I don’t claim to completely understand the complex algorithms that drive search engines, however it has come to my attention that there are devices we use frequently with behaviours that are unpredicatable.

When a web-bot chooses the content to show in order or rank as a web search result, the popularity of websites is driven by the number of LINKS other websites give (as well as meta tags etc). This is the equivalent of word-of-mouth endorsement.

Taking a hypothetical example, if I post a link to a hadith of the Qu’ran in the context of, exposing something disagreeable, the web-bot views this as a preference for that site. The site automatically goes up in the ranking and might even be reach the desirable FIRST PAGE of a web search.

The more people who post a URL to that website, the more popular and authentic that website is deemed to be by the software driving the search engines.

Of course, it is very convenient to have a URL that can be clicked through, from a users point of view. However, click throughs (such as URLs), directing traffic to a site, are weighted heavily by the web-bot. Paid advertising can even be generated from posting URLs on behalf of third-party sites. Embedded content is another web-bot rated criteria (eg. embedded YouTube videos). All pointing to the “popularity” of a site.

If you follow me, the automatic conversion of weblinks to URLs can be problematic for OLO users.

While we are limited to 350 words, one way of squeezing more content into a posting is to a third-party website, a device we all like to use.

I’m thinking of work-arounds.

OLO could permit a higher wordcount, or not automatically convert to URL.

A more complicated solution, is for users to redirect traffic to their own domain name, which has third party content directly reproduced (and appropriately referenced). A domain name costs about $20 a year.

I’m not loosing sleep over this. Just a thought.

That's what I do. As an added bonus it saves me repeating myself on the topics I have the greatest interest in.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/index.html

I'm afraid I'm not following you, katieO, when you say ".... the automatic conversion of weblinks to URLs can be problematic for OLO users.". I assume you meant to say "URLs to weblinks", but even allowing need for this minor correction, I still don't see why this OLO site feature is problematic to OLO users.

You state, and I understand, that the very posting of the link on the OLO page to a third party site raises the search rating of that third party site on any given search engine. As well, actual clicks on that link by OLO users raise the third-party site search rating proportionately more. So what? OLO users are not doing a search for subject matter that may be on that site, they are going there DIRECT if, and only if, they click in the belief the link may amplify or validate content of the OLO post that interests them. How does any rise in search rating, or for that matter advertising revenue, of that third-party site resulting from use of the OLO weblink cause any problem to OLO users?

I agree that posting a weblink can amplify the content of a post. My impression is that only a minority of OLO users actually use the feature to do so. Indeed there is a current general discussion topic, 'Real Speak is Needed!', that seems to lament the relative absence of just such supporting references in many posts.

If, as an OLO user, I wish to post weblinks, I must accommodate them within the 350 word post limit. It seems a simple trade-off: the more weblinks, the less other post content. If I persistently post poor quality or irrelevant weblinks, my credibility as a poster will soon suffer. I don't see why I should have a higher word limit, or need any workaround, especially not one costing me $20 or more per year.

Not converting the posted URL automatically only inconveniences other OLO users who may be interested in the amplified content.

I don't get it. What am I missing?

Pagerank isn't a measure of "endorsement" or "agreement", but simply notoriety, positive or negative.

If you don't want people to discover and visit certain web sites, it's hard to imagine why you are drawing attention to them by discussing them here in full view.

However, there are cases where this sort of thing is a valid concern - when certain people practice shameless self-promotion by spreading links to themselves all over various web sites. This is why Google instituted a hinting system where publishers can mark up links they don't trust so that they will be ignored by search engines.

This is now widely deployed in "less controlled" places like blog comments, but not currently in The Forum. Forum readers are pretty good at spotting any shameless self-promotion and reporting it to OLO staff.

At the risk of going off at a bit of a tangent to your topic, katieO, I note that OLO has overcome the problem that used to be caused when a very long URL in a post was automatically converted to a weblink, of the OLO page being widened and not being able to be viewed all at once within the one screen. Congratulations to OLO's software engineers: that problem made some threads all but unreadable in the past.

Here is an example of how such a long URL appears now in a post: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1657#32943 . Just in case anyone is wondering and thinking 'shameless cross promotion', its not one of my posts, nor is it in a thread I started. It is just a common vanilla post that illustrates the software capability. I wouldn't want to become notorious, now, would I? 'Course if one was to scroll up that thread a bit, one might eventually find a poster that used to be notorious for upper case work ...... and perhaps other interesting content.

Re-entering orbit, just in case there are posters more digitally saurian than me and don't know this, if you wish to post a URL but NOT have it converted to a weblink by the OLO software, just omit the 'http://' component of the URL - that is apparently what triggers the site to recognise what follows as a web address and display it as a link.

One thing I would not like to see on this Forum is a poster omitting the http:// component of a URL, and then claiming in subsequent discussion to have posted that address as a link. I suggest that if posters are found to be resorting to such a ploy, it should be OLO policy on the report of any such posts that they be taken down as being in violation of the code of conduct of reasonable discussion. If a web address doesn't display as a link for the convenience of other Forum users, it isn't a link.

"it should be OLO policy on the report of any such posts that they be taken down as being in violation of the code of conduct of reasonable discussion

Isn't that going a bit far? I'm not aware of any code of conduct reuiring members to 'be reasonable', and certainly not requiring the removal of posts for being 'unreasonable'. I've never heard anyone else suggest that there is anything remotely unreasonable about giving a URL but not a link. A person would be technically wrong to say a URL is a link, but that is the extent of it.

katieO may not be losing sleep over these suggestions, but Graham Young, and all who find OLO useful for ventilating subjects or expressing views that are seemingly censored out by the mainstream media, should be. I think I get it now, but just for clarity, I'll summarize the situation as I understand it:

1. It is asserted that possible improvement in the search ranking in search engines of sites linked to from posts on OLO (third party sites) somehow constitutes a problem for OLO users.

2. It is suggested that URLs in posts should NOT be automatically converted to weblinks by the OLO software.

3. It is suggested that all who wish to post links on OLO in expansion of post content should be required to link to content via a blog or homepage at a domain name registered to that poster, at an estimated cost of around $20 per year.

Forget about the financial aspect of the suggestion for the moment.

The immediate consequence of the second of katieO's two suggestions is that the security that OLO provides with respect to the privacy of the real identities of members of the Forum, by means of userIDs, encryption keys, and password access, will be breached. Is that the intended objective of what is presented as a seemingly innocuous suggestion?

Some OLO users post links to important authoritative sites, and use those sites to back up what might otherwise just be mere opinion expressed in their post. Sometimes the revelation of this authoritative information in conjunction with some topical matter is highly indicative of that poster possessing what might be considered 'inside information' in regard to the matter. Human nature being what it is, notwithstanding that the post may be in the public interest, witch-hunts and 'payback' can be on the cards if a userID alias is tied to a real name.

An e-Journal of social and political debate being forced (or tricked) into revealing its sources? Lionel Hogg snr would be spinning in his grave at the thought of it!

OLO must be landing some punches!

I suspect the main point was to make people aware that if they link to a site in order to criticise it, they also raise it's page rank. In my opinion OLO suffers far less from this than any other forum I use. There are plenty of hoax sites that prey upon people's gullibility in order to get them to promote it. Most of the ones I've seen work are to do with child porn, which people avoid investigating properly for obvious reasons, or to do with animal cruelty, which seems get the attention of a lot of very gullible and foolish people.

freediver,

I admit to exercising a bit of license in referring to a code of conduct that may not formally exist. I was jumping the gun. What I am really suggesting is that there perhaps SHOULD be a code of conduct applicable to this newly envisioned prospective situation that adoption of katieO's proposal would foreseeably entail.

Let's be clear. I do not suggest for one second that there is anything even remotely unreasonable about giving a URL but not a link in a post. What I am suggesting is that if this automatic conversion feature of the OLO site is deliberately circumvented by a poster (or is made only selectively available to users with registered domain names as proposed), AND A POSTER SUBSEQUENTLY CLAIMS TO HAVE POSTED THAT URL AS A LINK as being supportive or amplificatory of subsequent debate, THEN there should be a penalty of some sort against that poster.

I am not suggesting that there is or should be any requirement for a poster to be 'reasonable'. We all know many are not, and indeed, 'reasonability' is a subjective thing anyway. What I am suggesting, as a counter to what may now be able to be seen as an attempt at muzzling individual OLO posters, or even OLO itself, is that an objective measure of credibility and integrity in debate is created in the instant when a poster attempts to claim support for their argument exists in what they claim to be a link but which is in fact a URL that can not be clicked by other users or guests.

Maybe taking down such prospective offending post(s) might be too disruptive to the Forum. Perhaps other penalties, like imposition of posting right restrictions, for example, may be more appropriate.

To answer your question as to whether penalising a poster in these envisaged circumstances is going a bit far, my answer is no. These proposals look like a covert attempt at censorship of the Forum. And they have been introduced as a remedy to a problem that does not really exist for OLO members.

"THEN there should be a penalty of some sort against that poster

By penalty, do you mean erosion of their credibility, or censorship?

If it makes you happy, I will try to make sure all my links to OzPolitic are active.

"Perhaps other penalties, like imposition of posting right restrictions, for example, may be more appropriate.

You mean beyond the absurdly restrictive ones in place already? It is still a form of censorship over what is a petty technical matter. Who cares if someone claims to have posted a link when they posted an inactive URL? Do you not know how to copy and paste it into your URL bar?

"To answer your question as to whether penalising a poster in these envisaged circumstances is going a bit far, my answer is no. These proposals look like a covert attempt at censorship of the Forum.

Now I'm confused. Your proposed 'response' is some kind of censorship. The link vs URL thing is not censorship in any way.

freediver,

If you view erosion of a poster's credibility as a penalty, then it would be a self-imposed one, and nothing at all to do with a Forum administered penalty such as I have proposed apply in the event a text URL is misrepresented as being a link in any subsequent debate.

Neither do I propose censorship of any poster. Should any penalty such as has been suggested apply, it will do so only because the poster's own action in misrepresenting ordinary text as a clickable link has invoked it. Refrain from such foreseeable misrepresentation and the entire content of the post, no matter how arguably unreasonable, would stand.

"The link vs URL thing is not censorship in any way". Indeed, not of itself it isn't. However the combination of the proposed (and unnecessary) reduced functionality of the OLO site, together with a requirement that would create the ability to reveal the real identity of a poster in regaining that convenient functionality, would amount to effective censorship of some posters. Posters concerned to preserve their anonimity, and to enhance their credibility through the skilful use of links, could be intimidated in expressing a view.

As an OLO user, I have absolutely no objection to your own website (or anyone else's) gaining in search ranking because you have inserted a link to it in an OLO post, nor to its gaining still further in ranking because I or others click on your link. It is not a problem to me or any other user in the slightest. We will click if, and only if, interested. Indeed it is a form of back-handed compliment or recognition of OLO that its popularity is such as to have helped advance your own site's ranking so much. Should your site seem irrelevant to the content of your OLO post, or appear to be shameless self promotion, then it will only have been you who caused your credibility among OLO users in this circumstance to be eroded.

I hope this removes confusion.

BTW, I find your site quite interesting.

Forrest,

I just wanted to raise awareness in the OLO community that every URL posted is indiscriminiately endorsing sites. I’m not suggesting any action is needed on a policy level, just that OLOers might want to review their own habits. Transparency is a good thing, right?

I started thinking on this after clicking through to a site and finding porn (obviously, I was expecting something else). Complaining would be prudish: the poster hadn’t checked the content properly, and I don't want to encourage more of the same.

I have had such unfortunate random clicks in the past eg. for a school project on Sinn Fein, my son clicked into a “women of the IRA” site to find women who sent nude pictures to prisoners. Top of the list – by accident or design – but there it was for my 9 year old son to enjoy, all in the name of research too.

I like freediver’s solution. Self-referencing can potentially drive traffic through to a site, but at least you are not promoting someone else’s site involuntarily. And I liked the site too –

http://www.ozpolitic.com/index.html

oops, there it is again.

All these click-throughs are being stored in a little file at google (or hotbot, or whateverbot) to build a profile on the users tastes and interests. One day, search results will be tailor-made for the individual based on data collected from all previous searches. Apart from privacy issues, I would like to access content on OLO without giving a big thumbs up to an offsite link each time. And can you imagine what my "profile" would look like? Porn head, conservative Christian...

Thanks for the discussion, I hadn’t considered all the related issues: censorship, control, preserving anonymity, current OLO policy etc. I’m still trying to absorb all of that. Apologies for lack of response, I've been using up my max. 10 posts on other threads.

katieO,

Sorry for ignoring your post for so long. I had not realised there had been a new post to this thread.

You illuminate an aspect of what you see as this search engine site-rating problem associated with the automatic conversion of URLs to weblinks by the OLO software that I had not consciously recognised before. I did not realise that you were talking about URLs to Google (or other search engine) search result pages being converted to weblinks by OLO after having been posted by OLO users, as opposed to conversion of URLs of specific websites in such posts.

I think you have every right to complain if a poster has included a URL to a porn site in an OLO post. Such would be a direct link, and an obligation would surely rest upon a poster to have checked any site for which they have included a URL before posting on OLO. Just recommend the post for deletion, using the little red crossed batons icon below the post, and stating your grounds. If the link is considered inappropriate by OLO the offending post may well be taken down.

This in turn raises the issue as to whether posting a search result page URL, rather than a specific site URL, is a legitimate use of this OLO feature. I'll think on this one: it probably isn't a black and white issue. OLO may already have some policy with respect to this; you can but ask.

Another aspect of posting a search result page URL on OLO is that it is only that page that will have its rating raised by virtue of the OLO link: the CONTENT of that search result page (ie. the specific sites listed therein) will change over time as DIRECT links to those and other sites from elsewhere alter the search engine rankings. It would thus appear that OLO would have at most only a small vicarious involvement in affecting rankings of specific sites, if indeed it had any effect at all.

Thanks for some interesting viewpoints.