Thursday, May 6, 2010

Google and the Mailing List Scrapers

I was complaining about this to someone at work today. As a developer, I frequently have to research fairly exact but obscure error messages. Inevitably, when I do a search on Google, I get back a page full of mailing-list/forum/newsgroup archivers, often all pointing to the same message or thread.

I can't remember what it was I was searching on today that set off my rant today, but here's a representative example: http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q=python+441+"Article+has+no+body"

I wish Google would do 2 things:

1. Make sure the original message — say from the original mailing list, newsgroup, or forum — is listed first. Not necessarily #1, but above all the scrapers.

2. Consolidate the archivers (mail-archive.com, derkeiler.com, pubbs.net, etc.) into a single entry, perhaps with sublistings or something.

Now where's the Google suggestion box?

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