This is an interesting idea, though I expect it would take a bit of work.

If pursued, I'd recommend hiding the Chatterbox and the Other Users nodelets, given the previous discussions regarding CB logging and the fact that google hits include the CB.

Alternatively, you could hide all nodelets on the "id" server, thereby providing a convenient way to nicely print nodes without having to hide the nodelets yourself.

In fact, you could even detect whether or not it's a (common) robot/spider and, if so, redirect them to the "id" version of the node, thereby (eventually) removing the current CB "logs" in google's cache.

I know you couldn't get all of the robots, but you could certainly get most of them.

Again, I realize there's some work (and therefore time) involved, but it might help raise awareness of the site, increase traffic, etc., etc.

--f

I am currently happy with the results when I search for jeffa on Google. I wonder if jcwren, kudra, and damian1301 are as well. . . :P

Jeff

R-R-R--R-R-R--R-R-R--R-R-R--R-R-R--
L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--

Sorry, this is a little off-topic, and not completely original, but interesting (at least to me) nonetheless.

I've done something similar to this: make a dynamic site appear static for the purpose of search engine indexing.

The way I did it was with the creation of each item, output an SSI statement into a file with proper parameters to call the dynamic content:
Example: I have a directory called "/redir/" that has all my SSI files in it. Each file is tiny, and looks something like this:
<!--#include virtual="/cgi-bin/process.pl?action=viewitem&id=97"--> Then each link on my site calls this SSI directive with the name "/redir/97.html". All the links look static but are created when requested because of the SSI trickery.

The "caught in an infinite indexing loop" is important to think about, I don't know how it would be handled on the perlmonks site.

Obviously google does index some dynamic content, as evidenced by jeffa's search above. Do we know how google decides what dynamic content to index? This whole point may be moot.

I have checked the word perlmonks on Google and there is almost nothing. There must be many perllmonks pages talking about perlmonks! So I doubt google indexes any page but explicitely submitted ones

Probably jeffa explicitely submitted his page.

-- stefp

I did indeed. Most of the links are not pointing to perlmonks but to pages from other sites speaking of perlmonks like paris.pm.org/meetings/2000/0906.html/

I suspect links to perlmonks have been either explicitely submitted or reached by Google from other sites. Following CGI requests within a site can lead to infinite recursion so I doubt this is ever done by an indexing motor.

Self referential note: material in italic was not present in the first edition of this node

-- stefp

Did you try it recently?

I am really outraged.

In fact, if you do a search on any particular user from the monastery, and throw in perl monk, you'll get their homenode.

I for one do not appreciate having a history of my homenode available a 3 months after it's last been updated.

Can't we stop google from doing this?

UPDATE:
Yes, google's cache feature is useful, and yes I do like it and use it everyday, and yes I could just not post information in a public arena, BUT I still don't like it and feel they should ask or say someplace:

Hey baby, we're a caching your goodies, so beware.

UPDATE: (April 26, 2001, 11:10am PST)
I do appreciate all the responses and what not, but you can't blame me for being paranoid. That is what sleep deprevation (among other things) does to you.

 
___crazyinsomniac_______________________________________
Disclaimer: Don't blame. It came from inside the void
perl -e "$q=$_;map({chr unpack qq;H*;,$_}split(q;;,q*H*));print;$q/$q;"

You've got to be kidding!

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who thinks Google's cached results are an immensly useful feature. I use them daily; perhaps hourly.

If I don't want to make information publicly available or archived, I simply don't put it online, ever, in any form. I don't believe you can have it both ways; you can't advocate a free, searchable, enlightening and informative internet, while crying "copyright violation!" when you spot a stale about me page in some search enginge's web-cache. Perhaps they are violating copyright law; well so much the better, and kudos to them.

Yes, Google is commercial, but they are really the only search engine built by and for people with Clue, and that makes them Good Guys, in my book. If Google hears enough complaints of this sort, they will certainly relent, and become another worthless fenced-in MSN/aol-style portal. That would be a very sad day, for users of Google and for the internet at large.

   MeowChow                                   
               s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print

See How do I request that Google not return cached information from my site? in their FAQ.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

In a nutshell, I don't believe we can. Google is as useful as it is because of that caching facility.
As for it violating copyright law, I think that was already decided that it didn't, as otherwise you'd find all companies that operated a webcache violated that copyright.
Personally, I don't have any issues at all with cached copies of stuff appearing on google (interestingly enough, it seems to have archived stuff from the chatbox too.. I found an old comment of mine appearing on there on a search for "Malkavian perl monk")..
Bear in mind, it only appears if someone's actively looking for that particular data.
If someone is actually interested in looking for Malkavian the Perl Monk, I'm pretty sure they'd come to the Perl Monks site, and look at my home node.
If someone's interested enough in me to go and look me up on a search engine, I think I'd count myself flattered. :)
The idea behind Google's web cache is that quite frequently, some very interesting stuff is lost, either by user account shutdown at universities, or machines temporarily falling off the internet. In those cases, google offer a snapshot of this data for a time (won't be forever, as they don't have infinite space to store it), under the understanding it's a cache, and thus likely out of date, but still allows you a glimpse of what otherwise wouldn't be reachable.
Anyhow, that's just my take on it.

Cheers,

Malk

yep, simply tell the search robots to not to follow, whether in the html header or in the robots.txt.
And just by the way, I think Google would even like to be not in need to also index more or less usefull information about us.
If you have your own homepage, well let Google search it. But as it is here we can not ask for anyones permission, which would be needed as the person cannot intervent anyhow and cannot stop search engines like google from indexing things that belong somwhat also to privacy.
Otherwise we prevent perlmonks from saying something about themselfes in their homenodes.
But however I might think :
Have a nice day
All decision is left to your taste

If you don't want in a cache, then don't post it in a public arena. If it ain't in google's cache, then it'll be somewhere else.

Of course, you could use frames, I suppose. Those are a lot harder to cache.