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Ask HN: Googlers on HN, Why Does GOOG Let Pinterest, Quora and Yelp Ruin Search?

24 points by hodder ↗ HN
Title says it all. Why does Google continue to let Pinterest dominate search results on Google images? Similarly, why does Google allow Yelp and Quora dominate search results while heavily penalizing almost all other results which are behind pay/sign in walls? Further, Google seems to have decimated forum results (unless you append "forum" or "reddit" to your search), but how do forum results differ from Quora, Pinterest, and Yelp, which are crowdsourced, user generated content?

19 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 30.3 ms ] thread
dylz
Pinterest absolutely should be completely deindexed everywhere.
justaguyhere
I've never used it, can you explain why you don't like them?
dylz
It's basically a spam blog that hijacks inbound referrers from search engines to throw up full page sign in screens and nothing else.

The vast majority of it is effectively stolen and rehosted content.

jtloong
Is it that much different than Redditors rehosting images on Reddit/Imgur? I find the functional design of the site terrible but there's tons of popular sites that are based on hijacked content.
adventured
At least in the case of Reddit it's quite different.

The primary value by a huge margin on Reddit is the text content, the comment / discussion section in each thread.

Pinterest is basically entirely built around the rehosted images they pull in. It's by far and away the primary value on the platform. A distant second is the typically small amount of associated text with a given post.

dylz
Imgur is (IMO) turning into the same thing. Banning direct links, forcefully redirecting direct linked images to their ad packed pages of mostly stolen content.
maps7
Being so popular and serving images directly seems like a path to losing money
hodder
Not really much different, but Imgur doesn't dominate Google Image results. Why does Google make the exception for Pinterest?
njovin
Everyone else’s complaints are valid (forced signin, stolen content) but my main issue is it’s just completely useless.

For example, I have a project or product in mind and search for something like “pink string lights”. The top three results will be pictures of EXACTLY WHAT I WANT on Pinterest. I follow the link and the URL is just...a picture. No link to a store where I can buy them. No link to a blog talking about building them. No discussion. No question. It’s just a picture somebody saw somewhere and posted to Pinterest (I still don’t understand why anyone does this as there seems to be no community).

I’ve never had Pinterest lead me anywhere interesting or help me in any way. It is the black hole, Debbie Downer, dead end of the Internet.

buboard
they hijack other people's images and when you click you are taken to a pinterest page which is obviously fake (not curated by a human). If that isn't spam , what is, really?
tracer4201
Pinterest always wants me to sign in before allowing me to see anything at all. To me, that should be enough to certainly never show them on the first few pages.
AftHurrahWinch
Hah! Indeed. I add -quora -pinterest -yelp to my searches by default, and it often reduces my results by 60% or more (for the better, in my opinion).
rajacombinator
Of all the offenders in bad search quality these are hardly the worst offenders. The throwaway SEO’d affiliate blogspam and factory produced Medium articles are much worse.
notahacker
Say what you like about blogspam, but at least you generally get to the awful content you click on, rather than being greeted by a signup process that will leave you with little chance of finding the image Pinterest served Googlebot even if you complete it.

Plus penalising a single domain whose growth strategy is based on flagrantly violating Google's guidelines with deceptive search results ought to be a lot easier than playing whack-a-mole with SEOers.

rajacombinator
Ok that’s fair. Bait n switching gated content is BS.
buboard
they are objectively worse, because they are a single entity , unlike those 1000s of tiny blogs.
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maps7
It's like googlers don't dogfood their own product.. but they obviously must since I doubt they use any other search engine.
seattle_spring
Google's algorithm actively promotes shitty content. Want proof? Go search for a tuna salad recipe.