(Special rate for the Six Figure Blogging course until Dec 2nd.)
« Simple way to reduce … | Home | » Beat the Google Web A…
Google's loosing it's shining touch very quickly
06.05.05 | filed in Tools, e
Besides the complete discussion (see Darren's post for links) I read especially this from the text at google for users
Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible.and webmasters
What does Google Web Accelerator mean for my site?I would say: it means especially that I can throw away my statistics if people use this. But I get increased hits on the to be prefetched links.
It means that you don't need to modify your website in order for your users to enjoy a faster experience.
Which will be used by a lot of people in the automatic updating Google toolbar. If people want faster loaded pages, they should get more bandwith.
What if I have a question that you haven't answered here?
Where is the "I don't want these pages to be handled by your Accelerator" setting? That aside, there is another question: why Google somehow turned 3/4 evil in the last year.
How does a company manages it to have on the one side really great and interesting products, but on the other sides manages to make me very angry and annoyed? And this is not a plus / minus thing which results in zero: the big minus stands for itself.
We had the issue with the automatic changing of text in webpages, how much easier will this be, if everything is routed through Google's servers? And who will notice?
I agree with Mike Lambert's notes on how this might help fight spammers - but in a perfect world there would be no spammers. And because we are in this not perfect world, I don't believe Google to be perfect, honest, truthfull to the last bit.
Big parts of it - probably. But not everything.
They are working very hard on getting people to look to other search engines. Normal people won't bother about it? I don't think so. Privacy will be a big issues in the next years - and a company selecting such data is ... even Grandpa get's that.
What is next? Offering Google video, which then can be monitored not only on who produces but also by the viewer? Voip, being monitored too? "Customers who liked this actress in that movie (which you saw 5 times) might be called on this phone number"
If you have Google stock, you might consider selling.
comments (12):
Phillip "Molly" Malone 11.05.05
Don’t worry, the Aliens that are controlling the world leaders are doing it all for kicks now. They have given up on the idea of collecting everyones data in an effort to take over the world!
If you couldn’t tell my past comments are sarcastic. All google have done is setup one big public proxy server with a little bit of smarts(or at least thats my understanding of the feature). Proxy servers have been around for years and will do a lot of the things that you describe in regards to websites and stats. From reading the google website FAQ it clearly tells you can stop cache by using normal anti-cache techniques.
So I don’t get the problem? People really are to touchy about Privacy these days.
JMTC
Molly
Don’t worry, the Aliens that are controlling the world leaders are doing it all for kicks now. They have given up on the idea of collecting everyones data in an effort to take over the world!
If you couldn’t tell my past comments are sarcastic. All google have done is setup one big public proxy server with a little bit of smarts(or at least thats my understanding of the feature). Proxy servers have been around for years and will do a lot of the things that you describe in regards to websites and stats. From reading the google website FAQ it clearly tells you can stop cache by using normal anti-cache techniques.
So I don’t get the problem? People really are to touchy about Privacy these days.
JMTC
Molly
Khevor 11.05.05
Is that so? I went to the webaccelerator faq’s (both the user and the webmaster) and in both cases, it only mentioned that it doesn’t cache https urls. There was no mention of meta tags, nor did it make mention of sent headers such as http/1.1 cache-control protocols. If it did, please point them out. Note that it does say in both the FAQ and the privacy policy that it collects the pages gwa users view including their cookies. Think about forums in this case which aren’t generally https. Suddenly anyone accessing these forums find themselves logged in as other people, with full view of private messages, among other things. I’ve encountered several sites showing screenshots of this very thing with gwa clearly installed. Now do you begin to see the problem?
Is that so? I went to the webaccelerator faq’s (both the user and the webmaster) and in both cases, it only mentioned that it doesn’t cache https urls. There was no mention of meta tags, nor did it make mention of sent headers such as http/1.1 cache-control protocols. If it did, please point them out. Note that it does say in both the FAQ and the privacy policy that it collects the pages gwa users view including their cookies. Think about forums in this case which aren’t generally https. Suddenly anyone accessing these forums find themselves logged in as other people, with full view of private messages, among other things. I’ve encountered several sites showing screenshots of this very thing with gwa clearly installed. Now do you begin to see the problem?
Phillip "Molly" Malone 11.05.05
On the caching it says:
”. Will Google Web Accelerator affect my server load or usage statistics?
It depends on whether your pages are cacheable”
This to me says that if you use meta tags to say always go to the server, the pages aren’t Cachable. On the forums, the FAQ (or some where on the site) clearly says this is a beta product, so my answer is, log a bug.
On the Cookies, it says:
“Whenever your computer sends cookies with browsing or prefetching page requests for unencrypted sites, we temporarily cache these cookies in order to improve performance”. If this isn’t the behaviour that your seeing, log a bug.
JMTC
Molly
On the caching it says:
”. Will Google Web Accelerator affect my server load or usage statistics?
It depends on whether your pages are cacheable”
This to me says that if you use meta tags to say always go to the server, the pages aren’t Cachable. On the forums, the FAQ (or some where on the site) clearly says this is a beta product, so my answer is, log a bug.
On the Cookies, it says:
“Whenever your computer sends cookies with browsing or prefetching page requests for unencrypted sites, we temporarily cache these cookies in order to improve performance”. If this isn’t the behaviour that your seeing, log a bug.
JMTC
Molly
Phillip "Molly" Malone 12.05.05
I hate to say I told you so, well actually I don’t hate it at all! But I told you so! On CNET the following in a piece on the new product (http://news.com.com/FAQ+Hard+facts+about..):
“Is there a security flaw in Google’s Web Accelerator, and how does it affect me?
Yes, Google acknowledged a vulnerability in the beta software last week, after several online critics spotted the flaw.
The software can serve cached copies of private discussion groups or password-protected pages to people using the software. For example, using the software, a Web surfer might call up a discussion group page and see the name of another group member, making it appear as if the surfer is signed in as that other user.
Google’s Mayer said the company is working on a fix and that the problem has affected only small discussion group sites. Google is deactivating the mechanism that caches vulnerable Web pages and is looking at possible mathematical algorithms to prevent the caching from happening in the future.”
Happy Blogging
Molly
I hate to say I told you so, well actually I don’t hate it at all! But I told you so! On CNET the following in a piece on the new product (http://news.com.com/FAQ+Hard+facts+about..):
“Is there a security flaw in Google’s Web Accelerator, and how does it affect me?
Yes, Google acknowledged a vulnerability in the beta software last week, after several online critics spotted the flaw.
The software can serve cached copies of private discussion groups or password-protected pages to people using the software. For example, using the software, a Web surfer might call up a discussion group page and see the name of another group member, making it appear as if the surfer is signed in as that other user.
Google’s Mayer said the company is working on a fix and that the problem has affected only small discussion group sites. Google is deactivating the mechanism that caches vulnerable Web pages and is looking at possible mathematical algorithms to prevent the caching from happening in the future.”
Happy Blogging
Molly
Nicole 12.05.05
Problem with that is: I don’t want to set my pages to pragma no chache, just to keep one going crazy big proxy happy.
Problem with that is: I don’t want to set my pages to pragma no chache, just to keep one going crazy big proxy happy.
Phillip 12.05.05
Well its not “one going crazy big proxy”, its every proxy and for that matter to a lesser degree every web browser! If you are worried that web hits will be taken away and this is a problem for your site, then add the meta data as the only true way to help messure it. If you don’t care about the stats, what do you care if your site is cached? In fact, isn’t it a good thing as it will speed up your audiences experience? And for that matter, why not take google up on their offer, and help make your customers experience even faster and use there prefetch tag?
And as I said before, if it is a case that the system is doing something you don’t think it should be doing, log a bug. My previous entry (in my honest opinion) shows that they saw the bug mentioned in an earlier comment and are working to fix it.
JMTC
Molly
Well its not “one going crazy big proxy”, its every proxy and for that matter to a lesser degree every web browser! If you are worried that web hits will be taken away and this is a problem for your site, then add the meta data as the only true way to help messure it. If you don’t care about the stats, what do you care if your site is cached? In fact, isn’t it a good thing as it will speed up your audiences experience? And for that matter, why not take google up on their offer, and help make your customers experience even faster and use there prefetch tag?
And as I said before, if it is a case that the system is doing something you don’t think it should be doing, log a bug. My previous entry (in my honest opinion) shows that they saw the bug mentioned in an earlier comment and are working to fix it.
JMTC
Molly
Nicole 12.05.05
Phillip, if you go to a restaurant, you would also find it a great experience, if you find 5-way menues in there and you can pick from all of them which you want to have for which way. Pick soup from menue one, then salad from menue 2.
It would also be a great user experience, if they would cook, the moment you order soup from menue 1, the rest of the menue. And if you then take menue 2 salad, they would finish the whole menue 2 for you. Would also be a great user experience, not having to wait.
Fact is: You are only eating one thing at a time.
One solution will be, that the freshbot will visit the website more often (which the site owner think is great) and get detailed statistics on your click and visit behaviour. The site owner has to use pragma no cache to avoid this – at the cost of more traffic to receive furthermore the statistics he had before.
Phillip, if you go to a restaurant, you would also find it a great experience, if you find 5-way menues in there and you can pick from all of them which you want to have for which way. Pick soup from menue one, then salad from menue 2.
It would also be a great user experience, if they would cook, the moment you order soup from menue 1, the rest of the menue. And if you then take menue 2 salad, they would finish the whole menue 2 for you. Would also be a great user experience, not having to wait.
Fact is: You are only eating one thing at a time.
One solution will be, that the freshbot will visit the website more often (which the site owner think is great) and get detailed statistics on your click and visit behaviour. The site owner has to use pragma no cache to avoid this – at the cost of more traffic to receive furthermore the statistics he had before.
Phillip "Molly" Malone 12.05.05
Nicole, this maybe a fair argument to analogies between ordering food at a Restaurant and surfing the web but I am not sure it is. I am also not sure that your reasoning is what is being suggested. To me it would be fair to say that you order soup from menu one and on menu two there is 10 items and of them 2 aren’t soups. The restaurant assumes that because you had soup for item one, there is a fair chance that you aren’t going to order soup again for the second menu and the cost of throwing one away is actually less damaging to them then the benefit of having the selected item cooked and ready to serve.
On the last paragraph which to me is an argument against forcing someone to use the tags if they want their stats to be right, are you saying that proxy servers of any sort as well as browser cache should be banned? I had a proxy setup for my company years ago and this would do the same thing to your stats that google will. If a ban on proxy servers was the argument, then I could accept the argument but the fact is, its what we call in Australia (and probably other places around the world) Tall Poppy Syndrome! People love to try to cut down the Tall Poppies (i.e. Success people/companies (i.e. in this case, Google)).
Molly
Nicole, this maybe a fair argument to analogies between ordering food at a Restaurant and surfing the web but I am not sure it is. I am also not sure that your reasoning is what is being suggested. To me it would be fair to say that you order soup from menu one and on menu two there is 10 items and of them 2 aren’t soups. The restaurant assumes that because you had soup for item one, there is a fair chance that you aren’t going to order soup again for the second menu and the cost of throwing one away is actually less damaging to them then the benefit of having the selected item cooked and ready to serve.
On the last paragraph which to me is an argument against forcing someone to use the tags if they want their stats to be right, are you saying that proxy servers of any sort as well as browser cache should be banned? I had a proxy setup for my company years ago and this would do the same thing to your stats that google will. If a ban on proxy servers was the argument, then I could accept the argument but the fact is, its what we call in Australia (and probably other places around the world) Tall Poppy Syndrome! People love to try to cut down the Tall Poppies (i.e. Success people/companies (i.e. in this case, Google)).
Molly
Nicole 12.05.05
While it acts as one big proxy server, the “feature” I don’t like is the prefetch stuff. Does your proxy also prefetch all possibilites from each page?
We do insert links in webpages to make it easier for people to choose from, sometimes make them hidden so people need to click and then they will instantly pop up. And it is reasonable for search bots to follow the links with their spiders.
But now one has to think about removing those links or disguising them better for search engine spiders (because this is what the GWA does) to avoid prefetching just on the shire possibility of people clicking around.
This page in it’s whole construction changes on every comment added. You receive links to other articles. If you use the GWA, each time you leave a comment, this would mean prefetching of all links. Is this reasonable?
While it acts as one big proxy server, the “feature” I don’t like is the prefetch stuff. Does your proxy also prefetch all possibilites from each page?
We do insert links in webpages to make it easier for people to choose from, sometimes make them hidden so people need to click and then they will instantly pop up. And it is reasonable for search bots to follow the links with their spiders.
But now one has to think about removing those links or disguising them better for search engine spiders (because this is what the GWA does) to avoid prefetching just on the shire possibility of people clicking around.
This page in it’s whole construction changes on every comment added. You receive links to other articles. If you use the GWA, each time you leave a comment, this would mean prefetching of all links. Is this reasonable?
Phillip "Molly" Malone 12.05.05
A) It isn’t just a google thing. Mozilla seems to use it as well but admittedly more Webmaster contorlled. Having said this it isn’t the webmaster of the page being downloaded as much as the one that references the stie downloaded.
B) I don’t see any where that says that Google prefetchs all possible pages. One thing it says that it does do is pulling down the top rank search results which I think even you would admit would be a good idea.
c) Perhaps what you need to (because it seems that you have good knowledge of this, better then me) Google that apart from having a prefetch tag they need to have a No-Prefetch tag so that their is no chance to have it prefetched. Would this work for you?
D) On your last point see the start of point b) as I have the same comment. Perhaps Google should explain better what things will be prefetched.
JMTC
Molly
A) It isn’t just a google thing. Mozilla seems to use it as well but admittedly more Webmaster contorlled. Having said this it isn’t the webmaster of the page being downloaded as much as the one that references the stie downloaded.
B) I don’t see any where that says that Google prefetchs all possible pages. One thing it says that it does do is pulling down the top rank search results which I think even you would admit would be a good idea.
c) Perhaps what you need to (because it seems that you have good knowledge of this, better then me) Google that apart from having a prefetch tag they need to have a No-Prefetch tag so that their is no chance to have it prefetched. Would this work for you?
D) On your last point see the start of point b) as I have the same comment. Perhaps Google should explain better what things will be prefetched.
JMTC
Molly
Phillip "Molly" Malone 17.05.05
Would be interested to know if you took my advice and talked to Google about your concerns?
Molly
Would be interested to know if you took my advice and talked to Google about your concerns?
Molly
Nicole 18.05.05
Phillip, there are several reports out there, that GWA does fetch all links (also such with the name ‘delete’ etc on it). A special tag exists, it is this pragma noc cache stuff afair, but this is like AOL singing fish saying ‘Hei, if you don’t want to be included in our service, just use no index on your website!’
No cache as an option has its values, but have to use no cache to avoid a mad bot it not what it was intended for. “Don’t like to smell I am distributing here? Oh, you can stop that, just stop breathing”
Phillip, there are several reports out there, that GWA does fetch all links (also such with the name ‘delete’ etc on it). A special tag exists, it is this pragma noc cache stuff afair, but this is like AOL singing fish saying ‘Hei, if you don’t want to be included in our service, just use no index on your website!’
No cache as an option has its values, but have to use no cache to avoid a mad bot it not what it was intended for. “Don’t like to smell I am distributing here? Oh, you can stop that, just stop breathing”
