back to article Google Chrome extension bars domains from search results

Google has released an experimental Chrome extension that lets you automatically remove individual domains from Google search result pages. The extension is also a way for the company to gather information about undesirable domains as it works to combat so-called webspam. When you block a site, the extension notifies Google, …

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  1. Scott Harman
    Pint

    Finally I get to block experts-exchange!

    Anyone else get tired of their results popping up in search results, or is it just me?

    1. double0scotty

      Me too

      But I just use googles cache to find out what they're trying to make you pay for!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: experts exchange

      While experts exchange isn't generally high on my list of sites to get technical information, many times I have found things there that have allowed me to find the solution, or caused to to think about the problem differently so that I could solve it on my own.

      When I am looking for something and they pop up and I don't want them (or any other domain which returns results that don't seem relevant), it is a TRIVIAL process to add them to the query to remove those results from those returned.

      I don't find their service valuable enough to subscribe to it, but it is simple enough to press the pagedn key a couple of times scroll down past their screens full of self-serving advertisements to get to the meat at the bottom.

      There are, however, lots of other sites that I would be happy to block at all times.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Not any more

        Think they've caught on to the fact that everyone noticed that the useful bits were at the bottom and taken that away as of a couple of days ago.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Same here!

      Was thinking about Epinions.com too - they have a highly-linked empty page for every product ever made it seems. I can't even remember the last time I clicked on one of their review pages that actually had a review in it

      >_<

    4. Goat Jam
      Headmaster

      Expert-Sexchange

      Get it right!

      However, you do know that if you scroll riiiight down the bottom of the page, past all the adverts and exhortations to sign up for expert-sexchange you can see the actual answers anyway, right?

    5. jonathanb Silver badge

      Yes

      In fact, it is such a good idea that I am going to install Chrome for the sole reason of downvoting expert sex change.

      1. CaptainHook
        Thumb Up

        Greasemonkey

        I use a greasemonkey script called Google Filter whihc does the same thing as this extension, but without telling google obviously

        By default it only blocks 1 site: expertsexchange :)

        Although I have been slowly adding other paywall sites to the blocklist as well.

    6. Code Monkey
      Thumb Up

      Experts Exchange

      That was my first thought, too. And that's one bit of information I'll happily share with Google!

    7. Argh

      I don't understand the bile towards experts-exchange

      They're original content, as far as I know, and if you click the link in google, they do actually provide the answers for free (at the bottom of the page, as mentioned in previous comments).

      I strongly hope Google do not do a global ban based on a few people who don't know how to scroll a browser window, or use "find" on a page.

      1. jerry 4

        Not a global ban, but subscription based block lists...

        I'd be happy if like AdBlock I could "subscribe" to various domain blocking lists.

        Actually, I probably have an odd use case, but I am using it to block any site that javascripts out my ability to select and copy text from the page.

        (I haven't found a chrome extension that guarantees my ability to copy text from a page.)

    8. IGnatius T Foobar
      Thumb Up

      blocking experts-exchange

      Yup -- that's the very first thing I thought, too. I've always wanted to be able to tell Google "don't ever show me results from site X" and experts-exchange is the #1 site I've always wanted to be able to block.

      And it's funny, there seem to be people just like us all over the Internet who are saying the very same thing.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    abuse?

    there's no way at all this could be abused, no way at all, i can't think of even a single way that this could possibly be abused...i can't think of any way at all that allowing users to submit suggestions to remove a site from search results could possibly be abused by people with botnets able to impersonate thousands of users clicking links

    keep up the good work google!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Double edged sword

      So we wait until they claim it's become part of the search algorithm then all block Google's services for a laugh to see what happens?

      1. Goat Jam
        Joke

        Errm

        All that would mean is that you would no longer be able to search for "google" on google and we all know that we shouldn't be doing that anyway because if you type "google" into google you will break the Internet.

  3. RollinPowell

    +1 for blocking Experts Exchange

    Even though I have to admit their SEO work is impressive, I loathe Experts Exchange always having the top spot when I'm running Google marathons trying to figure out just what exactly is wrong with that one domain controller that never behaves as it should.....

    Firefox port coming soon?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: Firefox port coming soon?

      Check out the surfclarity plugin for Firefox.

    2. crowley

      +1 for blocking Foundem

      as title

  4. Mike Flugennock

    m'ehhhhh... no thanks.

    As much as I love the idea of being able to shit-can certain domains from my search results, I don't like the idea of more information on myself going back to Google in the process.

    I sure hope someone is working on a Firefox extension that does the same thing; whoever it is will be almost as big a hero as whoever it is who comes up with an extension that kills those goddamn' little pop-ups that infest YouTube videos.

  5. sage
    Pint

    (untitled)

    Experts-exchange has definitely made me want this option for quite some time. There are a few others, but that's one of the most annoying. Although you can occasionally find an answer by scrolling to the bottom of their pages. I think the absolute worst domains are the ones where you click through to their page and the keyword(s) you were searching for is/are nowhere on the page, so you go back, hit the cached version, and still find nothing.

  6. Tron Silver badge

    So which is cheaper?

    1. Paying Google to go top.

    2. Paying 3rd world unfortunates to manually block your competitors.

    3. Paying for botnet time to auto-block your competitors.

    And do you still have to pay Google if your promoted link would have appeared, before it was blocked?

    Looks like the LOIC is going to need extra functionality to handle this in v.2.0.

    Interesting:

    Google results of searches for:

    google: 3,920m.

    sex: 1,200m.

    apple: 1,160m.

    microsoft: 661m.

    Nothing suspicious about that at all. Oh no.

  7. Tom 35

    Something new

    for anonymous to play with?

  8. BristolBachelor Gold badge
    Megaphone

    Give me back my google

    Got the link in here anyway, but givemeback my google submits your search with a whole load of -inurl:(kelkoo|bizrate|pixmania........

    http://www.givemebackmygoogle.com/

    Now what I want is a plugin that only shows search results that CONTAIN MY FRIGGIN SEARCH TERMS.

    I am always looking at the cached version to see "contained on page linking to this page" or some such, and the page google found had NOTHING to do with the search terms I used.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    the real reason for this....

    What are the odds that this plugin will automatically send a 'ignore results from [insert url for company currently suing google]' to google on your behalf, thereby allowing google to continue to ditch the crap returned by aggregators.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    I AM NOT A NUMBER! I AM FREE MAN!

    "The extension is also a way for the company to gather information about undesirable domains as it works to combat so-called webspam"

    Said it perfectly! Nothing, absolutely nothing Google does is ever in your interest. You start blocking stuff, they will harvest your blocked list and add it to their neat little databases. Now they know what people hate and can adjust their little listings to target you even more perfectly!

    ADBlock Plus and FlashBlocker, 95% of the web's utter pointless shite stopped before it can infect my browser.

    1. Oninoshiko
      WTF?

      You seem to be confusing what is and is not mutually exclusive.

      Google aggrigating my block-list with everyone else's to make the results better may be done because it it in their intrest to do so, but the end result is everyone gets better results. This *IS* in my intrest. That may not be why they are doing it, but my intrests don't change with the modivation of the other party.

      Doing the right thing for the wrong reason still has the effect, and that is what I am interested in.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Softonic

    Nice, I would like to see a public api as well for Firefox and other browsers.

    I would also add those nice people at softonic to the list of "bad buddies", they usually bundle some useful, but outdated, piece of free (as in beer) software (sometimes also opensource software as well) with their motherfriggin useless toolbars and search enhacers.

    I am tired of having to implore aunts and grandmas not to install software taken from Softonic.

  12. Andy Farley
    Thumb Up

    Excellent...

    Now to get my botnet to block my competitors.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    User javascript

    I've been using a userscript with Opera for the last couple of years that does this. If I could be arsed to update it to use HTML storage with a pretty UI rather than a hard-wired array in the source for the banned domains, I'd have uploaded it by now.

    But Firefox can have extensions added to let it run user javascripts like Opera, so the same could be done on that too. I'm not sure about Chrome or Safari.

  14. Scott 53

    Illegal language

    I see you can now post death threats with impunity. Good job you didn't threaten to damage an airport or you would be in trouble.

    1. Tom Maddox Silver badge
      FAIL

      Lighten up, Francis

      Or perhaps, gosh, I don't know, it was a joke? Unfortunately, even HTML 5 doesn't provide the <joke> tag, so parsing non-literal semantic content is left to that thing between your ears, which you apparently use for cold storage.

  15. Moyra J. Bligh

    Um, okay

    I'd be more impressed if it would let me do this as a logged in Google user with whatever browser I chose to use. As in I'd be able to set this is my preferences. But, they won't even let me kill the lame and moronic suggestions that regurgitate back up from the unwashed masses and significantly slow down my searching, so I'm not holding my breath.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    title, schmitle

    I'm barring all my competitors as we speak

  17. JeffA

    It was an accident

    I'm sure that Google will say it was an accident when somehow Microsoft is added to every ones list.

    I do like the idea - and while experts-exchange may not be the first site it will be on my top three to be added.

    Maybe they can add hate rankings - so you let Google know how much you hate it a site.

  18. Tom 38
    Happy

    Fare-the-well

    pricegrabber and friends

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Experts-exchange? Google already has the answer.

    Google search string: experts exchange -"experts-exchange.com"

    Searches for the terms experts exchange, but without experts-exchange.com appearing in the article.

  20. Chris Jakeman

    Firefox equivalent

    Hadn't heard of surfclarity before. I find OptimizeGoogle does the job quite well on my Firefox.

  21. jchr
    Thumb Up

    dire threat

    Dear 'The Register' management,

    I admit that in any other circumstance than blacklisting The Register website your threat to' If you block The Register, we will find you and we will kill you. ®' might be deemed slightly excessive. The circumstance envisaged however is very extreme and at least in my own circumstance most unlikely so I feel I can rest easy.

    Keep up the good works.

    JC

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