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February 10

"Passive" spamdexing?

By "passive", I meant getting more irrelevant results to some queries without making low-quality sites nor abusing fanon wikis. Like repeating the particular search queries like "relevant stuff" OR "irrelevant stuff" and repeated or multiple OR statements between relevant and irrelevant ones would lead to irrelevant results popping up on that particular query (especially on Google image search and YouTube search) over time (e.g. Audiosurf appearing in image search results about foo_enhanced_spectrum_analyzer). While these new irrelevant results are usually not ranked as high, I think this thing is interesting though obscure. 2001:448A:3070:E573:5D44:3301:1481:FE0F (talk) 11:18, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that you are suggesting that if you go to a search engine and you search for nonsense and see certain web pages show up in your list of results that somehow those web pages will be indexed higher with the search engine. Is that correct? If so, that is now how spamdexing works. Spamdexing is performed by altering the code of the web page so the headers and content of the web page are filled with phrases and keywords that trick the search engine into falsely assuming that the web page provides information that it does not provide. Adam Savage recently posted a complaint about this on Youtube. He wanted to purchase a laser printer. His searches kept leading him to inkjet printers. Why? The inkjet printer web pages had header fields that tricked the search engine into thinking that they contained information about laser printers when they didn't have that information in any way. But, back to your question, if you were to hire a team to constantly search for "laser printers or inkjet printers," those searches would not alter the indexing of the results that appear. In some search engines, clicking on a result may increase the index position, but simply having it appear on your computer screen as a search result doesn't fit into the algorithm. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 11:48, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That explains what's going on in Google Images search but how about YouTube search? Like seeing this irrelevant video on top of the search result about another topic. 2001:448A:3070:E573:E819:DAF3:2E41:E036 (talk) 12:21, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that only one of those videos in the result list appear to be close to the query. So, Youtube appears to be supplying "this is kind of like that" results. I've seen situations like this. My son watched a lot of Minecraft videos and Youtube would respond to queries about Minecraft with videos that are made by the people who make many Minecraft videos, but actually have nothing to do with Minecraft. So, it is possible that the authors of the Death Stranding videos also make a lot of popular Titanfall videos. Further, Youtube is heavily confused by foreign languages. So, it may not be translating effectively and things that the videos include NPC pilot information. Why it contains a plax mix of baby songs is a mystery. I feel that expresses how poor Youtube search is. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 13:33, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But obviously, the author of this video haven't made any Titanfall-related videos on YouTube last checked, but it still shows up in search results like this and this even with personalization things (both search history and especially watch history) turned off. 2001:448A:3070:E573:E819:DAF3:2E41:E036 (talk) 16:12, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike a standard search engine, YouTube customizes what you see based on your preferences and watch history. What you see is not necessarily what someone else may see. How much the results are based on what you typed and how much is based on other things is not public knowledge. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 13:35, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK, the Google Images is a kind of the search engine where clicking on a result might actually change the index position right? Considering that Audiosurf 2 stuffs (the irrelevant one) didn't appear on image search results about foo_enhanced_spectrum_analyzer before entering spurious queries like "foo_enhanced_spectrum_analyzer spectrogram" OR "audiosurf 2" for the long enough time. 2001:448A:3070:E833:E510:B1C:7EA9:80AF (talk) 07:46, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]