Comments on: Strange corners of the Web http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=strange-corners-of-web Thinking the unthinkable, pondering the imponderable, effing the ineffable and scruting the inscrutable Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:20:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Dave Leigh http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html#comment-2193 Dave Leigh Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:18:00 +0000 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-the-web.html#comment-2193 Hi, Rob,<br/><br/>I used to maintain the particular network that generated those "Sky King" messages. In fact, I helped to build two of the stations. Your rumor mill is not entirely inaccurate. Hi, Rob,

I used to maintain the particular network that generated those “Sky King” messages. In fact, I helped to build two of the stations. Your rumor mill is not entirely inaccurate.

]]> By: Răzvan Sandu http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html#comment-2170 Răzvan Sandu Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:28:00 +0000 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-the-web.html#comment-2170 Here's an actual example on which I fell upon - not about ODF, but about Linux:<br/><br/>http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/keyboard-shortcuts-for-bash-command-shell-for-ubuntu-debian-suse-redhat-linux-etc/ro/<br/><br/>"Shell" is translated in Romanian as "raft", which means is not the CLI, but the piece of furniture in a store, holding and exposing the goods for sale. ;-)<br/><br/>The test is almost unreadable in Romanian: an attempt to do an automated translation of a HOWTO?<br/><br/><br/>Regards,<br/>Răzvan Here’s an actual example on which I fell upon – not about ODF, but about Linux:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/keyboard-shortcuts-for-bash-command-shell-for-ubuntu-debian-suse-redhat-linux-etc/ro/

“Shell” is translated in Romanian as “raft”, which means is not the CLI, but the piece of furniture in a store, holding and exposing the goods for sale. ;-)

The test is almost unreadable in Romanian: an attempt to do an automated translation of a HOWTO?

Regards,
Răzvan

]]> By: David Gerard http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html#comment-2169 David Gerard Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:49:00 +0000 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-the-web.html#comment-2169 It's just blog spam. Word salad (generated by a Markov chain) is too obvious, so they grab any old text and run it through a translator and back again. The result is <i>almost</i> sensible, but, importantly, isn't word-for-word identical to the original, so doesn't get penalised in Google.<br/><br/>Appropriate response: report as spam blog. It’s just blog spam. Word salad (generated by a Markov chain) is too obvious, so they grab any old text and run it through a translator and back again. The result is almost sensible, but, importantly, isn’t word-for-word identical to the original, so doesn’t get penalised in Google.

Appropriate response: report as spam blog.

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html#comment-2168 Anonymous Sun, 22 Feb 2009 09:04:00 +0000 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-the-web.html#comment-2168 I think its #4, intentional pollution.<br/>Porn purveyors suffered this fate. Probably religiously-motivated folk polluted the Internet with phony sites so that Googling for an on-topic site is damned difficult. Try particularly searching for a particular niche, e.g. tentacle porn, and you'll have to wade through a few hundred pollution sites deliberately designed as interference before you find the good stuff. I think its #4, intentional pollution.
Porn purveyors suffered this fate. Probably religiously-motivated folk polluted the Internet with phony sites so that Googling for an on-topic site is damned difficult. Try particularly searching for a particular niche, e.g. tentacle porn, and you’ll have to wade through a few hundred pollution sites deliberately designed as interference before you find the good stuff.

]]> By: Rob http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html#comment-2167 Rob Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:08:00 +0000 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-the-web.html#comment-2167 That is weird. But I at least can understand the motivation. Whether Dadaist art, the poetry of Gertrude Stein, the music of John Cage, or the teachings of the Church of the SubGenius, there are times when the unexpected is expected, the inappropriate is de rigueur. <br/><br/>But these Microsoft/ODF web sites are not nearly bad enough to be interesting from an artistic standpoint. They to make them truly bad. <br/><br/>And I'm not convinced it is a commercial motivation either. If you want to get links to sell illegal OEM copies of Vista, then you load up a page with words like "Brittany Spears" or "free clip art". If your most distinguishing key words are Microsoft and ODF, then you are not going to get many clicks. So I don't think the OEM software link explains this. <br/><br/>Similarly, when the police come across a body shot in the back, and notice his wallet is gone, they don't automatically assume that means he was shot during a robbery. It could just as well be premeditated murder by someone who took the wallet to make it look like a robbery.<br/><br/>So I'm not sure we're any closer to a solution. Is it: 1. Search engine optimization, 2.Art, 3. selling OEM software to people who happen to be searching for Microsoft and ODF, 4. an attempt to make searches for these keywords less effective by decreasing the signal/noise ratio, or 5. All of the above ? That is weird. But I at least can understand the motivation. Whether Dadaist art, the poetry of Gertrude Stein, the music of John Cage, or the teachings of the Church of the SubGenius, there are times when the unexpected is expected, the inappropriate is de rigueur.

But these Microsoft/ODF web sites are not nearly bad enough to be interesting from an artistic standpoint. They to make them truly bad.

And I’m not convinced it is a commercial motivation either. If you want to get links to sell illegal OEM copies of Vista, then you load up a page with words like “Brittany Spears” or “free clip art”. If your most distinguishing key words are Microsoft and ODF, then you are not going to get many clicks. So I don’t think the OEM software link explains this.

Similarly, when the police come across a body shot in the back, and notice his wallet is gone, they don’t automatically assume that means he was shot during a robbery. It could just as well be premeditated murder by someone who took the wallet to make it look like a robbery.

So I’m not sure we’re any closer to a solution. Is it: 1. Search engine optimization, 2.Art, 3. selling OEM software to people who happen to be searching for Microsoft and ODF, 4. an attempt to make searches for these keywords less effective by decreasing the signal/noise ratio, or 5. All of the above ?

]]> By: Christian Walde http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html#comment-2166 Christian Walde Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:30:00 +0000 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-the-web.html#comment-2166 If you're looking for actual noise on the internet, here's a fine example: http://ricedoutyugo.com/ If you’re looking for actual noise on the internet, here’s a fine example: http://ricedoutyugo.com/

]]> By: Răzvan Sandu http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html#comment-2165 Răzvan Sandu Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:06:00 +0000 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-the-web.html#comment-2165 Hello Rob,<br/><br/>Happy to hear that someone did the same shortwave radio listening there, on the other coast of the Atlantic Ocean. I personally did it for many years here, in Romania... (I still do, from time to time) ;-)<br/><br/>As a person interested in the ODF/OOXML battle here, in Romania, I've noticed the same phenomenon here, about the Web materials written IN ROMANIAN on the OOXML matter.<br/><br/>Namely, the blogs of some proeminent Romanian free software advocates, that blogged frequently about ODF, OOXML and their situation here, got superceded (in Google rankings) by this type of "automatic translations" you've mentioned.<br/><br/>It seems to me like an effort to "bury" those blogs in a lot of "noise", trying to make them less visible in search engines...<br/><br/>Regards,<br/>Răzvan Hello Rob,

Happy to hear that someone did the same shortwave radio listening there, on the other coast of the Atlantic Ocean. I personally did it for many years here, in Romania… (I still do, from time to time) ;-)

As a person interested in the ODF/OOXML battle here, in Romania, I’ve noticed the same phenomenon here, about the Web materials written IN ROMANIAN on the OOXML matter.

Namely, the blogs of some proeminent Romanian free software advocates, that blogged frequently about ODF, OOXML and their situation here, got superceded (in Google rankings) by this type of “automatic translations” you’ve mentioned.

It seems to me like an effort to “bury” those blogs in a lot of “noise”, trying to make them less visible in search engines…

Regards,
Răzvan

]]> By: Alex http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html#comment-2164 Alex Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:37:00 +0000 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-the-web.html#comment-2164 If meaningfully mutilated articles about Open Standards adoption hidden in the dark corners of the blogosphere are not yet being used as modern day numbers stations someone is going to have to start. Because that's so much more exciting than some idiotic SEO tactic to sell pirated software. If meaningfully mutilated articles about Open Standards adoption hidden in the dark corners of the blogosphere are not yet being used as modern day numbers stations someone is going to have to start. Because that’s so much more exciting than some idiotic SEO tactic to sell pirated software.

]]> By: Rob http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html#comment-2163 Rob Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:54:00 +0000 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-the-web.html#comment-2163 Hmmm... I think I see the technique. The syntax of new articles is identical to the original text. But it appears that they are have a thesaurus and are doing a random substitution of synonyms. No attention is given to the grammatical context. So "handle" used as a verb is replaced by "knob".<br/><br/>The net effect of this is that the article is not immediately traceable to the source document. Also, terms that are not in the dictionary, such as 'ODF', 'Microsoft' and proper names are not changed. Maybe they are trying to get hits from people searching on these proper names?<br/><br/>The first article I mention doesn't seem to have any outgoing links, however. Maybe the idea is to set it up, wait a few weeks for the PageRank of the page to go up, then auction off outgoing links? But that will only work if the blog post has high PageRank links to it. And right now I don't see anyone linking to these pseudo-posts. Uh... except me... Doh! Hmmm… I think I see the technique. The syntax of new articles is identical to the original text. But it appears that they are have a thesaurus and are doing a random substitution of synonyms. No attention is given to the grammatical context. So “handle” used as a verb is replaced by “knob”.

The net effect of this is that the article is not immediately traceable to the source document. Also, terms that are not in the dictionary, such as ‘ODF’, ‘Microsoft’ and proper names are not changed. Maybe they are trying to get hits from people searching on these proper names?

The first article I mention doesn’t seem to have any outgoing links, however. Maybe the idea is to set it up, wait a few weeks for the PageRank of the page to go up, then auction off outgoing links? But that will only work if the blog post has high PageRank links to it. And right now I don’t see anyone linking to these pseudo-posts. Uh… except me… Doh!

]]> By: Marbux http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html#comment-2162 Marbux Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:39:00 +0000 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-the-web.html#comment-2162 I've been getting a ton of these returned by Google Blogs Alert set with terms like "ODF" and "OOXML". I'd guess that it's only been over the last couple of weeks, if that. <br/><br/>One last night was a site with Corel's name up in lights that had Amazon links to buy Corel programs. One product per page. The pages on the site each looked like they had begun as Corel pages and maybe run through a translator program to another human language and then back to English. <br/><br/>All of the others I have seen that I bothered to check have one page of the kind you describe but the other pages on the same sites looked like link farms intended to up the linked sites in web search engine rankings. I didn't bother to follow any of the links to see where they led.<br/><br/>But this kind of thing is outnumbering legitimate blog hits returned by Google Blogs Alert for me, roughly 2-1. I’ve been getting a ton of these returned by Google Blogs Alert set with terms like “ODF” and “OOXML”. I’d guess that it’s only been over the last couple of weeks, if that.

One last night was a site with Corel’s name up in lights that had Amazon links to buy Corel programs. One product per page. The pages on the site each looked like they had begun as Corel pages and maybe run through a translator program to another human language and then back to English.

All of the others I have seen that I bothered to check have one page of the kind you describe but the other pages on the same sites looked like link farms intended to up the linked sites in web search engine rankings. I didn’t bother to follow any of the links to see where they led.

But this kind of thing is outnumbering legitimate blog hits returned by Google Blogs Alert for me, roughly 2-1.

]]> By: Alex http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-web.html#comment-2161 Alex Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:41:00 +0000 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/02/strange-corners-of-the-web.html#comment-2161 Rob hi<br/><br/>Isn't this just an SEO tactic? At the end of these pages there is a telltale link, so at the end of the "knob documents in contrary technology format" one (hah) there is a link to "buy openpim": the target site has "oem downloads" and Vista Ultimate is only $99 there. Hmmmmm.<br/><br/>It does look like the pages are auto-generated; maybe some software selects the text based on known terms which are traffic drivers (for a time 'Microsoft' and 'ODF' together would have been hot tickets here).<br/><br/>There might be an idea that these pages will directly drive traffic to the target sites (in which case, they need to improve their software); but in any case the inbound links should improve the rank of the targetted pages in search engines ...<br/><br/>- Alex. Rob hi

Isn’t this just an SEO tactic? At the end of these pages there is a telltale link, so at the end of the “knob documents in contrary technology format” one (hah) there is a link to “buy openpim”: the target site has “oem downloads” and Vista Ultimate is only $99 there. Hmmmmm.

It does look like the pages are auto-generated; maybe some software selects the text based on known terms which are traffic drivers (for a time ‘Microsoft’ and ‘ODF’ together would have been hot tickets here).

There might be an idea that these pages will directly drive traffic to the target sites (in which case, they need to improve their software); but in any case the inbound links should improve the rank of the targetted pages in search engines …

- Alex.

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