Facebook in Google’s index.
A weird idea got into my mind today. Just for the sake of doing it, I tried to see how many pages Google had in its index for Facebook. First question that one would ask: “Why Facebook ?”. The answer: Facebook has a “cloaking” script which according to Google terms of service should have got it banned. Here is a definition:
Cloaking is “used to describe a website that returns altered web pages to search engines crawling the site. In other words, the webserver is programmed to return different content to Google than it returns to regular users, usually in an attempt to distort search engine rankings. This can mislead users about what they’ll find when they click on a search result. To preserve the accuracy and quality of our search results, Google may permanently ban from our index any sites or site authors that engage in cloaking to distort their search rankings.”
SOURCE: Google FAQ for Webmasters
So, here we are then with a whooping 385 000 000 pages for Facebook today. This means that the Facebook script works. If you’re asking yourself how, its simple. The info that Google is showing is not the same when you follow the link and Facebook distorts things in the sense that it urges the search engine user to get an account to see other profiles. Now, the remaining dark spot of the whole issue is eventually the fact that Facebook is a huge site, with huge money (though on the decline) and is one of the most search keywords on the web, is doing this overtly. Add to that the fact that online presence is not well by 95% of the persons having a profile you get the idea of what Facebook can mean to Google. Hence, it can get through the terms of services while using black hat SEO.
Do you think that this should be allowed? Is it normal?
About the Author:
Sachin D. Brojmohun has extensive experience in terms of graphic design, CSS integration, usability and accessibility as well as in SEO. More about him and the Web Design Bureau of Mauritius here: Web Design Mauritius.
Twitter: kurtavish
says:
It should not be allowed as a rule must be same for everyone. But helas its not so on the web.
Example: google adsense says max of ads block per page is 3. Thats fine with me. But CERTAIN big sites (The big sh*ts repeating the same things over and over) have more. But they are not affected by Google.
I even see many big sites doing sponsored reviews! But Google does not penalize them.
On the web one rule is true:
If you got a lot of money and is very popular, then even if you sell shit, people buy! Even if you talk shit, THE people will say Bravo. But if the same thing is said or a more intelligent thing is said by a medium or small site, then its as if…you just shot an arrow in the desert.
Twitter: sachindb
says:
So this does mean that Google has special treatment for special clients.
[rq=1913,0,blog][/rq]Rotten things about clients.
I don’t think Google has special treatment for special talent. The special talent would be : optimise your website for search engines as much as you can, it’s a regular work that should be done, be it feeding your website with content, optimising alts, image tags, and carefully choosing keywords and expressions…and much more. SEO is an art so to say, everyone can do it, it’s all about how we do it.
Twitter: sachindb
says:
No, we’re not talking of talent here. Its just that it looks like Google has a special algorithm for Facebook who is openly doing cloaking. BTW, the 385 000 000 pages cited in the post has gone up to 487 000 000!