Why haven’t the Search Engines banned blackhat sites?
Posted by: James Lewitzke in General Search Engine Talk, Random QuestionThis is a thought that has occurred for a while. If they decided to blacklist those particular sites, wouldn’t it make everyone’s lives easier?
Search Engines like Google still seem to index the very sites that are out there teaching webmasters how to manipulate them.
The reasons I can think of why they would choose NOT to ban them include the fact that they are not human-run, and that the Search Engine Companies still feel that it would be bad business to put those sites on the shelf.
But even if this were true, wouldn’t it be better for them in the long run? As the SE’s wouldn’t have to change their algorithms as often; and they’d be making money in a cleaner way. Well, actually whether money is “clean” or not doesn’t really matter in the business field much, IMO.
Interesting food for thought.
Actually, these blackhat sites help the search engines to counter the manipulation of their service. They provide the details of how to do x, y and z so companies like Google can build effective methods of killing it. If they were to ban these sites, they risk loosing the ability to learn and adapt as fast.
That said, after the search engine has exhausted its counter-measures, it would be an idea to ban the site.
I don’t think that’s the reason they ikeep blackhat sites in the public index. They can still use BH sites as sources of information and pick out things (e.g. most of the BS that comes from Michael Gray) without having to index it.
I’ve always been of the mindset that they keep a few in as red herrings to convince webmasters that shortcuts do work. This gives them a better idea of who’s screwing around and who isn’t. I don’t really agree with the logic, but it’s the only one that I can come up with that makes any kind of sense.
The same logic, whilst pliable it is doubtful, as them “having fun” by letting people exploit their system; see who can actually do it. This then leads onto my point of how to stop them doing that. Then the cycle returns.
Only way to know is to ask them
Would be interesting to see the truth and how close or far we are with our opinions.
Well, if the reason they keep them in their main index is to have a better understanding of who is trying to “game the system”, then why not place them in the secondary or supplemental index then?
It’s not like most of the blackhat webmasters will *know* whether they’re being penalized or not.