Sciency? Their experiment appears to lack a control of any kind. They only use a Google search page as the source for the links, one that is specially engineered to return specific results for a specific term. Then they count the coincidences to support the conclusion that Bing is stealing search results from Google. Where is the non-Google page of links? Where is the comparison using links from a specially crafted bookmarks file? What is the margin of error? Where are the plausible alternative explanations? If this had been a science experiment, it would have been scoffed at for its narrow scope and predetermined outcome.
There are no non-Google page of links. The only association between these terms and the page exists on Google.
FTA:
>To be clear, the synthetic query had no relationship with the inserted result we chose -- the query didn’t appear on the webpage, and there were no links to the webpage with that query phrase. In other words, there was absolutely no reason for any search engine to return that webpage for that synthetic query.
Are you kidding? You are a moron - this is as close to a smoking gun as you can get. You did get the part that there was NO relationship between the meaningless search phrases and the returned page right? What POSSIBLE situation could explain Bing returning the Google returned page without recourse to Google's search?
Google created the relationship when they enabled user tracking features in IE and Bing Toolbar, then used a specially created Google page as the HTTP REFERER to the desired page. Go ahead and duplicate the experiment using a non-Google page or file. I'll bet Bing "steals" those results, too. Google seeded Bing, plain and simple.
Note also that the example search links in the blog post are all from the non-SSL Google search. User tracking doesn't necessarily rely on the HTTP REFERER in this case, since the browser already has access to all of the necessary information. But it would still be interesting to see the experiment repeated using the SSL-encrypted Google search, which disables referrer information, along with non-Google sources.
Do you really go around calling people morons? Is it just on the internet, or do you do it in real life where you're not anonymous too?
If it's the first case, then that's a pretty cowardly way to act. If it's the latter, then you should just be ashamed of yourself in general.
Calling names is not OK. I'm pretty shocked you got any up-votes for your comment at all, and I'm ashamed of everyone on the site who gave you the bump.
EDIT: AT time of posting this comment, he had +8. My faith has been restored in the HN community.
There's no clear indication that the clickthrough analysis is specifically targetting Google, vs. targeting any search engine or even targeting any page with that text in the URL query string, etc. Maybe it is, but they haven't shown it.
While I don't really agree with Google here, I don't think that distinction particularly matters. If you buy the premise that they're "stealing" from Google then it equally applies to everyone.
Fair enough, though I don't think that's the only POV - you could analogize it to ripping off an existing song wholesale vs. making some kind of collage of short samples from 10 existing songs.
>Are you kidding? You are a moron - this is as close to a smoking gun as you can get. You did get the part that there was NO relationship between the meaningless search phrases and the returned page right? What POSSIBLE situation could explain Bing returning the Google returned page without recourse to Google's search
Eh? Then why did it happen only in 6% or 7% of the cases tested and not close to 100%, a fact that the blog conveniently glosses over?
