Mac OS 9 Lives

General => Off Topic => Topic started by: GaryN on July 15, 2021, 03:34:26 PM

Title: Google strikes again!
Post by: GaryN on July 15, 2021, 03:34:26 PM
General notification to everybody though especially Diehard and Knezzen.

MacintoshGarden no longer appears in Google search results.

I surmise this is due to the lack of HTTPS.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

It does appear in DDGo but since the majority of the world uses Chrome and that almost forces them to use Google (makes as much sense as voting for Trump) it may be a real issue. Already, many browsers will jump to a "Danger Will Robinson!" warning if you type in an HTTP address. If that happens to someone, the next typical step is to search for it. If it won't appear on Google, that becomes a real issue because the domain will slowly just "disappear" over time.

I note that MacRepository has an HTTPS URL despite their "love of old Macs". I have no idea how feasible it is…
OR:  "HTTPS" MAcintoshGardens.org and various other domains are available possibly to mount a permanent redirect and/or an explanation.

I became aware of this because of folks on the Facebook OS9 group discussing it with no idea of what to do.
Title: Re: Google strikes again!
Post by: Mat on July 15, 2021, 04:08:02 PM
Yeah, the internet is broken!

Another part of this problem, today a friend gave me a call that at one webpage of mine he gets the info "you are not allowed to access this ressources" … I asked him if he uses a strange webbrowser, and indeed it was chrome! After starting Firefox, everything worked as expected.

The only solution is to rise the awareness of every user, and for every alternative solution in every field. I know it is annoying, and kind of a sisyphean undertaking, but running behind huge companies demands is even a worse solution and more annoying. We need to strenghten alternatives, like this forum, and make clear to the crowd that google search results is what one company likes us to see, not more not less.
Title: Re: Google strikes again!
Post by: Knezzen on July 16, 2021, 01:26:47 AM
Macintosh Garden have had a working SSL certificate for years now, we just don't enforce it. We keep both http and https up so the site is accessible from whatever computer you want to use. Try accessing it from https://macintoshgarden.org (https://macintoshgarden.org) and http://macintoshgarden.org (http://macintoshgarden.org) and you'll see that both work :)

About google, we have had a recent flood of layers emailing us about removing their clients software from the site. These people most certainly found us through search engines. We helt a public "vote" (see here: https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/delisting-search-engines-should-we (https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/delisting-search-engines-should-we)) that resulted in us actively delisting the site from Google and other search engines.

I would recommend DieHard to add a SSL certificate to Mac OS 9 Lives as well and don't enforce encryption (like we do with the garden), so the site can keep working on both modern and old browsers. I'll gladly assist if help is needed :)
Title: Re: Google strikes again!
Post by: IIO on July 16, 2021, 06:07:56 AM
theo, wouldn´t it be better to remove the few dmca´ed files and remain searchable by google instead?

(what a joke that people send complains to google instead of you, but that´s another story.)
Title: Re: Google strikes again!
Post by: Knezzen on July 16, 2021, 12:26:29 PM
theo, wouldn´t it be better to remove the few dmca´ed files and remain searchable by google instead?

(what a joke that people send complains to google instead of you, but that´s another story.)

It’s not a few files unfortunately, it’s big software packages from known makers that are the target for these layers. And because we want to preserve software and people in the “scene” know of us already, the decision to pull out of the Google search results are an easy choice to make.

They didn’t sent complaints through Google, but they most likely found us through Google, hence the decision not to list there anymore.
Title: Re: Google strikes again!
Post by: teroyk on July 17, 2021, 10:14:54 AM
theo, wouldn´t it be better to remove the few dmca´ed files and remain searchable by google instead?

Who use Google anyway, anymore? I am not a robot, I don't even accept Google's reCaptcha privacy terms anymore.
Title: Re: Google strikes again!
Post by: GaryN on July 17, 2021, 02:11:13 PM
We're talking about new-to-vintage-Mac users who know little about this little corner of the net.

Why would you need someone to tell you that just because you don't use Google to search for stuff doesn't mean that a billion or so others don't?
Title: Re: Google strikes again!
Post by: damo-blak on July 17, 2021, 04:32:08 PM
theo, wouldn´t it be better to remove the few dmca´ed files and remain searchable by google instead?

Who use Google anyway, anymore? I am not a robot, I don't even accept Google's reCaptcha privacy terms anymore.

yeah, i prefer other search engines that are not so policed:-)
Title: Re: Google strikes again!
Post by: teroyk on July 17, 2021, 10:24:05 PM
We're talking about new-to-vintage-Mac users who know little about this little corner of the net.
Why would you need someone to tell you that just because you don't use Google to search for stuff doesn't mean that a billion or so others don't?

New vintage Mac users might not be average users, they might be people that want something else than 2020s mainstream computing.
More and more people use example:
https://www.startpage.com/
https://duckduckgo.com/
and others...Google is so last season  :P
Title: Re: Google strikes again!
Post by: GaryN on July 18, 2021, 06:22:02 PM
Google is so last season  :P
What's that make us? Ancient history?

50% of people use Google as a search engine.
The other 50% use it to check if their internet is connected.  8)
Title: Re: Google strikes again!
Post by: IIO on July 23, 2021, 02:51:54 PM

It’s not a few files unfortunately, it’s big software packages from known makers that are the target for these layers.

oh, for a moment i forgot that you host games´n stuff.