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Experts Exchange should be removed from Google search results

rustyrazorblade.com — I was trying to figure out how to extend my wireless network down a few floors a few days ago, and one of my queries brought me to experts exchange. The question looked useful: Using Linksys WAP54G as Wireless Repeater. This is exactly what I wanted to do. However, once I actually [...]

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 31, 2007

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  • angusm, on 10/23/2007, -28/+515A long time ago, Experts Exchange was an often useful resource because everything on the site was accessible. If you Google'd for a few keywords related to whatever problem you were having, you'd often find someone else who was dealing with the same issue and, in many cases, a solution.

    Then they switched to the 'walled garden' paid model. At that point, for anyone not willing to pay their fees, Experts Exchange became a liability rather than an asset: they take up prime space in Google result sets, but they only offer the problem, not the solution.

    Experts Exchange are, of course, free to choose to sell their content. Moreover, unlike the poster of this article, I don't see any evidence to suggest that they're currently serving different content to users and to search engines (which would be search-engine spamming, and punishable by removal). However, they are effectively getting the equivalent of free Google AdWords: they get highly-ranked entries in Google's results pages for what is essentially nothing more than an advert for their service. If I were Google, I might well want to do something about that.
  • picktwo, on 10/10/2007, -38/+442expert sex change
  • mlerner, on 10/23/2007, -28/+320Easy solution, if you find a search result in Gooogle, click on cache it brings up all the posts on that page without ever having to get a subscription.
  • RyeBrye, on 10/10/2007, -9/+109"Moreover, unlike the poster of this article, I don't see any evidence to suggest that they're currently serving different content to users and to search engines (which would be search-engine spamming, and punishable by removal)."

    Are you a fsking idiot? Hit the site - all you see is gibberish. Hit the google cache - you see real content. What part of "different" do you not understand?
  • squeky, on 10/10/2007, -10/+88Scroll down to the bottom through blurred answers and "Zones". The real answers are there in their unblurred glory. Is it just me that has found this solution??
  • erkston, on 10/10/2007, -9/+85greasemonkey script that removes experts exchange from google search results:

    http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/9462
  • leperkuhn, on 10/10/2007, -6/+81Not really the point. While it might be easy to break their encryption, Google's webmaster guidelines state that cloaking is not allowed. They are serving different versions of the page to the users and to search engines. They should be delisted.
  • inactive, on 10/10/2007, -8/+68I have PROOF they are providing DIFFERENT results to Google!

    First go to this link:
    http://www.experts-exchange.com/Networking/Macintosh_Networking/Q_20626590.html

    You'll notice the answers are all grayed out and ask you to sign up for Expert Exchange.

    Then go to this page, a Google cache of another page on Expert Exchange:

    http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:vFas7zvJG4wJ:www.experts-exchange.com/Networking/Q_21660493.html+Using+Linksys+WAP54G+as+Wireless+Repeater&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

    Now if you go back to the first link, magically the answerers aren't grayed out any more and you can see the solution. Why? I guess there was something special stored on your computer to let EE know you are a "Google Bot".

    Report Expert Exchange!!
  • joshuastarr, on 10/10/2007, -3/+60Install the UserAgent switcher for Firefox (found here: https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=59&application=firefox)

    And then add in a User Agent called 'Googlebot' with UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

    Then load up any of the Expert-Exchange pages -- guess what! You can view them all without any greyed out answers! The joke is on YOU Expert-Exchange.
  • keiths, on 10/10/2007, -7/+62No the problem is they are cloaking their pages for Google
  • theinfobox, on 10/10/2007, -10/+61Not any more. Or at least, not on the pages I tried. The cached version has the "View Solution" button as well.
  • winmywii, on 10/10/2007, -5/+49Agreed. Experts-exchange presents the users with a different page than google sees.
  • lelio98, on 10/10/2007, -5/+48I hate Experts Exchange for this very reason!
  • Bondrake, on 10/10/2007, -1/+43Okay, to clarify for everyone... the text will appear at the bottom of the page IF you do not have any Experts Exchange cookies stored in your browser.
    They probably show you the answer the first time you go to the site as an incentive showing the usefulness of the service... then next time you go you're likely to be lured into signing up to get an answer.

    Basically, you can cheat this by blacklisting cookies from Experts Exchange, or temporarily disabling cookies.
  • gegtik, on 10/10/2007, -5/+45It would be preferable if they were delisted
  • cfd339, on 10/10/2007, -2/+38I was on EE for a while. Spent a month getting to the top 10 in my category. The idea was you earned points answering, and that entitled you to ask questions in other areas of other experts.

    Then, they started selling the points, so the experts where answering noobie questions and the idea of "exchange" between "experts" became "paid support by suckers who give it away free" at which point I left.

    I've seen EE pages linked from Google that used CSS to render the pages human unreadable (usually through the use of oddball fonts). Simply turn off css on that page and you'll see the content.

    I agree, however, they should be removed from Google if they continue that behavior.
  • MasteRR, on 10/10/2007, -6/+41If Google hasn't removed New Your Times for doing the same thing (much more so, even) then they are unlikely to do anything about these guys.
  • dirtyfrog, on 10/10/2007, -1/+36Actually I just did this today. They show the view solution button at the end of the problem, but if you just scroll down (past a gray area with a lot of links in it) all of the comments including the marked solution are shown.
  • kaelyiesta, on 10/10/2007, -4/+34Their encryption takes no effort to break. I wrote a small extension to firefox long ago to convert the text before realizing that it was even simpler than a random shift. It's just(or was at the time I actually cared to use this lame site) a shift 13. The hardest part was just selecting the text to convert.
  • StephenCIreland, on 10/10/2007, -1/+31i hear therapistfinder is also quite good
  • mcm297, on 10/10/2007, -6/+35Normally I'd bury this for "blog spam", but I agree 100% with this post. EE blows.
  • Brownflem, on 10/10/2007, -8/+32I agree. Experts Exchange sucks now.
  • Timmmm, on 10/10/2007, -1/+25Many websites containing scientific papers do a similar thing - they give the whole PDF to google, but when you visit it you just get the abstract and the opportunity to buy the paper. They disable the google cache (using robots.txt I think) and user agent spoofing never really works anymore. It's very annoying and I think google should remove them too.
  • Boing, on 10/10/2007, -1/+24Google cache > paying for experts exchange.
  • haveacigar, on 10/10/2007, -3/+25http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/10747

    greasemonkey scripts that decoded the unreadable text
  • soapergem, on 10/10/2007, -1/+22I was a PHP expert on EE for a good couple of months, until I got sick of the burden of having to earn 3,000 expert points per month to maintain my free premium membership (that's how it works, either pay money or answer other people's questions). Since I stopped keeping up, I've lost the ability to ask new questions, but I still have access to view all the answers my heart desires, which I do have to admit it extremely useful at times.

    But I noticed that whenever I actually posted questions, back when my account was premium, most of the answers I received were all junk and not many people really knew what they talking about. Usually my routine went a little bit like this: post a question, wait for about 5 responses. Then post the question again, prefacing it by saying "OK, so no one was able to answer my question. Let me rephrase...", then wait again. Then clarify once more, and by that time usually someone with a head on their shoulders will pop in and suggest an answer. But a lot of the people there are just greedy for points and trying to post *anything* as quickly as possible.
  • Tmac90, on 10/10/2007, -2/+22that page is just a tease when you in a tight squeeze
  • mark13, on 10/10/2007, -6/+26Just get the User Agent Switcher extension and set it to Google Bot. Problem solved.
  • joshp20, on 10/10/2007, -6/+26If it comes up in a google search... just scroll all the way to the bottom of the page in firefox. It has all the talkback listed in plain text
  • mercurysquad, on 10/10/2007, -3/+21NYTimes registration is free .. plus, most university campuses and such places have access without registration. ExpertSexChange is adamant on making everyone pay.
  • RyeBrye, on 10/10/2007, -2/+20Someone on that site wrote in the comments: "I have been using the Google cache trick for ages. So now if Google remove them we won’t get the answers at all. I’d rather they were indexed and readable via the cache than not indexed at all. "

    I disagree entirely - if Experts Exchange ceases to exist, other FREEEEEEE forums will rise in their place. I HATE ExpertsExchange. They can rot in hell.
  • Gatesophile, on 10/10/2007, -3/+21Sorry about the comment abuse, but this could help:
    http://nerdiphythesoul.com/blog/?p=976
    According to that, they just use ROT13 in the page source.
  • sumguy231, on 10/10/2007, -2/+19Heh, you get all the solutions if you turn off stylesheets. Nice job there, expertsexchange guys.
  • Stonekeeper, on 10/10/2007, -1/+17molestationnursery FTW!
  • zorm, on 10/10/2007, -6/+22Same here, I always just scroll down. Guess this just proves that there method works and the average digg user isn't that bright! ;)
  • XStatic, on 10/10/2007, -1/+17IGoogle needs a customizeable blacklist - experts exchange is not the only one I want to eliminate!
  • irwiss, on 10/10/2007, -3/+19Who is burying this guy?

    For the lame and/or lazy of us,
    Look at http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:vFas7zvJG4wJ:www.experts-exchange.com/Networking/Q_21660493.html+Using+Linksys+WAP54G+as+Wireless+Repeater&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
    and then http://www.experts-exchange.com/Networking/Q_21660493.html
  • DocHoliday22, on 10/10/2007, -4/+18Have you ever tried searching for a product only to be inundated with ebay, amazon and a crap load of shopping sites? Well most of us have and it's annoying as hell. Simply finding the spec of a TV will load up garbage sites that try to sell you the stuff without explaining what it is or showing the specs at all you end up having to ask someone on a forum.

    Not the way the Internet should be... If I wanted to buy I would have typed in "buy" in the search engine.
  • inactive, on 10/10/2007, -2/+16Experts Exchange = Crap
  • mithrasinvictus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14I used to be a free contributor to this site and yes, i think the advise i provided for free should either be freely available or removed.
    If they don't want to provide access to their content to non (or ex) subscribers then they shouldn't have google index those pages.

    Google really needs a personal blacklist.
  • DamageInc, on 10/10/2007, -11/+24I'm glad I registered back in 2005. Limited membership was free and allowed you to view solutions to all questions, as well as give you 500 points for posting questions. It looks like the limited membership option is gone now, but those who have it are still free to use the site without paying (I actually used the site this morning for a solution). And now thats its not free anymore, I'm surprised they havn't required me to start paying or threaten to cancel my account.
  • rhamej, on 10/10/2007, -4/+16I AM at the bottom of the page you ***** igmoron. And here is what I see in FF.
    http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/411/picture1rd7.jpg
    Just because you see it doesn't mean everyone else sees it.
  • MasteRR, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13Free or not they are still supplying different info to browsers and spiders, which is a clear violation of Google's terms.
  • EXreaction, on 10/10/2007, -1/+132 extremely easy ways to get by EE.

    1. As mark13 said, set your browser to tell EE that you are a search bot.
    2. Disable Javascript.

    Both work (or at least used to a few weeks ago when I last tried it).
  • inactive, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14You are correct, they are cloaking, and angusm is right on the money. they should be removed.
  • 1310nm, on 10/10/2007, -3/+15I totally agree, I've been noticing the same thing about Experts Exchange lately, it's really upsetting that all that user-provided material is now being used for money. I guess the plethora of link ads wasn't enough.
  • madjoe, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14I added them as spam. This is *****.
  • blackfox026, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12so is penisland.net
  • wicketr, on 10/10/2007, -10/+21The answers do show up in Firefox. That's what i'm using. You have to scroll past the blurred out answers, past the Expert Zones, past everything else, till you get to the bottom 5% of the page. There are all the answers by all of the people.

    The bottom of the page means the BOTTOM of the page.
  • skankyBacon, on 10/10/2007, -5/+16I see this too...I was beginning to wonder. Just keep scrolling and the answers are usually there.
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