The problem is that their pages unintentionally trigger a flaw in Google's crawler (it's unable to detect that the content is actually obscured by a JS-based login wall) and Google is unwilling to implement an override because this spam contributes to their bottom-line (increases "engagement" on the search results page).
And
> The problem is that their pages exploit a flaw in Google's crawler…
Don’t seem to be statements that really make any consistent sense.
It’s like if you ordered soup and instead got a bowl of human shit, a thousand times, and then felt compelled to explain that nobody wants you to eat shit, it’s just that bowls are a really convenient place to shit in.
As far as I know there is no "right" way to design a JS SPA overlay/loginwall in a way that search engines ignore it - it's not like Pinterest is intentionally ignoring a spec or designing a page that misleads search engine crawlers (other engines seem to handle Pinterest just fine). Outright denying access to search engines could be wrong because logged-in Pinterest users may actually want those results, so that's not a good solution either.
The fault is ultimately on Google for ignoring this high-profile issue for such a long time because it contributes to their bottom-line, even though a very simple, low-tech fix (easier than making the crawler recognize such loginwalls reliably) could be to just allow users to make their own decision as to whether to block the domain, like Kagi has done.
And
> The problem is that their pages exploit a flaw in Google's crawler…
I apparently misunderstood your phrasing of “exploit” to mean something intentional. You submit that Pinterest is unintentionally exploiting a flaw in a way that both drives traffic to them and ruins search.
I suppose in my shit soup analogy, the thing you’d explain is that there’s shit in the bowl because the laws of physics coincidentally allow shit to rest in a bowl.
I’d like to add that Hanlon’s razor is a fun bit of internet lore wherein we pretend humans do not act intentionally that’s based on, uhhh…
Not sure it's still a flaw when it's so trivial to derank, Google could manage it on the barest of whims.
But yes, they could fix it. However if it keeps you searching maybe they don't want to.
I don't think argument takes exploit off the table. It just doesn't address it. Same thing for Pinterest's shady behavior.
Let's clarify this. Do you believe
1) Pinterest did not intentionally modify it's actions in any way to dominate Google's image search or
2) Pinterest's purposeful actions to spam Google images wasn't shady or exploit-y
?
Like me! I use it to get outfit & interior design inspiration. Haven't found nothing quite like it
I think it's because we realize that outcome should not be the only thing we value. Intent can heavily impact the benevolence of something.
The problem is that the company employing those engineers is acting maliciously and benefits from you wasting your time with irrelevant/unusable search results as it contributes to "engagement" on the search results page and makes the sponsored results (aka spam) more likely to be clicked (even if by accident). They can get away with it since (besides Kagi) the competition is no better due to having the exact same business model.
No and that's why they are offering the ability to tweak per-domain ranking per user, along with a leaderboard of most-blocked domains so people can easily find and block problematic domains.
The issue with blocking Pinterest by default is that people who use Pinterest might actually want those results, so that's not a good default.