Dear Google: please let me ban sites from results

I see a lot of people asking what happens when a group of people downvote a site just to ruin its ranking. Sure that's a problem, but there's an easy solution on Google's end: your blacklist only affects you. Yes, that means all of us have to hide efreedom ourselves. Doesn't seem like a problem to me...<p>Plus, we are talking about a company whose core business demands that it can identify groups of bad-faith voters. Given time, they may find a way to incorporate this data safely into the ranking data (if anyone could, it would be Google).<p>And I know there are extensions to do this (mine mysteriously stopped working recently), but doing this on the client-side in a way that's bound to a single browser install just seems wrong to me, especially for Google.

No, it's not particular hard, but it will make the problem worse.<p>Why?<p>99% of users are non-tech oriented.<p>Those users will not really be aware of the specific problems with the search results, they won't understand the concept of a good vs bad result and they certainly won't bother to tweak/ban/filter their results.<p>The 1% that do care and are currently being vocal about it will start filtering their results and they will perceive that the problem is solved. They will stop making a fuss.<p>So now, the complaints have gone away, but 99% of users are still using the broken system, so the good sites that create good original content are still ranking below the scrapers and spam results for 99% of the users.<p>The problem must be solved for all (or at least the majority) of users.<p>(And you can't take the 1%s filtering and apply it to all users in some kind of social search because the spammers will just join the 1% and game the system)

Yes that would be good. They could then look at the number of people blocking certain domains and de-weight them in the global results.<p>Traditionally google seem against human powered editing (as this would be), but I think as the black hat SEOs run rings around them, its needed <i>badly</i>.

Google does provide this service: it's called Google Custom Search. You can prioritize or blacklist sites and it's pretty easy to add it to your browser searchbar. I don't always use it, but I'll switch to it when I encounter a spammy topic, usually dev-related searches.<p><a href="http://radleymarx.com/blog/better-search-results/" rel="nofollow">http://radleymarx.com/blog/better-search-results/</a>

Gmail already does it, and the global system uses an algorithm to look at reported spam results in order to automatically move future emails from that party to the spam folder automatically, not just for the person that reported it, but for everyone.<p>If they're not looking into integrating that nicely into the existing search results page (not a separate form that the average user will never find or use), especially after all the internet chatter about it recently, then they definitely should make that a top priority in 2011. I definitely don't want them to do a rush job on it though. I don't want competitors to start reporting each other as spam in search results to try and game the system even further. I'm assuming they have anti-gaming measures in place for Gmail, so they won't be completely starting that from scratch...

Google were experimenting with voting on results: <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2007/11/28/straight-out-of-left-field-google-experimenting-with-digg-style-voting-on-search-results/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2007/11/28/straight-out-of-left-field-...</a><p>Also there is this form for reporting spam sites: <a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport</a><p>Integrating the above into standard search results would be difficult unless it was restricted to users with a good "karma". That might be possible in our increasingly socially networked world

Also, I would like '[any widget] review' to take me to an actual review, not pages upon pages of spam. I usually end up looking at comments on a few trusted sites (e.g. Amazon). This seems broken...

I think the worst culprits are the ones that skim StackOverflow questions and rehash them into their own supposed original "question and answer" site

As programmers, our typical complaints are for sites that bog us down in common (expert's exchange, stackoverflow scrapers, etc.).<p>What I found interesting: I was doing a search on something I normally have no interest in (a sewing machine manual for my wife) and I was <i>amazed</i> by the level of spam I was encountering.<p>We have no idea how bad the problem is for others whose topics we do not usually see. The web is far more full of spam than we even realize.

Proof that true AI is a long way off?<p>If the best and brightest (arguably) on the planet can't figure out how to filter out search with algorithms, what makes us think we can mimic true human intelligence any time soon. (I think it will happen, just not as soon as some claim)

That will never happen, if they ever did that it would be an admission that there is something inherently wrong with their algorithm. They won't do it.

I'd definitely make use of this feature. Some ancillary features might include:<p>a) Google could warn you if it thinks the sites you have blacklisted seemed to have regained credibility.<p>b) Google could suggest additional sites you may wish to blacklist, based on other user blacklists.<p>c) Google could allow outside parties to curate blacklists.<p>d) Google could list the most commonly black-listed sites publicly. For the webmasters that find themselves listed who want to run an actual honest business, this is a good sign they should change their tactics. For the folks that aim to spam and profit... well screw those guys.

Maybe this could be implemented in the way of sticky search operators?<p>So for example, I could define -site:efreedom.com as an operator to be applied silently for every search I make.

How many gmail accounts do we need to band together to lower the rank of stack overflow against our super-duper question-and-answer site QandAdsWithMe.annoying.com?

Looks like a lot of people are assuming a solution would some sort of voting system like stackexchange, etc.<p>Why not allow individual users to hide sites from their own search results and save the info in their google account? For example, provide a "hide this site from my results" link next to each result. Each person decides which site they don't want to see and SEO and global results remain unaffected.

Wasn't this a problem Google Search Wiki tried to solve?<p><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html" rel="nofollow">http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-searc...</a>

I'm not sure how this would be implemented. Where would the blacklist be held and how would it influence the search results? I know that they already do a lot of search customization but most of it is just aggregate statistical computations. It's not that they return results specifically tailored to you but more like results tailored to a very fuzzy average version of you. A blacklist seems way too specific to each user to be susceptible to meaningful aggregate statistical operations like spam filtering which is one of the reasons that spam filtering in google is so good. Each user contributes something and everyone benefits. I don't see that happening with blacklists. I think to make it worthwhile they would need to figure out how to feed the information from blacklists into providing more meaningful results for everyone.

How about decentralizing the search page? Hear me out for a bit.<p>My theory is that these complaints are coming from specific interest groups, not the general public. For example, spammy-content is created and targeted at a developer/programmer audience, and that is the source of some of these complaints.<p>So my suggestion is Google should platformize their search; and give out dedicated search instances to specific communities. The community should have enough levers to govern/influence what is spam or not. In addition, the community can promote certain high-value resources, which are otherwise unfairly listed in search results. Invite some high-profile communities for a test-run, and let the communities make their own choices.<p>The public Google can still handle the general public. This can also bring in some transparency in the way spam is determined.

Here is a conspiracy theory for you guys.<p>1. How does Google make money? Search Ads.<p>2. How do people click on search ads? Bad real search results.

In the interim, you can do your searches by adding -wareseeker -efreedom to the search string.

Didn't Google have downvotes for results - shouldn't they be sufficient to achieve the result you want? Presumably Google would learn that you consistently downvote wareseeker and exclude it from results in the future.<p>I haven't used it because I don't want Google to remember my search history. But if you are willing to stay logged into Google (which would be required for your proposal), it would not be an issue.

It seems that it might be more helpful to whitelist sites. The web grows too quickly, and the mass of spam sites overwhelmingly so. If I had some way to blacklist sites, I'd end up spending a lot of time doing so. In fact, it could quickly take up most of my search time.<p>If, though, we could whitelist sites, it seems that results would get cleaner faster. I don't care about how many bad sites are out there, as long as helpful sites make it to the top. Plus, I typically use just a few sites to access reliable information anyway (the number's about 7, right?), so if I can whitelist results from those sites, I'll probably find my desired content more quickly.<p>What about the case when there are 30 spam sites listed before 1 good site? That hasn't happened too often for me. Instead, the results I'm looking for are usually just 4 or 5 spots down the front page, and very occasionally on the second page.<p>White listing seems like it would still be faster and easier for now.

For those wanting Google to put a penalty on the sites who are banned/removed from the user's view, what's to stop someone from gaming that system via Mech. Turk (or some other way)? Just pay people $0.12 to open gmail accounts and ban a competitor or whatever.<p>That's the only negative I can think of - other than that, I say bring it!

I'd ban eHow.

I want a search results page similar to the "Priority Inbox" we got recently in gmail. Set sane defaults and let me override them with "Important/Notimportant" buttons (or thumbs up/down or whatever) next to results.<p>Let it learn what I think is a good result for my needs.<p>If you make it a little bit social, make sure you weight other people's opinions by how much they agree with my own in other areas (making it harder for sockpuppets to muddy the waters)

Does anyone remember when google had this feature?<p>Well sortof, you could block individual responses from coming up under a specific search term.<p>There was a little x by each result if you were signed into google and it said "never show this result again"<p>Not enough people used the feature for it to stick around...<p>I would love this ability but google please, good UI and consumer education. I love your features but don't love when they get taken away because users don't know they exist.

It doesn't seem like it would be hard, but if the rankings aren't driven by money, then there will be attempts to game the system. The problem I feel is Money. As long as everyone has to compete for it (meaning money doesn't work for the people, people work for money - in a system owned by the few), we'll have shady marketers, shady products, spammers etc... so, I think that it will remain a cat and mouse game.

It seems like a obvious answer, but why not just use "-site:annoyingpage.com" in you search? In fact "-TotallyUnRelated" has helped me narrow down searches effectively too. You are asking for a feature that only a small subset of the users will benefit from and use, it makes more sense for google just to find a way to rank sites better then it does to build a additional filter on top of the current system.

I use a Chrome extension called Google Search Filter which solves this exact problem - <a href="https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/eidhkmnbiahhgbgpjpiimdogfidfikgf" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/eidhkmnbiahhgbgp...</a><p>It lets me sync my config accross multiple machines.<p>Has nice hacker-ish config. Basically a text file you can share with others. This is my current config:<p># Make these domains stand out in results<p>+en.wikipedia.org<p>+stackoverflow.com<p>+github.com<p>+api.rubyonrails.org<p>+apple.com<p>+ruby-doc.org<p>+codex.wordpress.org<p>+imdb.com<p>+alternativeto.net<p># SPAM - never show these results<p>experts-exchange.com<p>ezinearticles

Sounds to me the web search is not yet a solved problem. As the hardware (storage and memory) is getting cheaper and cheaper, and the emerging enabling technologies such as cloud computing, building your own search engine may not sound impossible any longer. Wonder how feasible it is to apply anti-spam algorithms that work well on emails to web pages.

Google Domain Blocker: (userscript/greasemonkey), for those interested.<p><a href="http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/33156" rel="nofollow">http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/33156</a><p>You can also sync them for Firefox across multiple machines using Dropbox, as the preferences are stored in your profile (IIRC, in a javascript file).

Wouldn't implementing this feature be a tacit admission that there's a problem with search results?

<i>"This would solve a lot of people's complaints in one fell swoop."</i><p>And doing this would <i>spawn</i> a lot of people's complaints in one fell swoop.<p>If you owned a site, and created enemies, they could band together and flag your site as spam.

Startup idea: Create a service around google custom search. Select the "Search the entire web but emphasize the selected sites" Then create a gui to allow people to prioritize or ban their search results.

In the old days we had killfile. Why can't we PLONK content sources like authors or sites by handles like nicks or domain names? There should be some standard protocol for that. Httplonk.

So what we are talking about is censorship. You are suggesting a non-traditional type where a government does not do the censoring, but a few people do. How many votes would it take to put a website on a blacklist? 50, 100?<p>Who decides if a site is spam?<p>So is free speech dead under your proposal? What is I build a site that criticizes the Governor of your state. Or a federal agency. What would prevent my site from being blacklisted in your proposal? Even if I had great content (your argument is about poor quality content) my could be voted into a black hole in a few hours. Lets think about this carefully. Is that the price we are willing to pay to get rid of EE?

My question is why stackoverflow hasn't banned efreedom yet?

Although it's sad because it speaks volumes that we're fed up with all the garbage in many of our search queries.<p>I do hope those working on <i>the algorithm</i> are taking note.

you can do it with seeks... <a href="http://www.seeks-project.info/" rel="nofollow">http://www.seeks-project.info/</a> <a href="http://www.seeks.fr/" rel="nofollow">http://www.seeks.fr/</a><p>on your local machine and/or remote server... and it's free software.<p>blekko ? try this query, <a href="http://blekko.com/ws/?q=debian" rel="nofollow">http://blekko.com/ws/?q=debian</a> duh ?

Just use Google SearchWiki.<p>Oh, yeah – they pulled it.

the problem I have with this is that some black hat people can do this to any site they feel they are competing with. what would prevent someone from blacklisting a legitimate blog or website just because they did not like the content?

me gusta esta idea, muchos de los resultados iniciales son spam, y los resultados que de verdad me sirven aparecen dos o tres paginas después, apreciaría mucho que se pudiera banear los resultados alejados o que considere spam, thxs

YES. Like the useless chromeextensions.org<p>This would be an awesome feature.

great idea. Let this be the first question asked at any Google event.<p>In fact, let there be a sea of hands all gesticulating wildly to present it.

Can't this be done with a browser plugin?

simply add -site:foo.com to your search request.<p>And no, this doesn't solve the problem.

blekko . com is doing this and much more

And no more bloody experts-exchange...

<a href="https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ddgjlkmkllmpdhegaliddgplookikmjf" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ddgjlkmkllmpdheg...</a><p>Is there something I'm missing here?<p>It's not in Google's financial interest to provide this feature, but it already exists rather trivially.

I'd like to see an option for searching only ad-free sites, or perhaps just sites that don't use AdSense, as well. Surely Google would have no problem with that.

Use duckduckgo.com. Its pretty good with excluding spam. And with a new service there is an indicator of how spammy a site is.