An Ethics Question...

[ron angel]

I think I have a vague Idea of what this is all about now. the problem is that somebody trying to implementing it would have to have programming knowledge and server script access. this makes all the "secret squirrel" cloak and dagger stuff pointless as could not be used or even full understood (I don't..) by the average reader. Even if it was would be pointless, as the effect as I see it (if it worked at all) would be at the best very short term with a more lightly hood of long term negative results. in a nutshell pointless....
(there you are readers even more confused than you were in the first place)best to let the experts get on with this academic discussion.Too much for me I am going to have a lie down.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by ron angel

I think I have a vague Idea of what this is all about now. the problem is that somebody trying to implementing it would have to have programming knowledge and server script access. this makes all the "secret squirrel" cloak and dagger stuff pointless as could not be used or even full understood (I don't..) by the average reader. Even if it was would be pointless, as the effect as I see it (if it worked at all) would be at the best very short term with a more lightly hood of long term negative results. in a nutshell pointless....
(there you are readers even more confused than you were in the first place)best to let the experts get on with this academic discussion.Too much for me I am going to have a lie down.

My bolding.

Sometimes that is needed.

Originally Posted by wige

As far as the other part of the technique, predicting spider crawls and exploiting that information, I am not going to go into detail on that in a public way. Even if it may not be an issue here, I can think of a few possible ways it could be abused, so I will keep that private.

My bolding.

If you have data, that can be tested scientifically by using Shanon's information criteria, mutual information and ergodic theory.

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by Tubby

Wige said
"I would like to open a discussion on the topic to get an idea of whether such a practice would actually be effective"

Do it Wige, We have a nice mixture of grown ups and kids here. The best defence is is knowledge.

Or simply wait for three months when two million webmasters are already testing and practising the technique.


Web Rankings change daily. Duplicate content penalties? Nobody at WPW has any power to issue penalties.
Are we really that worried and concerned that Google might get "tricked".

CONTENT IS KING . create some wige
I thought moderators were encouraged to start threads that would attract traffic.

I nominate this for best post of 2009. this forum needs some life kicked into it.

[texxs]

I believe there is such a technique. I think I accidentally used it on someone else. Making them drop to a N/A ranking from a 3. Google said he had duplicate content when in fact it was me ( a client copied and pasted his text and told me that he wrote it.) This probably isn't what you speak of though... too easy . . .

I can very easily see how any method like this would instantly spread like wildfire.

I am currently under attack from a rich conservative blogger and some of her cronies. They would definitely use this against me if they knew it.

I would like to be any future discussion wherever it is held.

I'll even host/make a private forum....

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Google returns about 2960 pages and in the main index are only about 302 pages.

So you have 2658 pages in the supplemental index. Duplicated content?

I think there are a lot more reasons that pages are moved to the supplemental index.

There are some duplicate pages on my site and it's a problem we are currently working on. However, I think a lot of the problem on my site is the lack of links going to different pages in the forum.

Another words, if I fixed every duplicate page on my site there would still be pages in the supplemental index.

[kgun]

You may have noted that there is a related thread

Google is destroying website rankings

about the same subject. So I assume that it is different from that discussion.

Even if there is no duplicate content penalty, there is a problem for the original poster if his site is filtered out of the results.

That may be the reason why A New Search Engine Approach based on copyright is the ideal solution. Whether it is practical is another question.

Related WPW thread: Semantic engines - nothing difficult, at all...

What has happened to some of my own sites?

site:DigitalStart.net: The starting point for English speaking surfers and webmasters

The site is still in the index, but AdSense do not function any longer.

The same with the site in the last link in my signature.

May be some of the SEO experts here can explain why.

[weegillis]

We've seen lots of talk about black hat, but never before (tmk) has it actually been published, textbook style, on WPW. IMO this is not the forum in which to reveal black hat techniques. An idea is just an idea until it breaks the surface. Once the cat is out of the bag, you cannot put it back.

That said, there are all kinds of arguments, either way, that are valid. On the one hand, if everybody knows about it, then collectively, workarounds and filters can be quickly deployed and Bob's y'r uncle. On the other, if only a small circle of people, ...

Besides, we already know how it will play out: This thread will grow to 200 posts of mostly the same six people speaking amongst themselves in some jaded language that only they understand. Nothing will be revealed, or learned by any of us mere mortals, at least not before the SEs discover and quash the technique in response to the flood of attempts leading right back to this forum.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by weegillis

We've seen lots of talk about black hat, but never before (tmk) has it actually been published, textbook style, on WPW. IMO this is not the forum in which to reveal black hat techniques. An idea is just an idea until it breaks the surface. Once the cat is out of the bag, you cannot put it back.

The only way to kill the cat, is to put it out of the bag. There is a financial slogan:

"dead cat bouncing"

that implies that it can seemingly live after it is killed.

[weegillis]

If there is potential for malicious misuse of the technique, even though it may have beneficial applications, then it should only be outed if it can be nullified immediately upon its exposure.

This basically means that both plot and outcome are revealed concurrently. Only publish if you can also include a method to shut it down.

[kgun]

What is your opinion on

1. Meta tag spamming.
2. Hidden text.
3. Etc. etc.

Do you think some sites profited from that for a while?

What came first, the chicken (forum discussion of the topic) or the egg (algorithmic changes).

[weegillis]

Admittedly, outing of most techniques has resulted in eventual action to filter and dilute their effectiveness. Document content is simple enough to crunch and is largely innocuous. When it comes to manipulating server configurations to exact an effect on a third party then publication should include a solution.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by janeth

However, I think a lot of the problem on my site is the lack of links going to different pages in the forum.

Here is a tip. Block through the robots.txt the individual posts, and leave only the threads being indexed.

[chandrika]

It occured to me that if a website is showing your content via cgi proxy and is getting links to such and returned in the SE, that would be a good grounds for a DCMA complaint on copyright infringement.

In which case dealing with it would be quite easy, just find out who is hosting the proxy site, send a standard DCMA stock letter to the host and that website account will get closed down.

Wouldnt it be the same with scraped content, if they have scraped original content, then again, a standard dcma to the host could have that site down within days or even hours.

It would be great if that were true, as it would mean instead of battling to stop scrapers and proxies showing your content, you can forget abot them, let them go ahead and then just shut them down as soon as their site starts showing up, so eventually they would get the message that it was a waste of time to even bother with such methods.

I am interested can anyone see any reason why the above method might not work?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by chandrika

It occured to me that if a website is showing your content via cgi proxy and is getting links to such and returned in the SE, that would be a good grounds for a DCMA complaint on copyright infringement.

I have heard those words many times. Can you explain in further detail. I don't know much about it. I could of course Google it.

1. More precisely, how does it fit to the subject of the OP?
2. Do you think that there are holes in the SE algorithms that make for duplicate content issues by using the technique that you describe?

My forum ForumNorway is hosted by Website Hosting, Affordable Web Hosting, Ecommerce Web Hosting, JSP Web Hosting by ImHosted.com that is DnsProtect related, see the right link at the bottom.

I don't know enough about Name server protection either. May be the OP does.

Dealing with someone that has their DNS set to my IP Is (was) that possible?

A valuable tool:

ZoneCheck

Norwegian version: Norid: ZoneCheck

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Here is a tip. Block through the robots.txt the individual posts, and leave only the threads being indexed.

Thanks, will do.

[chandrika]

Can you explain in further detail. I don't know much about it.

Well usually the people hosting scraper sites and the like, have no contact details in the whois, but the host of the website can be seen in the whois records, such as godaddy.com, theplanet etc. Such hosts usually have a department specially for this kind of thing as its a legal issue and if you simply email them a DCMA complaint such as can be found here...
Stock Letters - PlagiarismToday

The second letter down is the one you send to a host, edited where indicated with your details and the copied content details.

In my experience they respond very quickly and again in my experience their course of action is to suspend the offending websites account unless that person responds claiming the content to be their own, which in the case of scraped sites, as it is not, they can not do that.

More precisely, how does it fit to the subject of the OP?

Well I think people are worried about duplicate content and Wige specifically mentioned the use of cgi proxies showing your content and other ways that people might use duplicate content to damage a website. So I mention this, as if it worked people would not need to worry so much when people do do such things, as there would be a solution to it. In which case we could talk about methods people might use to try to damage your rankings with things like cgi proxies without worrying that it would make us too vulnerable.

Do you think that there are holes in the SE algorithms that make for duplicate content issues by using the technique that you describe?

I honestly do not know, but do feel a reassured by some conversations on google blog, where the experts there keep reiterating that Google uses multiple signals to determine which site is the original in cases of dupe content. Usually scraper sites and the like are on some obscure url with no authority and in such cases I do not think there is any need to worry about them. If a site like CNN was scraping one of mine..then I might be worried, but the likelihood of that happening is about as likely as me getting off my backside and going for a jog this afternoon.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by chandrika

Well I think people are worried about duplicate content and Wige specifically mentioned the use of cgi proxies showing your content and other ways that people might use duplicate content to damage a website. So I mention this, as if it worked people would not need to worry so much when people do do such things, as there would be a solution to it. In which case we could talk about methods people might use to try to damage your rankings with things like cgi proxies without worrying that it would make us too vulnerable.

My bolding.

So this thread obviously has the potential to develop into a new circle squaring thread like:

Can inbound links really hurt you?

Googles use of the Description Metatag

Observe: Linear correlation is neither a necessary nor sufficient?? condition for causality.

There "seem to be" a significant linear correlation between the number of people from UK and flies in Northern Norway in the summer.

There also "seem to" be a significant linear correlation between the stock price of Microsoft and the the Standard & Poor 500 index, even between the development of the UK stock market measured by.....

Thank you for the link.

Rely on you that it is a trusted source, so it is included here: http://www.adschoolworld.com/

"Links" at the top right corner to the left of the Digg link.

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by kgun

My bolding.



Observe: Linear correlation is neither a necessary nor sufficient?? condition for causality.

There "seem to be" a significant linear correlation between the number of people from UK and flies in Northern Norway in the summer.

This is a very interesting observation, If you would like me to carry out further studies on the matter I will get a team of observers together & providing you pay all expenses including car hire & return airfares, I and the team will follow a group of tourists from the uk filming their every move. we will also place fly paper in the rooms they use at night & have any flies independently verified as to type and quantity. we will also need a group from one or more other country's to follow as a control to the experiment, these will be from the EEC & as YOU are paying your choice.If you are right about this phenomenon full credit will be yours,on the other hand if proved wrong I am sure you get your few minutes of fame when you are sued by the British & Norwegian tourists board & other interested parties. I await your reply as a free working holiday during the summer in Norway sounds quite nice....
for more like this & some of my earlier writings.
The EMU Files

[kgun]

You are not trained in multivariate Box Jenkins analysis? If not, I can recommend a course. There used to be some outside Manchester.

Ask your fellow country man David Henry if it is worth the trip.

If you collect data, you can run your tests here: PcGive

This man

Clive W.J. Granger

knows much about causality.

Related: The General Equivalence of Granger and Sims Causality

No, I will not pay for the visit.

P.S. Regarding EU Can a small country or company rely on EU?

[kgun]

So it is unethical to post this Hiding your identity on the internet. thread?

Is it unethical to say that I am sure that a lot of web masters sell links behind the scene disregarding the rel="nofollow" attribute or more advanced methods like Webnauts can tell more about?

When I tell that, I give a hint, or there may be a problem with the method?

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by kgun

No, I will not pay for the visit.

This was a JOKE (for some of our American readers who thought I was serious) and yourself.
Does anybody honestly think that uk tourists would allow themselves to be filmed on holiday by an eccentric guy with full crew to count how many flies the had following them around,and that anybody would pay for them to be filmed....
evidently they had not followed
http://www.emufiles.co.uk link before replying to this post.

[kgun]

Hint:

Danish Piet Hein

Piet Hein (Wikipedia)

"(S)he who takes jokes for jokes and seriousness only serious. (S)he has misunderstood both matters equally bad." (My bad translation)

And mine was a (serious) joke too, and I answered seriously to you with a polemic tone.

Was this a joke too?

Originally Posted by ron angel

I think I have a vague Idea of what this is all about now. the problem is that somebody trying to implementing it would have to have programming knowledge and server script access. this makes all the "secret squirrel" cloak and dagger stuff pointless as could not be used or even full understood (I don't..) by the average reader. Even if it was would be pointless, as the effect as I see it (if it worked at all) would be at the best very short term with a more lightly hood of long term negative results. in a nutshell pointless....
(there you are readers even more confused than you were in the first place)best to let the experts get on with this academic discussion.Too much for me I am going to have a lie down.

Back to topic?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by ron angel

This was a JOKE (for some of our American readers who thought I was serious) and yourself.
Does anybody honestly think that uk tourists would allow themselves to be filmed on holiday by an eccentric guy with full crew to count how many flies the had following them around,and that anybody would pay for them to be filmed....
evidently they had not followed
The EMU Files link before replying to this post.

That may be good if the tourist was a Salmon / Trout fisher, since there may be a relation between (some - note the word, since this is a science far beyond my competence) files and how good the fishing is. And there should be a relation between the (potential) output from the fishing (visit) and the number of fisher(wo)men.

I think I leave now, since this discussion may be killing the subject.

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by kgun

Hint:

Danish Piet Hein

Piet Hein (Wikipedia)

"(S)he who takes jokes for jokes and seriousness only serious. (S)he has misunderstood both matters equally bad." (My bad translation)

And mine was a (serious) joke too, and I answered seriously to you with a polemic tone.

Was this a joke too?



Back to topic?

No the computer stuff is serious

[kgun]

Originally Posted by ron angel

No the computer stuff is serious

I agree to that, and so is scientific documentation.

I repeat from another thread

Originally Posted by kgun

Note: Bots are software and not human beings. They are not perfect and will never be. That implies that imperfections in the software can have side effects.

Open Forum discussions can have the side effect of improving the algorithms.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by kgun

Is it unethical to say that I am sure that a lot of web masters sell links behind the scene disregarding the rel="nofollow" attribute or more advanced methods like Webnauts can tell more about?

When I tell that, I give a hint, or there may be a problem with the method?

As I said many times I strictly do not obey to Googles demand using the "nofollow" attribute.
By the way, today I just completed our very long time project for the implementation of an alternative to the "nofollow" attribute. I would not mind to share, but I want to be sure that there is interest in this thread, if I decide to post it here. The alternative is just wicked.

[kgun]

John, may be you can start a new thread.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by kgun

John, may be you can start a new thread.

Lets leave someone else do that. If there is interest, someone will do so.

[full house]

Originally Posted by kgun

I agree to that, and so is scientific documentation.

I repeat from another thread



Open Forum discussions can have the side effect of improving the algorithms.

yeah! also if google is also part of the discussion. lol

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by full house

yeah! also if google is also part of the discussion. lol

You can be sure that Google follows up what we are discussing in forums. So I do not think that it is so funny.

I have a friend working at Google, and when there are some cool threads I share them with him. Just FYI.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by chandrika

It occured to me that if a website is showing your content via cgi proxy and is getting links to such and returned in the SE, that would be a good grounds for a DCMA complaint on copyright infringement.

In which case dealing with it would be quite easy, just find out who is hosting the proxy site, send a standard DCMA stock letter to the host and that website account will get closed down.

Yes, if you are able to demonstrate that the content belongs to you.

Originally Posted by chandrika

Wouldnt it be the same with scraped content, if they have scraped original content, then again, a standard dcma to the host could have that site down within days or even hours.

Again, if you are able to demonstrate the content belongs to you.

Originally Posted by chandrika

I am interested can anyone see any reason why the above method might not work?

Very hypothetical chandrika... What if I were able to find "new" content that you published within minutes of you publishing it, copy it, publish it, get the copy linked, then get the links and copied content indexed before you?

Dave

[kgun]

A search engine based on copy right is the ideal solution.

[wige]

But how would a search engine, an automated system, determine copyright? Even the document's creation date can be faked on any system. And sites that use PHP or other dynamic solutions generally don't transmit the creation time for the document.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by kgun

That may be the reason why A New Search Engine Approach based on copyright is the ideal solution. Whether it is practical is another question.

Did you notice this link? It is an idea from a WPW member.

[kgun]

In the digital age that should not be difficult:

1. An encrypted digital ID is related to each web site or web master. The OpenId is an example. Norwegian Government use a more advanced version than the OpenId. When you sign up, at the same time, you get a number of security codes.
2. Each article combines that ID with a time stamp and / or a number part.
3. There is also a ping button so you can ping a central unit a fresh article.

It would be much more difficult to steal content under such a procedure. At least, before the SE issued a duplicate penalty, it could check with the central register. Even if nearly everything can be misused, it would make things more complicated for the article Bots and content thieves.

[Tubby]

A lot of this conversation is based on how things are today. Lets face it search engines are still evolving. they will keep evolving. Tomorrow search engines will read a page just a little bit differently than they did yesterday.

My Vote is Let webmasters do what the want to do, Beg, steal, borrow, invent crap or brilliant content. create excellent designs confront us with obscene monstrosities.

I really do not see any difference between blue, green, black hat or white hat SEO- (just self serving moral indignation) . Let these SEO do whatever they want to do in their attempt to achieve whatever goals they have. . . Then - leave Google to algorithmicate to its hearts content to achieve the results it wants.

I am getting a little bit sick of being 'protected' from search result, because somebody else might be manipulating them. . . What? . . are we so scared that Google will get it all wrong. Is our goal to publish pages that users want to read. Or stand guard over Google to protect it.

Give ourselves the freedom to publish whatever we wish, without fear. Sacrificing our own freedoms is stupid.

Let us evolve, evolution never plucked out every weed, or everything that could fly because they had an advantage.

[kgun]

Agree that the freedom to publish is important.

Pablo Picasso - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia said the following words.

When I see a motive, I "steal" it and make it unrecogniseable.

There are good jokes and bad jokes.

This is a bad joke / fact in my opinion. I was too late to edit that post. (Wait to the link redirects to post #65).

Point 6 should be edited to:

Google, in my opinion you are evil unless it can be proved that there is a man in the middle attack.

Popularized it has been said.

If you steal from one person it is plagiarism. If you steal from two, it is research.

A minimum requirement should be that you cite your sources. I try to do that even in this forum.

[Tubby]

Kgun, said
"A minimum requirement should be that you cite your sources. I try to do that even in this forum."


In this forum. I merely try to present a different perspective. . . (and a bit of self promotion)
I have accumulated two little green blobs (rep rank) so that tells me ths some WPW members like to read my perspective. I will continue to seek out some peripheral observations and thoughts. and leave linking to specific topic pages to you. (you do it well (kgun))

[weegillis]

And here we are fifty posts later, kgun has just brought us back to the OP.

Does WPW have a policy for dealing with this type of question? Should it be up to the owner/admins of the forum to make this decision? How liberal is this forum intended to be, given a rather public profile (with advertisers)?

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by weegillis

And here we are fifty posts later, kgun has just brought us back to the OP.

Does WPW have a policy for dealing with this type of question? Should it be up to the owner/admins of the forum to make this decision? How liberal is this forum intended to be, given a rather public profile (with advertisers)?

WPW has links at the bottom of the page to their policies...

WebProWorld :: WebProWorld Forum Rules
iEntry Network - Privacy Policy
iEntry Network - Legal Notice

In addition, individual boards may have additional guidelines/rules that are posted on those boards.

Dave

[weegillis]

Originally Posted by crankydave

WPW has links at the bottom of the page to their policies...

Nothing in these pages addresses the OP, or the questions in the above post.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by weegillis

And here we are fifty posts later, kgun has just brought us back to the OP.

Can you be more precise or could there be an answer in other sub forums?

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by weegillis

Nothing in these pages addresses the OP, or the questions in the above post.

What needs to be addressed? Wige asked for the members opinions. He got them.

You asked about WPW policies and I told you where to find the links to them and posted the links.

Dave

[weegillis]

Originally Posted by crankydave

What needs to be addressed?

The ethics question, for one.

Originally Posted by crankydave

You asked about WPW policies...

Helpful, yes, but none of the three questions above are answered in any of them.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by weegillis

The ethics question, for one.

You want WPW to decide your ethics for you? How silly is that?

Originally Posted by weegillis

Helpful, yes, but none of the three questions above are answered in any of them.

These questions...

So, what should I do? Should I post the information about this technique, which might be abused but which we might come up with a way to prevent or defend against? Or should I err on the side of caution and not post the information?

First one... up to wige. He asked for opinions from members and got them.

Second one... up to wige. He asked for opinions from members and got them.

Third one... up to wige. He asked for opinions from members and got them.

Dave

[weegillis]

Originally Posted by crankydave

You want WPW to decide your ethics for you?

No. I asked that WPW decide THEIR ethics for us. This is a matter that concerns them, not me. I'd just like to know where they stand.

We certainly did see a lot of opinions, but in my opinion, the OP was not directly addressed.