The Internet Is A Very Strange Place - Technology Posted by Jeff (Sunday August 03 2003 @ 01:13PM EDT)

While his name may provide a clue, I am not certain the number of arms owned by Kevin The One Armed Boy. Unless John Ashcroft discovers Iraq's chemical arsenal in Kevin's basement, then we can presume he has fewer than three. Here on Blog Day, Kevin pecks comments with at least one digit. As a result, he has established a following of loyal readers. When Kevin sent me a link to his own blog, I readily placed it on this site. The rise of the google's popularity has created a commodity of hyper-links. That search engine ranks web pages based on the number of links which point to them. This algorithm was developed before widespread availability of content management systems and blogging engines. At the time google developed its page rank system, hyper-links did not come cheap. Most people had to telnet into their webserver and edit an HTML file in the vi editor. Google reasoned that if a lot of people expended that effort to link to the same page, then that page must be important. But when I added a link to One-Armed Kevin's blog, it took about five seconds. Blogging engines have reduced the cost of hyper-link creation. As a result, the commodity has become de-valued. Blog Day Afternoon has a links section. To contribute to google's page ranking system, one is not required to understand HTML. The only necessary skill is copy-and-paste, select a URL from the browser's location bar and paste it into a text field. Hocus pocus! A page was granted further weight. The reduced cost of hyper-linking has flooded the market with links. Consider the example of Kevin The One Armed Boy. His website includes links to sites that "don't stink." But it also contains another section entitled "Links What Do Stink." While the latter section contains just one link, it does represent a larger trend. The low cost of hyper-linking has not only de-valued google's page ranking system, it has skewed it adversely. So which site holds the distinction as the only one that stinks? It is something called Smart Remarks by Gil Smart. If you enjoy a good butchering of the English language, then this site is for you. Kevin featured it in the "stink" section as he "disagree[s] with nearly everything he stands for." Frankly Gil Smart's grammar was too convulted for me to know or care what he stands for so I'll take Kevin at his word. Kevin's adversary uses something called Sitemeter to "to see where you folks are coming from." As a result, he noticed traffic from Kevin The One Armed Boy's site flowing toward his own. Smart saw the comment that I referenced above and decided to link back to Kevin's site with a detailed treatise filled with shit he stands for. As far as I can tell, the first plank in his platform is physical violence. Engaged in a ideological battle he felt compelled to mention that his aptness for fisticuffs. The reader may determine the value of that assertion. As this illustration demonstrates, the google algorithm is flawed. The indiscriminate googlebot is incapable of discerning the intention of a hyper-link creator. Given google's importantance as an information portal, I believe it is necessary to amend the HTML standard in order to preserve the integrity of the page ranking system. I propose the SEARCH attribute for the A tag. The optional SEARCH attribute is an ENUM that consists of two initially proposed values, FOLLOW and NOFOLLOW. Its inclusion in the A tag allows the author to provide intent to a web crawler. A search engine can better implement google's original intention if its system promotes pages based solely on information conveyed by the SEARCH attribute. In the absense of rankings, the engine should return pages based upon content matches. Here's how it works: Tells the googlebot to register one vote of "cool" on behalf of Blog Day Afternoon. Says "I just want to point out what a douche bag this guy is. Don't bother to rank it."

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By Funkman (Monday August 04 2003 @ 12:42PM EDT)

Sigh ... Jeff must hate being a C weenie living in a non-C world. Problem number one: Introducing an ENUM to fix a problem. Why ENUM? Why not boolean being true or false. Are there other future intentions to this new value of SEARCH? Problem number two: Changing the HTML spec to accomodate a search engine's flawed algorithm. The solution is not to change the spec, but to alter the algorithm. An algorithm is only as valid as the assumptions its based on. Page rank is now based on a false assumptions. Page rank also fails miserably in homogenous content based sites. If Google is to make in roads on corporate search logic - they need to fix this problem. For now, Page Rank is best suited for heterogenous unrelated environments. Problem number three: Its an asshat concept. If a link is important enough to link to, then it can be important enough for a search engine to follow. If you really don't want someone to follow your link, bury it in javascript and the problem is solved. Don't make the world change to solve your problem.

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By Jeff (Monday August 04 2003 @ 02:56PM EDT)

Sigh. Funkman fails to realize that I'm a PHP God. Answer number one: (employed with a rhetorical question) How many values may an enum contain? Hint: more than a boolean. Answer number two: You missed the point. Answer number three: See answer number two.

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By Tom (Monday August 04 2003 @ 04:14PM EDT) Jeff is right. An ENUM would be more useful. The best search tag for these sites might be: <A HREF="http://blogdayafternoon.com/" SEARCH="ANGRY_WHITE_MEN_CIRCA_40_ENGAGED_IN_CIRCLE_JERK_IGNORE"> [ reply | parent ]

By kevin the one armed boy (Monday August 04 2003 @ 06:23PM EDT) Please feel free to ignore us oh ageless, non-angry raceless, never-had-a-difference in ideology one. [ reply | parent ]

By Jeff (Monday August 04 2003 @ 07:23PM EDT) Don't mind him. My sense is that he's been down on this website ever since I made the case for more moderation [ reply | parent ]

By Tom (Tuesday August 05 2003 @ 02:39PM EDT) Simply not true. I thought it one of your most delightfully ironic pieces. The only thing that could have made it better was if Howard Hughes had written it from a sanitized hotel room. [ reply | parent ]

By kevin the one armed boy (Tuesday August 05 2003 @ 03:08PM EDT) And therein lies your problem. The internet is free and you get what you pay for. I can only imagine where you're really sticking those quarters. BTW, Apparently I forgot "pretentious windbag" too. [ reply | parent ]

By Tom (Wednesday August 06 2003 @ 08:41AM EDT) I think I see your point... KTOAB says keep it short nada word games, no pretense right wing fish, he blogs [ reply | parent ]

By kevin the one armed boy (Wednesday August 06 2003 @ 09:30AM EDT) You win, I'm done. Cheers. [ reply | parent ]

By Tom (Wednesday August 06 2003 @ 10:01AM EDT) Cheers. C'est finis. [ reply | parent ]

By Anonymous (Wednesday August 06 2003 @ 12:27PM EDT) Most people spell "You win, I'm done. Cheers." like this: "UNCLE!" [ reply | parent ]

By Anonymous (Wednesday August 06 2003 @ 01:42PM EDT) not e.e. cummings [ reply | parent ]

By Tom (Tuesday August 05 2003 @ 02:36PM EDT) You forgot "first and fatherless." I'll try to take your advice, but I've popped so many quarters into this thing that I'd hate to walk away before the wit finally comes out. WRT Ideology -- nasty word. I actively try not to have one and I tend to lump marxists, christians, scientistics, straussians etc. together in the same group. The actual belief content is irrelevant, it's the difference between making unjustified and usually superfluous assertions and not making them. [ reply | parent ]

By Funkman (Monday August 04 2003 @ 03:57PM EDT)

Funkman laughs at Jeff since he was just talking about moving a site away from PHP. Still wonders if boolean is good enough. Enums are annoying when they have two values and the value is the equivalent of true and false. You missed the entire point of my 3rd problem. Use javascript and YOUR problem is solved. Or you can make Google (a single entity) use a better algorthim instead of forcing your change (which only you will use) on the world. (A bigger entity) You'd have a better chance at convincing Google to extend the HTML spec so complain to them if they advertised that they did the above. Funkman challenges Jeff to send Jeff's suggestion to Google and see if they do it.

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