The Internet is not forever after all: CNET deletes old articles to game Google
The Internet is not forever after all: CNET deletes old articles to game Google
Content pruning for SEO threatens web history, and experts say it is ill-advised.
It is perhaps another sign of how bad things have become with Google's search results—full of algorithmically generated junk sites—that publications like CNET are driven to such extremes to stay above the sea of noise.
Permanently Deleted
47Sounds like CNET alright. They are one of those companies that I genuinely believe would be better managed if they made ChatGPT their CEO.
27Quite a lot of companies like that to be honest.
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It’s moments like these that I’m very grateful for the Wayback Machine and the Internet Archive.
39Google search has gone to absolute shit over the past few years. It’s inaccurate and oftentimes not even close to what you’re looking for.
21Cnet is trash. Them deleting old articles is probably and improvement to search results. They should delete new ones as well.
19I was never a fan of CNET either... In fact, most of the Red Ventures subsidiaries seem quite bland.
2I find the only good content comes from people's blogs. Sites that have to constantly publish articles always turn to shit.
4
It's really fucking sad, especially for cnet, because they were a major source of news, downloads, search, etc. in the 90s. Some of my super fond memories are of watching CNet Central on the Sci-Fi Channel through the mid-late 90s. But over the last decade or so particularly, they have been seriously going to shit. Their older stuff has already been super hard to find. IA has some grabs of their site, but the old TV shows are basically lost, with only very small handful of people's VHS rips on youtube. So they took a fucking nosedive, and now just want to wipe out their history.
It's awful. Also, how tf can someone justify removing content from your site as something to improve SEO? You'd think search engines would like a well-established company with a rich library of articles and resources.
The whole industry of trying to game SEO is ruining the Web.
16🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Unfortunately, we are penalized by the modern Internet for leaving all previously published content live on our site," Taylor Canada, CNET’s senior director of marketing and communications, told Gizmodo.
Proponents of SEO techniques believe that a higher rank in Google search results can significantly affect visitor count, product sales, or ad revenue.
However, before deleting an article, CNET reportedly maintains a local copy, sends the story to The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, and notifies any currently employed authors that might be affected at least 10 days in advance.
It is perhaps another sign of how bad things have become with Google's search results—full of algorithmically generated junk sites—that publications like CNET are driven to such extremes to stay above the sea of noise.
From time immemorial, the protection of historical content has required making many copies without authorization, regardless of the cultural or business forces at play, and that has not changed with the Internet.
Archivists operate in a parallel IP universe, borrowing scraps of reality and keeping them safe until shortsighted business decisions and copyright protectionism die down.
10The Library of Alexandria burning to the ground was a historical turning point, I wonder how comparable in terms of data are some of these larger, older sites? I don’t personally care too much about CNET, but they are one of many. The internet culling vast amounts of knowledge en-masse goes virtually unnoticed due to the invisible nature of its collections.
8“And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the [CNET article] passed out of all knowledge.” - LotR Tolkien
7Daily reminder to contribute to Internet Archive and similar preservation sites.
6This made sure I will avoid all CNET articles in google searches
5Internet is Clearly CNET isnt
5So as long as you post your nudes to CNET, you're good.
3