CGI Redirected URLs and PageRank

Grok Headline matches for CGI Redirected URLs and PageRank

Redirected to Version 4 of Windows
Update

Redirected to Version 4 of Windows
Update 09/12/2004 02:17 PM

How to Obscure URLs

How to Obscure URLs 04/19/2004 09:57 PM

How to Obscure Any URL: Great, great page on how spammers and scammers obscure URLs so most people don't know where they're going.

These tricks are known to the spammers and scammers, and they're used freely in unsolicited mails. You'll also see them in ad-related URLs and occasionally on web pages where the writer hopes to avoid recognition of a linked address for whatever reason. Now, I'm making these tricks known to you.

Also worth nothing is that this is a great page dedicated to substance over style. One page, very long, full of infomation with no worries about overly-frilly presentation. We need more pages like this.

Via Don Park.

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URLs vs. XHTML

URLs vs. XHTML 03/11/2003 02:00 PM
After linking a few items on Amazon.com, my XHTML has been broken for who–knows–how–long. It popped up as I redesigned,...

URLs Set in Stone

URLs Set in Stone 01/05/2005 01:19 AM

I've often wondered whether or not you should change blog posts once they're published. While I often do just because I'm anal, part of me thinks that a blog post is a historical record and should be frozen in time.

It's sort of that way for the titles of posts on Gadgetopia since they're used for the URL. For instance, I screwed up the title of this post (it should be "ALT Attributes," not "ALT tags"), but I can't change it because that would change the URL. I'd have to put in a redirect because it gets a lot of traffic.

As annoying as it is on the surface, there's something...pure in this that I like. The title of this entry is frozen in time. It is how it was originally published. Just like a newspaper publisher can't take something back once it hits the newstand, I can't change this title.

This get me to thinking that it would be an interesting...expirement, to MD5 has hthe entire body of an entry and use the result as the URL. This means that you couldn't change one single character of the entry after it was published without completely changing the URL.

I find this idea intriguing. Not enough to try it, mind you, but stil interesting to consider.

No more usernames in URLs

No more usernames in URLs 02/10/2004 02:44 AM

This one could get very interesting. Microsoft have announced that an upcoming update to Internet Explorer will remove the ability to include usernames in URLs completely. This is in response to the growing problem of so called "phishing" scams, which use trick URLs to con important information such as passwords and credit card details out of unsuspecting browser users.

Phishing is big business. In this article on SecurityFocus, a loose transcript is provided of a talk by an FBI agent who explains how phishing is used by organised crime gangs in Eastern Europe:

This is bad enough and it's also cruelly funny, but the scary part came in when Dave started talking about the other group behind the explosion of viruses and Trojans: Eastern European hackers, backed by organized crime, such as the Russian mafia. In other words, the professionals.

These people are after one thing: money. The easiest way to illegally acquire money now is through the use of online tools like Trojans, or through phishing: set up a fake Web site for PayPal or eBay or Amazon, and then convince the naive to enter their usernames, passwords, and credit card information. Viruses and spam also intersect in this nasty spiderweb. Viruses help spread Trojans, and Trojans are used to turn unsuspecting users' computers into spam factories, or hosts for phishing expeditions, and thus furthering the spread of all the elements in this process: viruses, Trojans, spam, and phishing. It's a vicious cycle, and unfortunately, it appears to be getting worse. The FBI is working as hard as it can, but the nations of Eastern Europe are somewhat powerless to solve the problem at this time.

IE is so susceptible to this kind of attack that it's not even funny. In addition to the "invisible username" bug I covered last month, a recent discovery compounds the problem by allowing dangerous executable files to pose as safe file types when downloaded from the web. New Explorer hole could be devastating has the full details.

Microsoft's solution is drastic to say the least. Passing the username as part of a URL has been part of the makeup of the internet since at least 1994, and the ability is baked in to a huge range of web client and server software. It's described in RFC 23996. The feature is rarely used however, and the overall effect of its removal from IE is hard to judge. Off the top of my head I can think of only one site that uses it for legitimate reasons: FilePlanet, which incorporates it in to the site's download queuing system (at least last time I checked).

There's an interesting contrast to be made here between open and closed development methodologies. The Mozilla project has had a bug open on this issue for over two years, which has drawn over 170 comments with plenty of great ideas but no approved solution. Microsoft on the other hand have remained silent on the issue until (we can only assume) the bad publicity surrounding it forced them to act, at which point they announced a fix that appears to gly in the face of commonly accepted web standards - but does undoubtedly solve the problem. Of course, with no chance for user feedback prior to the decision it amounts to little less than a decree from God - which correlates directly to their inarguable domination of the browser market, at least in terms of market share.

Of course, the millions of IE users who decline to upgrade their browser will remain just as susceptible as they always were (unless they stop clicking links) - a fact for which we can hardly blame Microsoft. It does however mean that phishing will remain a lucrative scam for a long time to come.

Why Blogger redirects some URLs

Why Blogger redirects some URLs 05/11/2004 01:58 AM
The new Blogger redirects a lot of its links through another server. Ev explains why: it's to keep down comment-spam, to avoid apportioning unwarranted PageRank, and to protect Google's intranet.

Since blogger.com is linked from google.com, any sites we link to could pass on a fairly high PageRank value. (PageRank is one of the factors that determines what results show up in what order for searches.) In order to remove any possibility of unequal ranking of Blogger-powered blogs in the Google main search index, we send links through a URL from which Google knows to ignore PageRank. This way, Blogger blogs earn PageRank only on the basis of their content and other people linking to them, not because they're powered by a tool owned by Google.

Link (via EvHead)

PHPKitchen: Validating URLs with PHP

PHPKitchen: Validating URLs with PHP 08/16/2004 08:45 AM
In a pointer from PHPKitchen.com today, there's a script highlighted for anyone out there looking to validate any kind of URL conforming to just about any kinds of rules.

Autolink URLs in MT Entries

Autolink URLs in MT Entries 08/16/2004 05:58 PM

One of the things I really hate about reading newspaper Web sites is they often include URLs but don’t link them. So you have to copy and paste to open them (or just rightclick with the right Firefox extension).

I don’t want my site to look like a big, dumb newspaper. So I wrote a filter using Brad’ ;s regex plugin to autolink URLs in entries. It hasn’t been extensively tested but it has worked for a the half-dozen or so entries in the Project X blog.

Install the regex plugin and then add this to the top of your templates…

<MTAddRegex name="autolink">s![> ](http://[^<" ]+)!<a href="$1">$1</a> !g</MTAddRegex>

Then add the attribute regex="autolink" to your MTEntryBody and MTEntry more tags in your templates: <MTEntryBody regex="autolink">.

Sweet Mother of URLs

Sweet Mother of URLs 07/23/2004 11:32 PM

sweetmotherof frothygoodnessthatsbadnewsforbud.com: I saw this URL on a Miller Lite ad. It actually resolves. Sadly, it redirects, so you'll never see it in the address bar.

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Notes and Tips: ".Mac" URLs

Notes and Tips: ".Mac" URLs 04/06/2005 12:19 PM
Here's more about a new ".Mac" URL problem and workarounds.

Generating One-Time URLs with PHP

Generating One-Time URLs with PHP 12/05/2002 08:50 PM
Not everything on the Internet is designed for archival. Some data is time- or recipient-sensitive and should be protected. Daniel Solin demonstrates how to generate URL access keys for sensitive data with PHP.

Algorithm-PageRank-0.07

Algorithm-PageRank-0.07 08/22/2004 05:23 PM

Algorithm-PageRank-0.04

Algorithm-PageRank-0.04 08/22/2004 05:58 AM

Algorithm-PageRank-0.03

Algorithm-PageRank-0.03 08/22/2004 05:58 AM

Algorithm-PageRank-0.05

Algorithm-PageRank-0.05 08/22/2004 05:58 AM

Algorithm-PageRank-0.06

Algorithm-PageRank-0.06 08/22/2004 05:58 AM

How Important is PageRank, Really?

How Important is PageRank, Really? 04/13/2005 03:04 PM

pagerank 10 sites

pagerank 10 sites 07/22/2004 01:32 PM
someday you'll be able to pay for pagerank 11

Blogs and PageRank

Blogs and PageRank 07/15/2004 10:09 PM

Will the preponderance of blogs these days wreak havoc with Google's PageRank model? It used to be that you couldn't get a link from a big name site without having something they they wanted to link to. And if they linked to it, then they liked it, so others might as well, thus a higher PageRank. Not so anymore.

I can get a link on SixApart.com by posting a comment or a trackback. Ditto for Kottke. I can't on Boing Boing, but I can on Don Park's site. And there a lot of other blogs out there with PageRank values of, say, seven and up that I can get a link on very easily.

This site, for instance, has a PageRank of six, and you can get a link from here by just saying some intelligent (sadly, we've taken steps to eliminate the PageRank value, but I may remove that because other steps have helped cure the spam problem).

So, with all these high PageRank sites out there, it's getting easier to increase the PageRank of your own site. And you don't even have to spam — even a dolt can come up with something intelligent to say about post. Keep it remotely relevant, you won't get deleted, and — voila! — you just finagled a link from a site with decent PageRank.

This being the case, will PageRank's relevance and value deteriorate over the next few years?

(This begs another question — would Google ever allow you to designate links as self-service? By using a special comment or something, you could declare to the GoogleBot that you didn't add these links yourself, instead they were added by the link's target. And if this happened, would you do it? Would you essentially screw your commenters? Would people be more likely to comment on blogs that advertised that they didn't marginalize links using this method?)

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Algorithm-PageRank-0.08

Algorithm-PageRank-0.08 08/23/2004 06:57 AM

PageRank Without Backlinks

PageRank Without Backlinks 08/31/2004 05:33 PM
"I went to the site today to see PR5. Pretty good for a site that I have never promoted, that logs dont any refers from. And that Google or Yahoo show any backlinks to."

Google-PageRank-0.01

Google-PageRank-0.01 09/08/2004 07:12 AM

Pagerank For Sale

Pagerank For Sale 08/20/2002 10:13 AM
As predicted by members this last winter, high page rank sites begin to swap links for cash.

PageRank for Firefox 1.0

PageRank for Firefox 1.0 01/06/2005 08:20 PM

WWW-Google-PageRank-0.07

WWW-Google-PageRank-0.07 09/16/2004 05:07 PM

WWW-Google-PageRank-0.06

WWW-Google-PageRank-0.06 09/16/2004 07:41 AM

WWW-Google-PageRank-0.05

WWW-Google-PageRank-0.05 09/15/2004 05:58 AM

WWW-Google-PageRank-0.04

WWW-Google-PageRank-0.04 09/09/2004 11:04 AM

Google-PageRank-0.02

Google-PageRank-0.02 09/08/2004 10:35 AM

Google-PageRank-0.03

Google-PageRank-0.03 09/08/2004 10:35 AM

The dangers of PageRank

The dangers of PageRank 02/10/2004 02:44 AM

A well documented side effect of the weblog format is that it brings Google PageRank in almost absurd quantities. I'm now the 5th result for simon on Google, and I've been the top result for simon willison almost since the day I launched. High rankings however are not always a good thing, especially when combined with a comment system. A growing number of bloggers have found themselves at the top position for terms of little or no relevance to the rest of their sites, which in turn can attract truly surreal comments from visitors from search engines who may never have encountered a blog before.

I know of a couple of entries on my own blog that are attracting this kind of traffic. The most interesting is probably this entry on artifical diamonds, which has attracted comments from both buyers and sellers of artificial gems. My entry on MSN messenger usability problems from 2002 has drawn a steady stream of hilarious comments, no doubt caused in part by its top rating on Google for msn messenger sucks. Amusingly, for a long time Microsoft's own search engine was giving my page a high rank for a wide variety of less negative messenger related terms.

My own experiences of this phenomenon pale in to significance to some of the others I've seen. The most impressive example has to be Jason Kottke's brief review of the Matrix Reloaded, which drew over 900 comments from Google strays, developed its own micro-community and resulted in Jason pondering who owns the conversation on my web site? Jason eventually deciding to close and archive the thread after the page grew to more than a megabyte in size.

The problem can take on a far more disturbing twist. I won't link directly to these entries for fear of adding to their predicaments, but searches for crime scene cleanup and suicide chat rooms both return blogs in the first two results. The former thread is mostly crime scene cleanup companies marketing their services, but the latter is quite frankly disturbing. It's certainly lead me to double check the titles of my entries before posting them.

Thankfully, avoiding this kind of unwanted comment traffic is pretty simple. One way is to simply disable comments for entries older than a certain time (generally a couple of weeks), although personally I like to see the occasional comment on old entries. A neater solution proposed by Russell Beattie last year is to simply hide comments from search engine referrals, thus ensuring that random strays won't leave their mark without understanding the nature of your site first.

More PageRank Mania

More PageRank Mania 06/14/2004 09:48 AM
Source: Search Engine Guide - Sadly, it appears that PageRank is often the driving factor in how and why people link to each other, and that is just plain wrong. When a site owner refuses to link to a great...

Canonical URLs and network effects

Canonical URLs and network effects 09/27/2004 08:57 AM
After retracing his steps in order to correctly credit a link he had recently cited, Darren Barefoot wondered whether it had been worth the trouble:

Generally, I just choose the site closest to the source, and credit them. That probably doesn't make sense, as I should be crediting the source where I found them. Or is it important to show the entire 'chain of evidence'? Ultimately, who really cares? [Darren Barefoot: The (boring) problem of attribution]

I think that it is worth the trouble, and that publishing platorms and blogging tools ought to conspire to help automate the tedious chore. The reason usually given is that the original source deserves credit, and that it's unfair to redirect that credit. That's true, but there's a deep systemic principle at work here too. Canonical URLs create powerful network effects that we dilute at our peril. ...

Multiple URLs to Same Page in Google

Multiple URLs to Same Page in Google 12/19/2004 03:08 PM
Wild variations on a url are showing up in the Google index. Most often these are a result of a incorrectly configured server, but some feel there is something wrong on Googles end.

Friendly URLs in Movable Type

Friendly URLs in Movable Type 02/01/2005 08:40 PM
Arve has written a very nice tutorial covering how to set up Movable Type to use search engine and user friendly url's. Not only does he show how to set up Movable Type so you can customise the url's yourself,...

Web Sites That Shorten Long URLs

Web Sites That Shorten Long URLs 06/20/2004 08:14 AM
Web Sites That Shorten Long URLs
http://notlong.com/links/

These free web sites can take a long URL and give you back a shorter URL without requiring registration. Since these sites forward a click from one link to another, they are also known as URL forwarders and some do subdomain forwarding. Any of these services will do a decent job, but if you want to study them before you pick one, here is an informal survey of the competitive landscape. [beSpacific June 15, 2004]

how URLs and ideas propagate through
bl0gs,

how URLs and ideas propagate through
bl0gs, 03/06/2004 01:53 AM
Blog Epidemic Analyzer .. appositi tool .. this

www-idl.hpl.hp.com/blogstuff/index.html
track this site | 9 links

Get mailto URLs to open in mutt

Get mailto URLs to open in mutt 05/25/2004 10:14 AM
If you want URLs like mail foo@bar.tld about stuff to work with mutt (or pine, if you patch the code, but blech), you can download a small program I wrote. Documentation is lacking, as is customizability, but hey, for my firs...

Alf makes grabbing MP3 URLs really easy!

Alf makes grabbing MP3 URLs really easy! 01/17/2004 11:21 PM

m3u generator bookmarklet. Alf Eaton has come up with a m3u generator bookmarklet which will harvest the links to mp3s on a page  you're viewing in the browser and give you a playlist. Drag that last link to your links bar, and try it on this pa ge of songs from Les Ogres de Barback or this page of songs from the klezmer band Sirba (found thanks to Lucas).

[Seb's Open Research]

 

Coolio - once again Alf is leading the way!  I could have used that util over the past few weeks - building all the jukeboxes I've been up to.

Now Alf can take those MP3s he's grabbing and put them into a Laszlo SoundBlox - just like the one I got in my gutter (and Barlow has in his - too!)

Grok Description matches for CGI Redirected URLs and PageRank
GrokA matches for CGI Redirected URLs and PageRank

CGI Redirected URLs and PageRank

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