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  • [LINK] CNET Deletes Thousands of Old Articles to Game Google Search

    From Computer Nerd Kev@21:1/5 to All on Sat Aug 12 10:59:30 2023
    CNET Deletes Thousands of Old Articles to Game Google Search
    By Thomas Germain, 9th Aug. 2023
    - https://gizmodo.com/cnet-deletes-thousands-old-articles-google-search-seo-1850721475

    "Tech news website CNET has deleted thousands of old articles over
    the past few months in a bid to improve its performance in Google
    Search results, Gizmodo has learned.

    Archived copies of CNET's author pages show the company deleted
    small batches of articles prior to the second half of July, but
    then the pace increased. Thousands of articles disappeared in
    recent weeks. A CNET representative confirmed that the company was
    culling stories but declined to share exactly how many it has taken
    down. The move adds to recent controversies over CNET's editorial
    strategy, which has included layoffs and experiments with
    error-riddled articles written by AI chatbots." ...


    Maybe it's just me, but the only use I've ever had from CNET was as
    the sole remaining source of specifications for old laptops after
    manufacturers had banished old product pages from their own
    websites, and this sounds a lot like the end of that. The article
    notes that the pages are being uploaded to the Internet Archive,
    but it's surely going to be harder to find them because,
    ironically, they were usually eagerly presented to me in search
    results (often the only relevant results for some laptop model
    numbers).

    Browsing manufacturer websites on the Wayback Machine is also often
    impossible due to extensive use of client and/or server-side
    scripting for navigating to product pages within them. I can see it
    being easier to find info about a laptop made in 2002 than for one
    from 2012!

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  • From Visiblink@21:1/5 to Computer Nerd Kev on Fri Aug 11 20:01:23 2023
    On 12 Aug 2023 10:59:30 +1000
    not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) wrote:

    Maybe it's just me, but the only use I've ever had from CNET was as
    the sole remaining source of specifications for old laptops after manufacturers had banished old product pages from their own
    websites, and this sounds a lot like the end of that.

    For me it was old phones (mostly Blackberries, Nokias, and Palm/HP). I
    guess they're probably leaving the reviews up on Youtube. The videos
    shouldn't impact their SEO.

    The surface net just keeps getting worse. I find myself enjoying
    Gopher, Gemini, personal websites (which are difficult to find) and
    Usenet more than ever.

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