[bobds]

> This shit doesn't fly with Google.

Not only does this shit fly but Google are doing it on their own websites.

EDIT: I'm guessing you don't believe me. Try clicking on a Google Groups link.

This article has another example: http://www.seobook.com/googles-youtube-caught-cloaking-spam-...

Google repeatedly violates the "guidelines" they try to force on other webmasters.

[irahul]

> Not only does this shit fly but Google are doing it on their own websites.

I am not claiming Google is benevolent. As I mentioned above, if a user searches for "rails select in query" and the user clicks on experts-exchange result summary showing partial answer only to be taken to the page where answers are hidden, the user failed to find something on Google. May be he will blame experts-exchange, but he will blame Google as well.

> EDIT: I'm guessing you don't believe me.

I am guessing you were downvoted. I didn't downvote you. If fact, you can't downvote immediate replies to your post. Since you directly replied to my post, the downvote link doesn't appear for me for your reply.

[bobds]

I just want to point out that search results like Quora or Experts-exchange, are definitely not going away. Some websites might be penalized here and there but I haven't seen any consistent efforts to stop them.

In fact, Google wants even more such results. See First Click Free: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...

Oh and here are 240 million login-walled pages: https://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:groups.google.com/grou...

[irahul]

> In fact, Google wants even more such results. See First Click Free: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&....

Google wants to index as much content as possible. It's providing incentive to content owners to let Google index it. As pointed out by another commenter, clicking on the search result summary shows that document in full. It's only the subsequent clicks that can be paywalled.

> Oh and here are 240 million login-walled pages: https://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:groups.google.com/grou....

Is it asking to sign in? I tried in incognito mode and I could read the groups just fine.

[bobds]

> It's only the subsequent clicks that can be paywalled.

I find it annoying when that happens. Also, Google's recommendation is to allow 5 clicks a day and allow everyone with "GoogleBot" in their useragent. I wish the implementation was better.

> Is it asking to sign in? I tried in incognito mode and I could read the groups just fine.

You are right, I cleared my cookies and I stopped getting the login redirection.

[0x0]

I'd be OK with this if I could click on a search result link and actually read the web page; I wouldn't mind other links on that page leading to a please-sign-up.

The scummy thing here is that you're taken to a web page where the interesting content is hidden on the first page.