Sebastian’s Pamphlets

I’m pissed. I do know I shouldn’t blog in rage, but Google redirecting search engine result pages to totally useless InternetExplorer ads just fires up my ranting machine.

What does the almighty Google say about URIs that should deliver useful content to searchers, but sneakily redirect to full page ads? Here you go. Google’s webmaster guidelines explicitely forbid such black hat tactics:

“Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.” Google just did the latter with its very own SERPs. The search interface google.com/ie, out in the wild for nearly a decade, redirects to a piece of sidebar HTML offering a download of IE8 optimized for Google. That’s a helpful redirect for some IE6 users who don’t suffer from an IT department stuck with this outdated browser, but it’s plain misleading in the eyes of all those searchers who appreciated this clean and totally uncluttered search interface. Interestingly, UA cloaking is the only way to heal this sneaky behavior.

“Don’t create pages with malicious behavior.” Google’s guilty, too. Instead of checking for the user’s browser, redirecting only IE6 requests from Google’s discontiued IE6 support (IE6 toolbar …) to the IE8 advertisement, whilst all other user agents get their desired search box, respectively their SERPs, under a google.com/search?output=ie&… URI, Google performs an unconditional redirect to a page that’s utterly useless and also totally unexpected for many searchers. I consider misleading redirects malicious.

“Avoid links to web spammers or ‘bad neighborhoods’ on the web.” I consider the propaganda for IE that Google displays instead of the search results I’d expect a bad neighborhood on the Web, because IE constantly ignores Web standards, forcing developers and designers to implement superfluous work arounds. (Ok, ok, ok … Google’s lack of geekiness doesn’t exactly count as violation of their webmaster guidelines, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?)

Hey Matt Cutts, about time to ban google.com/ie!

Google’s very best search interface is history. Here is what you got under
http://www.google.com/ie?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=minimalistic:

And here is where Google sneakily redirects you to when you load the SERP link above (even with Chrome!):
http://www.google.com/toolbar/ie8/sidebar.html:

It’s sad that a browser vendor like Google (and yes, Google Chrome is my favorite browser) feels the need to mislead its users with propaganda for a competiting browser that’s slower and doesn’t render everything as it should render it. But when this particular browser vendor also leads Web search, and makes use of black hat techniques that it bans webmasters for, then that’s a scandal. So, if you agree, please submit a spam report to Google:

Hey Matt Cutts, about time to ban google.com/ie! #spam-report

2010-05-17 I’ve updated this pamphlet because it didn’t explain the “sneakiness” clear enough. As of today, the unconditional redirect is still sneaky IMHO. Google needs to deliver searchers their desired search results, and only stubborn IE6 users ads for a somewhat better browser.

2010-05-18 Q: You’re pissed solely because your SERP scraping scrips broke. A: Glad you’ve asked. Yes, I’ve scraped Google’s /ie search too. Not because I’m a privacy nazi like Daniel Brandt. I’ve just checked (my) rankings. However, when I spotted the redirects I didn’t even remember the location of the scripts that scraped this service, because I didn’t look at ranking reports for years. I’m interested in actual traffic, and revenues. Ego food annoys me. I just love the /ie search interface. So the answer is a bold “no”. I don’t give a fucking dead rat’s ass what ranking reports based on scraped SERPs could tell.

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