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by Simucal 5287 days ago
I think you ignored mseebach's point.

The mechanics of how the search results are ranked (pagerank) is irrelevant. The system is "broken" when original source content is ranking below people merely linking to it from another site.

3 comments

I don't think it's that clear cut. I can think of lots of examples where I'd rather see the comments / links from trusted individuals or sites ranked above the original source content, regardless of what search I'm using.

Pagerank shouldn't be universal - it doesn't make sense to believe that the same ranking system should work equally well for all users.

Some very convincing examples would be appropriate here. As for myself, even if I would want to read secondary sources first, I would still want the original content at the top of an unbiased search, recognizing that my desires are somewhat weird and that the original content has a certain moral right to be at the top when searching for that exact content.
I agree.

I think a good way to identify original source content is through author attribution, with trusted identities, in a social graph, curated by users in a web of trust.

Hmm... That sounds like exactly what Google+ is doing.

If you happen to Encircle someone who created the comment in the first place, it's debatable about which post you'd rather see higher.

I think he didn't make it clear enough. The system isn't broken, the original source just has a lower pagerank.I fail to see where the issue is. I've seen links rank lower than their relevant HN or Reddit posts on Google before.
Actually a sub domain is considered a different domain with it's own page rank, I believe this is do to many hosted blogs at wordpress, blogger etc...
The thing is, the pagerank should not matter. What you want when you search the internet is a relevant result, regardless of its pagerank. If the system relies too much in the pagerank to determine whether a site is relevant to your search terms or not, well, yes, the system is broken.