[dazc]

It was removed because it was being gamed from the outset. The workable alternative would be a 'Social Credit' system where some domains can be blocked if enough of the 'right people' want them blocked.

Google running a social credit system may have unintended consequences though.

[Regnore]

> It was removed because it was being gamed from the outset.

'Gamed' as in people would block the most ad-infested pages which just so happened to be the ones which made Google the most money?

[dazc]

No, 'gamed' as in mass blocking one's competitor's results. If you think ads are bad you should take a peep into the world of 'negative seo'.

I can assure you that any solution you can think of that will improve web search will be used in the exact opposite way you imagine.

[_Algernon_]

You can allow individuals to customize their own search results without having to use that more broadly.

[janalsncm]

I do this now. There are plenty of chrome plugins to block domains from the results.

[flir]

So Google was using the blocklists as a signal of site quality?

Seems the problem's not the blocking itself then, and the whole feature didn't need to be removed, just its use as a metric.

[moneywoes]

Was that feature not akin to the report button

[safety1st]

I realize this is anathema to Google, but they could always pay a human being to investigate the domains that receive the most spam reports, and make a decision about it based on human judgment.

One wonders how much bullshit might have been solved through a .005% increase in Google's payroll...

[titzer]

Having worked at Google for almost 10 years, I can say that almost any solution proposed that includes "we'll have a person look at this with their eyes" would be instantly discounted as unworkable. The reality distortion field towards automatic everything with computers is intense.

[safety1st]

It makes sense for Google, the company has learned that they can focus that intensely on reducing costs and get away with it. I think it is our fault as a society (or perhaps our government's fault) that we have not created an environment where the competition is stiff and Google needs to invest more heavily in quality to stay relevant.

[janalsncm]

That is literally how their search ranking team works. Here is a search strategy, here is another. Tell me which is better based on a bunch of random queries.

For spammy websites, you don’t review every one individually. But you have an algorithm that e.g. downranks them, and you AB test it.

They probably already have this strategy now, just not deployed for one reason or another. (For example, it might be expensive and unreliable to scan every website.) But if Google loses enough traffic to a competitor, they’ll be forced to do something.

[meetingthrower]

How much review would it take? How many websites until you get to 99% of traffic?

[carlosjobim]

Unless they used those blocklist to influence their normal search results, there is no way to game it. That choice was up to Google.