For-pay Web content is information terrorism and should be banned (experts-exchange.com, etc = evil)
Any computer programmer who has ever googled an error message (for some reason, especially Microsoft error messages) knows the annoyance of running into an experts-exchange.com kind of website that has EXACTLY the question you're wondering about, "Help, I have error X" -- but then when it comes to the answers to these questions, it touts "I have 6 expert replies to this question, just sign up now!"
How wrong is that? You're using google against me! Helpful information like this yearns to be free, but you're telling me I have to pay in order to get my question answered? Here's another one by justanswer.com.
I just cut my finger. I actually did kind of want to see what the answer was. But what awful copy to use in this case. "This Answer is Locked!" Wow. OK, so you're saying, I'm bleeding all over the place, I am worried as heck about my health, and you want me to bleed all over my keyboard typing my credit card number so that you can make a buck? The sad thing is almost every answer to any question on these sites can be found readily elsewhere. I would never pay into these sites, and I am annoyed that I have to wade through this cruft in my google results. I just feel sorry for the poor schmucks who don't know any better and pay for it. As a business, it's effective. It works. It makes money. But ultimately, Google pagerank should ban these guys on principal. They shouldn't even appear in the first 10 pages of my search results.
6 comments
Dec 12, 2008
Matt Kaufman said...
I couldn't agree more! It'd be great if Google offered a way to exclude certain sites (such as those) from all search results.
Dec 12, 2008
Reggie Soang said...
agree...google definitely needs to do better jobs filtering out unnecessary websites.
Dec 12, 2008
Suzanne said...
wait...there is more than 1 page of search results?
Dec 12, 2008
Marcus Schroefel said...
think depends totally on your context. If it's business related why not monetize? Second example seems bit harder ~ compare to a doctor refusing to help... :( Squeezing out money out of people who actually can not know better / are helpless sucks anyways - think about self installing Spyware removers...
Well and if you offering law related answers with real experts this can even save you money (and a visit at a lawyer)....
Dec 12, 2008
Srinivasan R said...
Though not for bleeding fingers, programmers can check out stackoverflow.com which is so low friction site for programmers to ask questions and get answers.
Dec 13, 2008
Michael Matuzak said...
Hopefully sites like stackoverflow.com will push nonsense like experts exchange down to the bottom of the google barrel.
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