm missing something, thought this was common knowledge.

[netmeg]

I don't. And I have quite a few sites, which are not new but in fact pre-date Google.

[farmboy]

hmm, when I search Google using 'pub-################', it shows most of my adsense sites, either directly or through 3rd party (info finder sites).
Same with other pub id's.

I guess I'm missing something, thought this was common knowledge.

I agree. And to take it a step further, I just did that using the publisher ID of someone who has participated in this thread and the results showed me lots of sites of that publisher.

I also thought this was common knowledge.


FarmBoy

[londrum]

it's interesting that you can obtain search results for the publisher ID -- which is only shown in the HTML code -- and not any other HTML code like <h1> <div> and <span>.

when i search for a unique piece of HTML code from someone's homepage, nothing comes up. but when i search for the ID using their thing, it does.

it's like they've singled out that particular piece of HTML code for special treatment. i'm not sure why any of their users would be interested in it.

[dawnstar]

I can't find any results for my pub-id using google, but this Blekko's got the lot, I feel kind of violated!

It's like they stole my secret sauce recipe and published it online!

[netmeg]

Even if you can search it out in Google, at least G doesn't put a link next to the SERP *inviting* you to do it.

[ticktock]

Ladies and Gentlemen?

Why are you so worried about a search engine that indexes your adsense pub id?

What the hell are you hiding?

Anyway - here is a solution:

<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-" + "duh" + "I just defeated every index in the world if I make this concatenation containing the rest of my pub id different on all my sites";

Think of it like email obfuscation?

Your welcome.

[netmeg]

What the hell are you hiding?

I *knew* it was just a matter of time before someone put forth the Eric Schmidt defense... ork ork

[numnum]

Considering this is rather personal information, I'm deliberating blocking this new search engine in my robots.txt file

Blekko's ScoutJet has already crawled my two sites (A and B) and shows that my Adsense publisher ID is used for ads on both sites. Excuse me, Eric Schmidt, but as much as I have nothing dodgy to hide, like the OP I don't like the connection between the two sites available to the entire wired world to discover.

Instead of blocking ScoutJet, I've removed Adsense from site B, hoping that when ScoutJet crawls site B again site B will drop off Blekko's list of sites with Adsense ads under my publisher ID, and that only site A will appear under my publisher ID. I wonder if this is going to work, or whether Blekko has archived the connection between the two sites forever and ever, for my competitor's grandchildren's children to discover at will? Does anyone here know the answer?