Google allows users to block sites from search results

Google unveils anti-content farm Chrome tool [CNET News]

The New York Times published a story this weekend about how one prominent retailer used so-called "black hat" methods to improve its standings in Google's search results. That story was among several others recently that focused on how many companies are gaming the search giant's core business, which prides itself on an algorithm that operates independent of human intervention. The problem that Google faces: a committed group of search engine optimization specialists are hard at work every day reverse engineering that algorithm in order to move specific pages higher in Google's PageRank.

Google is fighting back. In addition to manually adjusting their results to demote the retailer highlighed in the Times' reporting, the company has also just released an extention for its Chome browser that effectively lets users make similar manual adjustments to search results.

Called the Personal Blocklist, users can specify sites that they don't wish to show up in their Google search results. For instance, users searching for how-to information on the web can opt to block any number of content farm sites from their results using the extension. Users can unblock sites at any time from the extension's settings.

Google claims to be studying the sites that users block for potential inclusion in their search algorithm. 

Comments

[Chris]

Let me see here, oh I know! Just connect the minibox and the messages go away. See how easy that is?!?

Then again, if someone is slow enough that they post something completely unrelated to the topic of the article, maybe they can't figure out how to get rid of the message either.

Sure, many of us don't like bypassing our digital tuners and a solution may be on the way. However, this isn't the place for whining about that subject.

[Christie Hartlage]

Mr. Willner --

Once again I was watching a program when it was interrupted by your 6.10 digital change message. Is this really necessary? I was watching a digital flatscreen; I have your boxes on my other TVs which aren't digital. I GET THE MESSAGE. Can you please stop showing this message full screen so that I miss a program?

Thanks for your attention to this matter.