Experts Exchange should be removed from Google search results

July 30, 2007 – 9:01 pm

I was trying to figure out how to extend my wireless network down a few floors a few days ago, and one of my queries brought me to experts exchange. The question looked useful: Using Linksys WAP54G as Wireless Repeater. This is exactly what I wanted to do. However, once I actually scrolled down to view the answers, I saw this

Experts exchange

I thought this was pretty weird, since I was pretty sure in the snippet I saw on Google’s results they had part of the solution I was looking for. Now I’m curious, so I hit sign up to view solution, and saw the signup page requires credit card payment.

experts exchange credit cards

Page in question.

I checked out the Google webmaster guidelines, and this is in direct violation. Under “Quality guidelines - basic principles”, it says

# Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”
# Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”

Hitting the Google cache of this page shows they’re serving up a different version of the site to search engines. To me, letting them rank high for this paid for content is a clear violation of the Google TOS.

I am filing experts exchange to Google’s spam directory. I encourage you all to do the same.

Edit, search term was: Using Linksys WAP54G as Wireless Repeater

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  1. 196 Responses to “Experts Exchange should be removed from Google search results”

  2. Google has been spidering the subscription-only NY Times for years and have just ignored the masses crying “foul,” so I doubt ExpertsExchange would get a different reception from them. : \

    By Joel on Jul 30, 2007

  3. Been an issue for a long time, thanks for pointing me in the right direction to getting this resolved.

    “Spam report successfully submitted

    Thank you for submitting this information. Your report has been received and will be investigated.

    We appreciate your diligence in reporting this problem; you’re helping produce a better online experience for everyone.

    The Google Team”

    By Drew on Jul 31, 2007

  4. AT least the NYTimes registration is free. Personally, I’d like to see them removed as well.

    By jon on Jul 31, 2007

  5. Why do I have to scroll down through half of a blank page to read this?

    By Mitch on Jul 31, 2007

  6. Needs a correction:

    “I thought this was pretty weird, since I was pretty SURE in the snippet”

    By buddamagoo on Jul 31, 2007

  7. Just have your browser ID itself as google bot. Then you do not have to pay.

    ;)

    By Old one on Jul 31, 2007

  8. Agreed. Experts-Exchange used to be a free, useful site. But now, they are just as shady as the rest.

    By Seth on Jul 31, 2007

  9. I have been using the Google cache trick for ages. So now if Google remove them we won’t get the answers at all. I’d rather they were indexed and readable via the cache than not indexed at all.

    By Simon on Jul 31, 2007

  10. I can’t tell you the number of times Google has taken me to Experts Exchange for what looks to be precise hits on the question entered, that site used to be free, and was a very good site…

    By Zombie on Jul 31, 2007

  11. Last time I checked EE used CSS trickery to disguise the answers, but if you take a look at the HTML source it’s all right there…at least it used to be in the past.

    jp

    By JP on Jul 31, 2007

  12. Without the exact search query, I can’t submit this to google, so this post is worthless as a catalyst for change. Post the Query you used to get this page.

    By Anthony on Jul 31, 2007

  13. You can probably just use the Google cache to view the entirety of the page you want - you should be thanking them.

    By anonymous on Jul 31, 2007

  14. Tip: When you get an expert-exchange result in Google search, open the cache of the page, the answer will be there.

    By Geeks Are Sexy on Jul 31, 2007

  15. I remember reading an article on Digg describing how to pretend to be a spider/bot to view content on sites that employ this tactic.

    By Andrew on Jul 31, 2007

  16. I agree.

    Sites like Experts Exchange just clog up the search results page and make it difficult to access useful results.

    Perhaps Google should offer a setting that only shows search results from ‘public’ websites (i.e. no registration, no subscription)

    By SmallBiz378468 on Jul 31, 2007

  17. Somewhat off-topic, but you can use the User Agent Switcher FF extension to pretend you’re a google bot and access the content as explained here:

    http://lifehacker.com/software/featured-firefox-extension/mask-your-browser-identification-with-user-agent-switcher-277458.php#c1859352

    By dorfang on Jul 31, 2007

  18. just scroll down the page on EE (below the greyed out answer and category lists, etc) and your answer will be there in plain text

    DUHHH

    By joe blow on Jul 31, 2007

  19. experts exchange == expert sex change

    By DaveUK on Jul 31, 2007

  20. Even if they take down the cache, you can sometimes get around their tactics by using a useragent switcher to mask yourself as the googlebot.

    By Dan on Jul 31, 2007

  21. I changed my User Agent string to mimic Googlebot, and I was able to view the page just fine. =-) I like when sites ask you to pay for information that they will freely give to you if you know the secret handshake.

    By Johann on Jul 31, 2007

  22. try the firefox “customize google” plugin. it allows
    you to remove specific sites from a google search result

    By DaveUK on Jul 31, 2007

  23. BURIED, joe blow is right, stop being so impatient and KEEP SCROLLING DOWN.

    By spothcka on Jul 31, 2007

  24. Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes, YES! I can’t say how much I agree with you about this. I’m sick, and freakin tired of accidentally going to their stupid site when looking for something.

    By Moose on Jul 31, 2007

  25. Exactly - works great: http://digg.com/security/Hack_Lets_You_Access_Pay_Sites_Free_by_Disguising_Your_Browser_as_GoogleBot
    They truly deserve it.

    By Tom on Jul 31, 2007

  26. Actually I saw this exact thing happening at webmasterworld.com a while back and reported it to google and it got resolved.

    By Johnny Blaze on Jul 31, 2007

  27. Aftervote has a blacklisting feature which will allow you remove any site from your index and will never be shown results from a Blacklisted domain. Experts Exchange was the first site I blacklisted.

    By Ron Myers on Jul 31, 2007

  28. You can filter out Experts Exchange with Firefox using the “Customize Google” addon. Works like a charm!

    By Somebody on Jul 31, 2007

  29. Spothka is right. Like he says, just scroll down further.

    By ArchGekko on Jul 31, 2007

  30. This is actually a common and widely accepted practice among the search engines to get subscription content indexed in the search engines. It uses .htaccess and other server level mods to show content to spiders without a subscription. If you think about it.. how else would a search engine be able to put in user names/pass words or subscribe to a site?

    By Simon on Jul 31, 2007

  31. here is a script that removes anything u get back from expert exchange :) good luck
    http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/1898

    By Tim Dodd on Jul 31, 2007

  32. I agree with the author. Other pages will be put on the supplemental index for having too many keywords in the text, why should something as blatant as this go on without recourse?

    By 10668844 on Jul 31, 2007

  33. you should use google cached results as it shows the answers to the questions.

    By Mohammed on Jul 31, 2007

  34. I was more than glad to assist you. Experts Exchange has been a pain in my ass for years. The internet was cluttered with filth like this a few years ago and a lot of it seems to be gone. Its time to send these people on their way as well.

    By starams5 on Jul 31, 2007

  35. It does not matter what Joe Blow and spothcka says. The problem is how experts exchange arranged their web pages to deceive visitors into thinking they need to sign up and pay for access.

    By jchang on Jul 31, 2007

  36. Damn straight! I freaking hate them and Webmaster world. You used to be able to just scroll down, but now they’re covering all the data with some kind of Javascript (that I could disable if I felt like it, but I don’t).

    By Jeremy Duffy on Jul 31, 2007

  37. Just keep scrolling. Experts Exchange has been like that for years; they’ve just recently switched to the blurry middle section which is more confusing.

    By John on Jul 31, 2007

  38. You could try using Google Cache to render that page. I think I got it to show proper answer a few times. (click the cached page link in the serach result)

    By Mick on Jul 31, 2007

  39. yeah i noticed the garbled text also, its really annoying!

    By Kush on Jul 31, 2007

  40. Uhhh…
    Scroll down to the bottom of the page you will see the none blurred out posts…

    Hey while your reporting them for spam why not report every other site that uses too many ads or other means of self promotion you don’t like.

    Sorry you have to scroll down a little but the content is there and not even obscured.

    By Master Ruthless on Jul 31, 2007

  41. Did you try to scroll to the bottom of the page, they usualy have the solution …. :

    Solution accepted :

    ryanwhalen:
    Well in my first scenario I didn’t realize that the two wireless devices were wirelessly linking, i thought you had a network cable from the WRT to the WAP.

    So the problem is definately somewhere in the link between the WRT and WAP. Make sure that you entered the correct MAC address in the WAP for the WRT. If you see two MAC’s listed in the WRT setup, try the other one.

    For the time being, both devices should have no WEP, different SSID’s, and be on the same channel.

    By lessaid on Jul 31, 2007

  42. I use Experts Exchange as a developer and it has been a valuable source of information…solving my problems and answering my questions. I pay $9.99 a month for unlimited access, but you can answer questions to get the answers for free. I think it is only natural for Google to index their site. And when stuff is just free, nothing gets done. There has to be incentive otherwise is like all other open source projects…pretty good but no garuantees. I almost always get an answer on EE and quickly. As for Google, who cares. Get over it. That’s how they make money. I would pay for a better search engine if it work!!! I would pay for email if there was no spam garaunteed. It’s just a different school of thought versus the age old everything for free concept.

    By John on Jul 31, 2007

  43. I agree absolutely. Why don’t start a petition or something?

    By antonio on Jul 31, 2007

  44. There is no reason for these confusing results to be considered relevant.

    By Ben Reubenstein on Jul 31, 2007

  45. You can usually scroll down to find the non-garbled versions of the text, sometimes Logging in with a free account will work too.

    By Brian M on Jul 31, 2007

  46. …

    1. Get Firefox
    2. Get Greasemonkey ( found: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748 )
    3. Restart Firefox
    4. Get this script: http://userscripts.org/scripts/source/8614.user.js
    5. Enjoy Experts Exchange’s answers

    By OkydOky on Jul 31, 2007

  47. They use CSS to hide the answer.. looking at the cached link will give you the answer since the cache doesnt reference the css file.

    If google stops indexing the site, we wont get free answers anymore! Dont flag them, just use google cache!

    By Trocss on Jul 31, 2007

  48. Experts Exchange SUCKS!!! Their web site looks pretty and they claim to have all these great solutions, but they don’t. Searching Google Groups is almost always better. “Experts”, my ass. More like stupid dick-in-mouth skeezers!

    By Fred on Jul 31, 2007

  49. Q: What’s the difference between not finding the answer and finding it but having to pay or volunteer time to see it?

    A: Frustratation in not getting what you want for free…RIGHT NOW!!!

    Where else in the world beside the WWW is this possible?
    What age group does this sound like?

    By John on Jul 31, 2007

  50. Experts Exchange actually does give you the answers, and they serve up different content because you can now allow google to crawl password protected content for some beta app’s. Stop your bitching, if your too cheap to sign up to learn something then don’t bitch. Use another website.

    By Robert on Jul 31, 2007

  51. Iam against the flooding of search engines with uselees or useful information that needs to be paid for. They are marketing their company through google and there is no law against it. though for some sites such as theirs you could change your user agenet to google and on some sites gain access without the need of a password, since some of those sites add openings for google and other crawlers to get in.

    By genxweb on Jul 31, 2007

  52. This is pretty funny, Experts Exchange isn’t very clever anyway. You are able to select all of the text on the page (including the writing underneath the “you must sign-up” poster, paste it into Microsoft Word and continue reading it from there (not sure if they have patched this though).

    By Bull3t on Jul 31, 2007

  53. Hah, yeah, I know it’s been said, but….instead of complaining about pay-for content being on google’s cache - use google’s cache to get it for free :)

    By BCB on Jul 31, 2007

  54. I just throw expertsexchange.com in th e/etc/hosts.deny file.

    By Michael Bushey on Jul 31, 2007

  55. I’ve had some problems with Experts Exchange anyway. I’m glad someone else has a problem with them too.

    Now I use ITtoolbox (www.ittoolbox.com) for my support needs. The site’s easier to use anyway. And it’s all free!

    By SteveH on Jul 31, 2007

  56. Experts-Exchange is a good site that has a lot of good info on it. I believe the “accepted answer” is displayed to asll users. And there is a free membership to EE. Not sure where they hide the link now, but you are able to sign up for free.

    By matt on Jul 31, 2007

  57. I HATE Expert Exchange. Every single time I am doing a technical query to find a solution to some problem I get these useless URLS that are nothing more than Google-bait to help them sell subscriptions. I’d love to see Expert Exhange go out of business and Google stop indexing their crap.

    By KoDo on Jul 31, 2007

  58. I use the Google cache “work around” frequently to find the answers on Experts Exchange. and think it is pretty neat. Why are you interested in protecting their profit? My guess is that you either already paid at the site and are miffed that it could have otherwise been obtained for free, or you work for the company.

    If you think the info at EE is trash, then use some of the more advanced search commands in google to filter your results. However, keep in mind that others may be interested in the info while you do not.

    By indigo on Jul 31, 2007

  59. The text of the answers is rot13′d within the source for the Expert’s Exchange page. So if you go to the page, view the source, find the answers (which look like goobley-gook), copy the goobley-gook into the paste buffer, go to http://www.rot13.com, paste the text and submit, you’ll get the actual answer back.

    By Joe Camel on Jul 31, 2007

  60. yeah, and using Google cache, you can view the answer for free .. eg:

    http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:vFas7zvJG4wJ:http://www.experts-exchange.com/Networking/Q_21660493.html#a15461717

    By mike on Jul 31, 2007

  61. Um dude, go to the cached version!

    By JS on Jul 31, 2007

  62. Just change your search term to “term -site:experts-exchange.com” and you will not have to deal with it.

    By Brian on Jul 31, 2007

  63. ************************************
    ************************************
    ************************************
    ************************************
    ************************************

    EXPERTSEXCHANGE IS NOT CLOAKED!!

    PRESS PAGE DOWN ON YOUR KEYBOARD.
    HOLD IT UNTIL YOU SEE THE ANSWERS
    WITHOUT THE BLUR!!!

    ************************************
    ************************************
    ************************************
    ************************************
    ************************************

    By OFFICIAL RESPONSE FROM EXPERTSEXCHANGE on Jul 31, 2007

  64. Quit whining losers…if you dont know how to fix your own shit you should be made to pay. Thats how the repair industry makes $. Cheap ass morons

    By the dood on Jul 31, 2007

  65. Official response eh? I went to the page I listed specifically, and it showed the results at the bottom. I then refreshed the page, and it didn’t show the answers anymore. This is defintely an example of cloaking and the site should be delisted from Google, under it’s policies.

    My objection was never that they make you pay to view the answers, it’s that they are giving a different version to Google in order to rank highly. If I did that with my blog I’d be delisted as soon as they discovered it.

    By jon on Jul 31, 2007

  66. Couldn’t agree more. Fuck them. I can’t stand that shit.

    By Mandrake on Jul 31, 2007

  67. I telling about this shit to my friends since months. You maybe just found out but if you a sysadmin and u have to search about hardware related problems then you keep gonna get this SHIT TO YOUR FACE at daily basis!

    EE = The most disgusting page on the net, please god remove it from the internet, guys ddos these fucking dumbshit assholes until they get bankrupt.
    I’m sure they cheating on hits and pay poor dumbshit people to push their results up to google in all category, fucking disgusting man.
    Anyone registered member on this site? I don’t think they even have good solution for the problems you search.

    By OMGZOR on Jul 31, 2007

  68. I just e-mailed them this. I hope they get the point.

    http://www.drinkwithrandall.com/open-letter-to-experts-exchange.com-2.html

    By Randall on Jul 31, 2007

  69. Just use the ‘Cached’ link on the Google results. Google can see all the content, otherwise none of the pages would get ranked as highly as they do.

    By Chris Meller on Jul 31, 2007

  70. Yeah, I’ve noticed this lately.. That frosty webpage pissed me off.

    But I don’t get the problem… why don’t you just login? I’ve had an account on there for years and I just log in to the see the answer. What’s everybody talking about paying for??!

    By Justanotheruser on Jul 31, 2007

  71. And to clarify, I do understand where you’re coming from… I’m just not sure I’d want all their results removed, since they can be a really great resource. Would I rather EE have all their content displayed normally? Absolutely. If we can get that kind of response from them, it’d be great.

    By Chris Meller on Jul 31, 2007

  72. As the others have mentioned, you are simply being silly on this, you can even sign up for free

    > http://www.experts-exchange.com/registerFree2.jsp

    That way you can browse everything but you can’t ask questions unless you pay.

    DUH!

    By Submit on Jul 31, 2007

  73. 99.9999% of their content is usenet^H^H^H^H^H^H Google Groups.

    By Hugh on Jul 31, 2007

  74. You can also file spam here. Might be more effective.
    https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en

    By JustAnotherWebmaster on Jul 31, 2007

  75. “Experts-Exchange used to be a free, useful site. But now, they are just as shady as the rest.”

    You are really full of yourself … and … the whiner who posted this BS should also get over himself! Lets see YOU run an excellent site like EE for Free … good luck!! What … you are not willing to pay $9.95 for an answer?? What the hell is your time worth per hour? I answer questions all day long on that site … and it has been a virtual goldmine of great solutions.

    mx

    By mx on Jul 31, 2007

  76. It’s called a business model and it works for them. Deal with it. They do what they do for money … and how they make money is by the making the valuable content that you seek available.

    Google’s in it for the money too. Experts Exchange pays them for advertisement space and gets traffic driven to their site. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

    By Learn Economics on Jul 31, 2007

  77. http://www.experts-exchange.com/registerFree2.jsp

    By Free Registration.... on Jul 31, 2007

  78. Strange that people want to pay for this information that’s free available on many other sites.

    EE doesn’t bother about the quality of the PAQ’s (Previously Answered Questions), but they do have a “Cleanup program” for not closed questions. Thus making sure that the experts keep getting points and thus keep being hooked up with the site. Many times I ran into crappy answered (or not answered) questions and nothing is done about that…

    I was the former Access #1 expert, but switched to http://www.thescripts.com (like many other EE experts) as it’s really free and experts aren’t suspended there.

    I even started my own blog on the “EE_trouble” I experienced: http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,2000342184b,00.htm

    And a former insider posted an interesting comment at:
    http://gadgetopia.com/post/3011?p=2

    Nic;o)

    By nico5038 on Jul 31, 2007

  79. You must be retarded…. if you scroll to the bottom of the site… you will see all the solutions. you must not know how to use the scroll bar.

    By Your Dumb on Jul 31, 2007

  80. I am in no way affiliated with experts-exchange and i usually NEVER leave a comment. I gotta say tho you are a moron. And I LOVE when im looking for a solution to a higher end IT problem and i see its on experts-exchange. You wanna know why? More times then not, theres an ANSWER. Its the only site I pay for. The 10 bux a month is soo worth it and I bet I have literally turned a several thousand percent profit on the information I have obtained from there over the years. Cry some more buddy.

    By Joe on Jul 31, 2007

  81. Hmm, stange that people pay for answers they can get at other sites like http://www.thescripts.com that’s having expert caring for the questioners and not for the expert-points.
    Guess Joe never used the “advanced find” to see howmany crappy comments there are and how many broken links…..

    Also checkout from a former insider:
    http://gadgetopia.com/post/3011?p=2

    And my blog:
    http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,2000342184b,00.htm

    Nic;o)

    By nico5038 on Jul 31, 2007

  82. I’m not crying about the payment. I’m just saying it violates Google’s webmaster TOS. Other sites that do this get blacklisted.

    By jon on Jul 31, 2007

  83. I totally agree. I’ve been mentally skipping over experts-exchange links for YEARS now….

    By Stuart on Jul 31, 2007

  84. Hmm, stange that people pay for answers they can get at other sites like http://www.thescripts.com that’s having expert caring for the questioners and not for the expert-points.
    Guess Joe and MX never used the “advanced find” to see howmany crappy comments there are and how many broken links…..

    Also checkout from a former insider:
    http://gadgetopia.com/post/3011?p=2

    And my blog:
    http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,2000342184b,00.htm

    Nic;o)

    By nico5038 on Jul 31, 2007

  85. It’s ironic that everyone complains about this being a pay site. The only saps are the ones that are paying the subscription to EE. If you scroll past all the grayed/blurred answers all the way down to the bottom of the page you will be very surprised to see the unblurred/grayed answers without paying a dime. Don’t take my word for it, try it yourself.

    By Justin on Jul 31, 2007

  86. The fake, blurred, thing is just a large ad if you will!! Some who never used the internet will surely fall for it, click and buy everything — but you need not!
    *** SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM, the real answers are there. ***

    By youdonthavetobuycolajustbecauseanadsaysso on Jul 31, 2007

  87. That is the very same page that people land on who do not find it via Google. EE and Google have worked out this arrangement together so that both companies PROFIT~!!!! Yes profit you’ve heard of it right!!?? The thing that puts food on your table too.

    EE charging for the service of making my help (yes i volunteer there) available to thousand or even millions of users via a high quality, fast paced, easy to read and fun environment…BFD!!!

    NO ONE and i mean NO ONE provides more help to more people at such an incredibly reasonable cost.

    If you wanna black ball someone…try taking on the IRS and make it worth all our whiles.

    By jadedata on Jul 31, 2007

  88. -site:experts-exchange.com

    there, shut the fuck up

    By usuk on Jul 31, 2007

  89. Use a free account? http://www.experts-exchange.com/registerFree2.jsp

    I have been using Experts Exchange for about 7 years now, I can log in with my free account and see the answers that come up on google…

    By Keith on Jul 31, 2007

  90. Justin, not all errors show a solution at the bottom of the page. Try this URL, a perfect example of cloaking.

    Go to google.com and enter this in the search. site:www.experts-exchange.com ORA-01031.

    Click on the first link and notice that the solution is not at the bottom of the page, nor can you see it if you click on ‘View Solution’. Now go back to google and click on ‘Cached’. Here you can see that the Googlebot was given access to the solution, and you too if you look at the cached google pages. I tried to switch my user agent string to googlebot, but it didn’t work b/c expert-exchange clearly has an ip address filter in addition to the user agent filter.

    Hmm, feed content to the search engines that is different than the content you serve to users. Sounds like cloaking to me.

    D

    By Dan on Jul 31, 2007

  91. About the EE cloaking:
    http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?p=103789#post103789

    Nic;o)

    By nico5038 on Jul 31, 2007

  92. This thought has been detected by “MX” and jadedata at Experts-Exchange:
    http://www.experts-exchange.com/Microsoft/Development/MS_Access/Q_22450024.html#a19603620

    For my views check:
    http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,2000342184b,00.htm

    And from a former insider check:
    http://gadgetopia.com/post/3011?p=2

    Nic;o)

    By nico5038 on Jul 31, 2007

  93. I just control+a, copy all text, paste into notepad.

    I agree any obfuscation of text should be blocked by google.

    By indy on Jul 31, 2007

  94. Yeah, experts exchange has been pissing me off for longer than I can remember. When looking for technical solutions, I’ll command-click or ctrl-click lots of results, and I always stumble when I get to these jerks.

    By balthisar on Jul 31, 2007

  95. The issue here appears to be the browser you are using.

    When using IE or Safari the un-blurred answers appear at the bottom of the page.

    When using Firefox the un-blurred answers are not visible.

    By zerg on Jul 31, 2007

  96. You do know that all the actual answers are displayed at the bottom of the page, right? The “hidden preview” answers appear right below the question, then a huge block of ads display below them, then, at the very, very bottom, the actual answers are shown.

    Yes, it’s somewhat shady. But they aren’t breaking any actual rules, the content they claim is there is indeed there.

    By B-Con on Jul 31, 2007

  97. heh…view source and you get a rot13 version of the answers. Definitely not what is in the google cache - GUILTY OF CLOAKING!

    By Alt on Jul 31, 2007

  98. actually expert exchange has helped me out of a jam quite a few times. see the trick is (& why its in the cache) to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page where the thread continues. You may test this “theory” on any expert exchange non registered page. They are a great helpful resource on the net. In fact I would like to say thank you to them :)

    By auxmess on Jul 31, 2007

  99. I don’t see any real answers at the bottom (Firefox on SuSE)
    Also, changing my useragent from Firefox to googlebot give me different content (which is cloaking!)

    By Alt on Jul 31, 2007

  100. If you’re still looking for a real answer, I explain how to use the WRT54G as a repeater or just as a Wireless Access Point here:
    http://brentevans.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-to-setup-2nd-router-as-access-point.html

    Brent

    By Brent on Jul 31, 2007

  101. I just use ‘noscript’ for Firefox for viewing it. - they are just using javascripts to try and hide their answers. It’s easy enough to not allow scripts to be run from their site.

    By Derek W. on Jul 31, 2007

  102. maybe they should use robots.txt that way google knows where not to go. You can’t blame google for indexing.

    By Lalit Kapoor on Jul 31, 2007

  103. There are a lot of responses here, but just so you know…they aren’t showing different content. Basically they have a really, and I mean REALLY long web page. If you scroll all the way to the bottom past what appears to be a lot of junk and ads, you will see the results.

    By Dough Boy on Jul 31, 2007

  104. I much prefer ittoolbox to experts exchange. The interface is easier to navigate and has a stronger search feature. Plus, why would anyone pay for experts exchange when they could access ittoolbox for free?

    By EHCasey on Jul 31, 2007

  105. Agree strongly about removing subscription sites from Google search results. But I’d like Google to offer the ability to include search results from subscription sites also; just not by default.

    It’s very disappointing to see newspapers and science journals trying to dissuade the free flow of information. Espcecially ridiculous are the regional and national newspapers who, though not charging for the news articles (yet) still force you to register personal information like name, age, sex, etc.

    The control freaks, greed driven blue meanies are everywhere.

    By Steve Proper on Jul 31, 2007

  106. Yeah….I’m cheap, so free is good. Seriously, you could find some stuff on EE, but it’s not worth it. There are several good sites out there, but SteveH hit the nail on the head….ITtoolbox is where it’s at. I’ve always gotten worthwhile answers to my questions, and, harkening back to the beginning, it’s free, which I like. Most of the pros use it, and those “semi-pros” like me find that it fulfills all my needs (well, most anyway…ha ha)

    By Rog on Jul 31, 2007

  107. 3 solutions are at hand:
    - scroll down
    - cloak your browser to being the googlebot (user-agent tampering)
    - use the “google cache”-version of the page

    Yet that doesn’t justify the fact that they’re tricking Google.

    By Bramus! on Jul 31, 2007

  108. Use http://www.bethebot.com to browse the site. That will allow you to pretend you are Google.

    By Patrick on Jul 31, 2007

  109. Thanks for pointing us to the Google Spam Directory. I too have found this to be quite annoying. My complaint has been registered with Google as well.

    By John on Jul 31, 2007

  110. it’s because robots.txt let google in, and other users don’t. nothing against their rules, but i agree it’s pain in the ass.

    By Firefox Fan on Jul 31, 2007

  111. ctrl A ctrl C ctrl V

    see anything on any EE page in notepad ;)

    By AeroSquid on Jul 31, 2007

  112. I was able to signup for a free EE account, hard to find, but it’s possible.

    hitting copy and pasting the entire page doesn’t work, i even used firebug to remove the semi transparent “screen” and it’s still gibberish…

    only way around it is to signup for a free account.

    By Dave on Jul 31, 2007

  113. Just scroll to the very bottom of the page - the answers are there. The garbled stuff up top is just designed to make you want to sign up.

    By Chris on Jul 31, 2007

  114. I couldn’t agree more with you. Spam form filled!!!

    By aditya on Jul 31, 2007

  115. the more we send them critics, the more they are getting popular, the more they are making money, the more ads they will get,
    EE’s bandwidth is saturated just now, can’t browse, too many users
    that’s cool

    By equatorlounge on Jul 31, 2007

  116. so good luck to the guyyy who wanted EE removed. I’m sceptic about that naw :)

    By equatorlounge on Jul 31, 2007

  117. I signed up with expertsexchange.com com a few years back - when it was free. They’ve been an invaluable source for solutions for just about ANYTHING related to computers and programming and I am happy to contribute myself.

    They just recently started charging for new registration (within the last six months I think). It’s a shame — I see it as more a community than a service. It seems my old account isn’t subject to the fee-based access.

    I agree - they shouldn’t be able to use Google search results as an ad-hoc advertising system. They can splash part of the solution in the search results, but require you to lay out some cash to actually see what was returned in the Google search.

    The problem is that the solution MIGHT actually apply to your situation. You might find that the ’solution’ in the search returns isn’t really the solution for you - but only after you paid to see it.

    Fred

    By Fred Garvin on Jul 31, 2007

  118. All you have to do to disable their blur script is view the cached version from google and it will show you the answers

    By eb on Jul 31, 2007

  119. I too have the exact view of the writer.

    They are fooling the search engines…

    By saisan on Jul 31, 2007

  120. Yeah that’s pretty stupid but did you scroll all the way down? The answer is right there.
    You can also disable CSS with the web developer toolbar :)
    http://kevin.vanzonneveld.net

    By kevin on Jul 31, 2007

  121. I like turtles

    By Zombie on Jul 31, 2007

  122. I have to agree too, why should anyone have to pay for information that’s not even garanteed ! however usually I just scroll all the way and read the comments

    http://www.idolornot.net

    By Mike on Aug 1, 2007

  123. @Joel

    Comparing Experts Exchange to the New York times is like comparing The Wall Street Journal to The New York times.

    Both the Wall Street Journal and Experts Exchange are paid subscription services. The New York Times content (at least in the case of what comes up in Google searches) is completely free.

    I’m a regular reader of the NY Times. If you object to them wanting your Name and address etc, you’re really missing out on a great news source.

    Not to mention, you don’t have to use your real name or address…

    By Scott on Aug 1, 2007

  124. I jusb browsed Experts Exchange and looked at their “top” questions in numerous categories.

    Then I Googled those questions (with varying words). EE came up as the #1 hit almost always - if not then it was among the top 10.

    Thanks to your suggestion, I reported every single one of them to Google.

    Yes, I have too much free time. :)

    By Scott on Aug 1, 2007

  125. Most of the posts in ExpertsExchange come from newsgroup archives. Just use groups.google.com instead. I never understood why Google isn’t filtering out certain sites which only exist because they are putting an ad-laden interface on top of other people’s content. Take all the wikipedia clone’s as another example.

    By Stephan on Aug 1, 2007

  126. IF THE QUESTION ON EXPERTS EXCHANGE IS ANSWERD, YOU CAN READ THE SOLUTION AT THE BOTTOM(and I mean way down. so low that few people bother scroll so far) OF THE PAGE!

    By preben on Aug 1, 2007

  127. You can sign up to experts exchange for free dudes!
    the paid-for subscriptions is only if you want to ask new questions and offer high points values for fast answers.

    By John O J on Aug 1, 2007

  128. all experts exchange pages have that, just scroll to the end

    By memals on Aug 1, 2007

  129. I too am frustrated by this once in a while for many other sites.
    Submitted the Google Request…

    Spam report successfully submitted
    Thank you for submitting this information. Your report has been received and will be investigated.
    We appreciate your diligence in reporting this problem; you’re helping produce a better online experience for everyone.
    The Google Team

    By RM on Aug 1, 2007

  130. Some of these Google allows by default, but sometimes these “cloak” the results so that Google can read the page but people can’t. I think this latter practice especially is the pits. 2c

    By Register Square on Aug 1, 2007

  131. Scroll down further and the answer is there in plain text. I don’t know why they do this but they do.

    By Dan on Aug 1, 2007

  132. In fact, I have come up many such sites. We should report this and many such sites to google. Meanwhile, what we can do is popularize the fact that the content can be accessed using Google’s cache. Not a bad work around.

    By Venkataramanan S on Aug 1, 2007

  133. Obviously you didn’t scroll down to the end of the page, they always show the real answer further down after trying to get you to pay them for it.

    By Bill on Aug 1, 2007

  134. Much ado about nothing. Use the free “expert” signup and you pay *nothing* for viewing content from Experts Exchange. http://www.experts-exchange.com/registerFree.jsp

    By Paul on Aug 1, 2007

  135. Obviously, those yelling “Scroll down lewzer!!@!” haven’t bothered to try it in Firefox. Scrolling down in that browser DOES NOT give you the answers.

    Thanks for trying tho, retards.

    By Netboi on Aug 1, 2007

  136. Hi,

    There are two things going on there. 1) They have this shitty png overlay that obscures some text. 2) Once you remove/block that that it was pretty easy to recognize that the text is rot13 encoded. Pretty tough encryption. Ha. Write a bookmarklet to deal with it.

    This is a total scam.

    javascript:String.prototype.rot13=function(){return this.replace(/[a-zA-Z]/g,function(c){return String.fromCharCode((c=(c=c.charCodeAt(0)+13)?c:c-26);});};var answerPattern=’//*[@id=%22intelliTxt%22 and @class!=%22qBody%22]‘;var results=document.evaluate(answerPattern,document,null,XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE,null);var i=0;while((res=results.snapshotItem(i))!=null){res.innerHTML=res.innerHTML.rot13();i++;}i=0;blurPattern=’//*[@class=%22blur%22]‘;blurResults=document.evaluate(blurPattern,document,null,XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE,null);while((res=blurResults.snapshotItem(i))!=null){res.className=%22%22;res.style.backgroundImage=%22%22;i++;}alert(’information has been freed.’);

    By sexyexpert on Aug 1, 2007

  137. Actually the info at experts exchange is fully visible. Then again i use firefox not IE. And i also use “user agent switcher” extension which broadcasts me as being the googlebot.

    By Seronis on Aug 1, 2007

  138. That bookmarklet only works in Firefox I think.

    By sexyexpert on Aug 1, 2007

  139. Some of the ’solutions’ to accessing EE’s answers seem to be outdated. After testing most of them, these were my results:

    Disabling and clearing cookies from EE seemed to ensure that the answers were ALWAYS viewable at the bottom of the page.

    Scrolling to the bottom of the page sometimes will show the answer, but not always. Seems to be cookie-dependent.

    Viewing the source or copying-pasting can get you the answer, but it is rot13 encoded, so the text needs to be run through a filter (http://www.rot13.com/index.php) to be of value.

    Using Google Cache may work sometimes, but is not consistent.

    Using Firefox w/ User Agent Switcher (as GoogleBot) did not seem to work.

    By PDK on Aug 1, 2007

  140. Totally agree with this post. I can’t stand going to the experts exchange site to see the text blurred out. I always find what I’m looking for but there should be some sort of google filter.

    By RL on Aug 1, 2007

  141. Expert-Exchange use to be a great result in Google, before they started this practice last year. I’m glad to see everyone else is pissed off too. I’ve reported to Google. Thanks for taking the initiative to handle this. Most of use just get frustrated and move on to the next link.

    By jcronkhite on Aug 1, 2007

  142. “Most of the posts in ExpertsExchange come from newsgroup archives.”

    THAT … is total BS.

    Whereas I may post a link to another site (eg: http://www.mvps.org) for a solution … that is known as a highly technical concept called:

    “No Need To Re-Invent The Wheel” …. aka “If It Works, Don’t Fix It”

    mx

    By mx on Aug 1, 2007

  143. I think it is pathetic that someone that used to spend so much time as an expert on ee now spends his time bashing ee. (nico) I am also an expert on ee. I might not have ranking in the top 15, but I donate my time when I can and I will help someone for as long as it takes for them to get it. There are plenty of experts on ee that have the same goal. We’re good at what we do and we just want to help, because we wish someone would have helped us when we were trying to figure it out.

    As far as the Google search, think about what you are saying.

    1. EE showing up on a google search is no different than a website for a 3rd party tool showing up on a google search, it’s a solution that involves someone’s work, so they need to pay for it. Let the searcher decide if they want to or not. Who made you the search engine police? (And anyway, everyone just posted that you CAN see the answer)

    2. Would it really be better for them to not find an answer at all? What if it isn’t on thescripts or google groups? They have to spend hours trying to figure soemthing out? EE charges people for a subscription because it is a professional site. They have to upgrade it, they have to maintain the knowledgebase and they have overhead.

    It’s easy, if you don’t want to go to the site, don’t click the link.

    a

    By ADraughn on Aug 1, 2007

  144. You go Girl :-)

    ——–

    This entire post is predicated on BS.

    As ADraughn has pointed out, there are hundreds of thousands of sites found by Google wherein you have to … ‘pay’ … for a product … in the case the ‘product’ is answers and a wealth of great information.

    Can you say: “You Sometimes Get What You Pay For”?

    Since the issue of scrolling down and/or signing up for FREE has already been covered, I will leave that alone.

    And personally, I greatly prefer the EE UI over TheScripts UI … subjective of course.

    Opps … I just got another “Accepted Answer’ on EE …. later.

    mx

    By mx on Aug 1, 2007

  145. A lot of people seem to be missing the point, so I’ll make it again. My problem isn’t the fact that it’s a pay site. I have the same issue with the New York Times. My issue is that EE uses cloaking to hide their content, but allow it to get indexed by Google, which then directs a massive amount of traffic to them.

    I am aware you can view the answers to a single question once. After that point they drop a cookie on your browser and they will not show you any more answers in the future unless you remove it.

    I am also aware that it’s possible to remove this cookie.

    I want experts exchange to have to follow the same rules as everyone else. They can get away with it because they have a massive amount of content and an old domain that ranks very well. However, if I put this blog behind subscription and allowed the search engines to view it, they would probably drop me out of the index. And yes, I realize putting this blog behind subscription would be pointless, so don’t even bother bringing it up.

    By jon on Aug 1, 2007

  146. Debit.

    Don’t use EE….they suck.

    ittoolbox.com has had some good info, so just try that.

    That’s better than giving EE all these extra hits and money.

    By Balliferous_to_the_2nd on Aug 2, 2007

  147. Oh, hope they’ll be removed!

    By j0k3r on Aug 4, 2007

  148. I CAN’T believe you guys haven’t noticed that IF YOU SCROLL DOWN, BELOW ALL THOSE IMAGES there is the discussion forum in Experts-Exchange… I have solved DOZENS of problems thanks to my readings from Experts-Exchange. In order to stimulate new visitors to know the GREAT level of these forums, they leave it readable in the bottom of the page. But when one has visited the site many times (as me), then once in a while it is necessary to remove their cookies so that they can’t recognize me (or just block all the cookies from this site at once)… I can’t believe there’s such a bunch of stupid asses here. It’s an Excellent site, one of the best forums available in this jungle of mediocrity.

    David López Salgado.
    Bogotá, Colombia.

    By David López Salgado on Aug 5, 2007

  149. You could always use the “-” operator in your Google search to filter out Experts Exchange articles from the search results.

    To do this:
    1. Go to Google.
    2. Type in: Using Linksys WAP54G as Wireless Repeater -”Experts Exchange”
    3. Click the Google Search button.
    4. The Experts Exchange articles are filtered out.

    Drop on by sometime: http://streetjesus.blogspot.com

    By arnold on Aug 5, 2007

  150. agree.. EE is just breakin the rules.

    By mathrixs on Aug 6, 2007

  151. What a bunch of whiners. The only person with a legitimate axe to grind here would be those that complain that the results don’t match the Google search - but only barely.

    I logged out of EE, cleared cookies, entered that exact search term on Google and then went to the page (IE7). Scrolled to the end, and there was the solution.

    Next I viewed the cached page. The *only* difference was the lack of a registration button, and the fact that there is no rot13 text just before the solution. Big deal.

    In reality, most of you object to having an instant solution to your problem as a result of a Google search - deal with it. The attitude of the vast majority of people these days seems to be that the world owes you something, and that it is EVIL not to present any information that you feel you require in a conveniently free package (at someone else’s expense) that you can access with the click of a button.

    In response to the criticisms of EE (I will exclude nico from this, as he has a lot of history with EE and quite frankly does not offer what could be considered even vaguely representative of an objective opinion) - that’s how the site works. If they want to make money, let them. If they want to do everything for free, let them. That’s their perogative, and they are entitled to do as they see fit in that regard.

    As far as the quality of solutions goes - well, that depends on what you are looking for (some topic areas seem to lend themselves to Google results more than others). Yes, there are plenty of Googlemonkeys masquerading as “Experts” on the site. However, there are also plenty of highly qualified and experienced professionals that freely give of their own time to both assist users in providing a technical solution to a problem AND explaining the theory behind that problem - i.e. not really interested in the points as much as helping and teaching people.

    So to Jon - perhaps you are overreacting a little, since the discrepancy between the cached page and the live page is only minor.

    To the rest of you whiners - grow up.

    Regards
    Nightman

    By Nightman on Aug 9, 2007

  152. You know what, honestly I saw the internet going in this direction years ago when a site as simple as dictionary.com started to make people pay for a membership to get some extra information about a word. Now I do appreciate the service that they (and many other sites) provide, and I know were in a capitalistic society. so I can’t really whine… but come on don’t tell me your going to give me the solution and then hold it back… and make me go look somewhere else… because really every time I have miss-clicked on an EE link in a Google search I have just clicked back and found (most liely the same information) it on another search result.

    By Calumet45 on Aug 9, 2007

  153. Nightman said it all so well. Quit bitching and deal with it. You don’t want to pay move on. 150 posts of frickin whiners.

    By ElDuderino on Aug 15, 2007

  154. Holy shit Nightman Nightwish Nightmare whatever your name is. Get off your fricken soap box. The reality here is this - there are a ton of free resources out there that provide real solutions to real problems. I’m surprised how many people are willing to pay a monthly subscription to this site. I just hope they wake up and allow XX to dissolve or bought out as they probably deserve.

    By Vingana on Aug 17, 2007

  155. OK my bad: I understand your point, but I still don’t agree. You see, actually there’s no cloaking: they’re not cheating the search engines’ bots, just that it seems that those bots don’t save cookies; hence, they always reach the contents of each forum. In the same way, as you have already pointed out, you can disable your cookies and access the contents. But there’s no the cheating that’s usually associated to cloaking.
    Exactly the same effect is obtained when you must be logged as the member of a forum if you want to participate in the discussion: when the search engines’ spiders reach the forum page, they receive a message of “you must be logged in if you want to post”, and once in a while one finds a that this message is returned as the description of a web site in google.

    Let me add, according to what I’ve said, that EE is not breaking the rules in this case. Google, for example, does commentary on the cookies’ issue, but it does not forbid it:

    >
    (from http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769)

    However, I also agree with Nightman some others.

    David López Salgado. Bogotá, Colombia.

    By David López Salgado on Aug 18, 2007

  156. The quotations failed, let me copy and paste the text again:
    “Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.”
    (from http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769)

    By David López Salgado on Aug 18, 2007

  157. Yeah, ha ha, what a _JOKE_. Who do these assholes think they are trying to charge people for accessing the site. Obviously they don’t understand the true concept of the internet - in that everything (software, information etc) is FREE. I do not know anyone that would ever ever ever pay - with the exception of some noobe.

    Experts Exchange (sic) are probably going to the wall after not creating enough advertizing revenue. Charging for a subscription is just clutching at straws, they are sad.

    By Master Programmer on Aug 20, 2007

  158. I just posted a complaint to Google, everyone else do the same. Together we can get Experts Exchange obliterated from the Google search engine results. Excellent posts - keep up the good work !

    By Master Programmer on Aug 20, 2007

  159. As I always condemned this practice, and have been ignoring Experts Exchange’s results on search engines for a long time, I’m submitting a complaint to Google too. This cheat makes search results worst, so it should be banned from Google, indeed. Want to close content? Feel free to do it, but don’t get indexed and try to fool all of us around! :)

    By rodrigo moraes on Sep 2, 2007

  160. I guess i have paid for experts exchange and still don’t get answers. They used to be good but they’ve gotten greedy and their business model is falling apart. I’m done with them.

    By Gail on Sep 5, 2007

  161. FYI, I work for the IT division at our office and we commonly use Experts Exchange, even though there is a fee for it, I just wanted to let you know it is a legitimate site that offers very useful information and worth the fee. You can use a business credit card for payment and not personal information, they do this to protect their content and also that professional users only access their site. Thank you.

    By Terri on Sep 6, 2007

  162. Hi

    Very interesting information! Thanks!

    G’night

    By hiutopor on Sep 17, 2007

  163. Ofcourse there will be satisfied paying users, but don’t expect the site admins to be interested in the quality of their Q&A’s.
    Check: http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,2000342184b,00.htm
    To show you how adding knowledge without competing for their “expert points” is “punished”.

    For multiple questions (like MS Access) the same information is free available at http://www.TheScripts.com and many other sites and newsgroups. Which business doesn’t want to optimize their costs…..

    Nic;o)

    By nico5038 on Oct 22, 2007

  164. The Customize Google plugin for Firefox allows you to filter specific sites out of your Google Searches. I’ve put Expert Exchange in there for just this reason.

    It used to be a great site, and I used to contribute to it with solutions from time to time. Then they started charging people to contribute! Then they started hiding the contributions. Way to kill it off…

    It is sad to see a useful community get commercialised. I think they reduced its value by doing this - the result is fewer eyes and minds focussed on a problem and contributing solutions. Why would I pay when this is the case?

    I’m not bitter, but I also don’t want to accidentally click on a link to Expert’s Exchange since I now know it is not going to help me.

    By dunxd on Oct 30, 2007

  165. You can sign up with out paying, im a memeber and login all the time but have never paid a penny

    By Rio on Nov 1, 2007

  166. I didn’t bother to read through every single response, so I don’t know if someone already posted this, but you can also get access to the answers using the DOM inspector in Firefox. If you navigate to the solution you want, it will flash red and show you the text. I don’t see it as an incredibly useful solution right now, but if Google were to ever remove the cached links for some reason, it’s something to keep in mind.

    By Karl on Nov 7, 2007

  167. Use Firefox
    + following extensions:
    1. NoScript - disallow all scripts on experts-exchange
    2. CookieSafe - disallow all cookies from experts-exchange

    Just scroll right down below the scrambled answers and the linkfarm.

    They also have the accepted answer marked.

    By echo on Nov 15, 2007

  168. hello,
    the site is completely free. You just have to become an “expert”
    basically you log on say you want non premium memebership which means that you can view questions and answers. If you want to ask questions as it is an “exchange” then you need to answer questions first. I did that and in less than a week I became a full member.
    The site is really useful and if you are going to do googles work for them I’d suggest something a little more harmful to attack such as happyslapping sites.

    By brendan o'connor on Nov 17, 2007

  169. Well I wish you good luck brendan o’connor .

    Did you already try the Premium search to find out how many “answers” hold broken links or bogus answers?
    Did you already ran into experts that are trying to add comments repeating your posting partially to fetch some points?
    Did you already ran into a flame and experienced the way the moderators and administrators handle that ?

    Did you get attacked by a “collegue expert” questioning your expertise?
    Check out as a sample: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Microsoft/Development/MS_Access/Q_22905071.html
    to see how an innocent improvement is attacked by an “MVP expert” without even some simple research to see or the solution works.
    When the expert is posting a complaint in CommunitySupport the response is “Thank you for sharing”… Certainly a way to see that you’re taken seriously.

    Good luck, you’ll need it when you get hooked up by the expert points system…

    Nic;o)

    By nico5038 on Nov 21, 2007

  170. I once posted an answer, other user just posted my code and the asker accepted his answer because a poinks fact.

    Las week i made a test, i did respond bullshits an every post and the results was a wrong accpeted answer…

    Remove EE from internet not only from google index.

    experts-exchange sucks
    experts-exchange is unclean
    experts-exchange is not fair
    experts-exchange full of dickheads
    experts-exchange full of duplicated answers
    experts-exchange jus a big plain bullshit.
    experts-exchange was named expertsexchange, pathetyc
    experts-exchange is not a compilant website
    experts-exchange don’t fit the standard requeriments for people with dissabilities.
    experts-exchange poinks
    experts-exchange worst place ever
    experts-exchange s not a serious place

    By Pedro on Nov 29, 2007

  171. Spam report successfully submitted

    Thank you for submitting this information. Your report has been received and will be investigated.

    We appreciate your diligence in reporting this problem; you’re helping produce a better online experience for everyone.

    The Google Team

    By Pedro on Nov 29, 2007

  172. Vee_Mod really love totalitarism, is the only think i can say about EE, he kicked experts just for complaining about one user (rpggamergirl), who is also a volunteer which i did not know…strange place EE, not clean.

    Please remove it from Google.

    By unknown on Dec 6, 2007

  173. Guys - get off your high horses will you - EE is a useful tool and you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to - have you got a problem with people paying the rent? go to another site if you don’t like EE - it’s your choice - stop whining like school girls

    By panini on Dec 6, 2007

  174. Guess panini (Vee_Mod?) needs to realize that other sites and newsgroups provide the same or even better info as EE for FREE.
    Just try the EE search and check how many bogus answers you get and how many broken links…

    Feel free to pay for something also availabe for free panini, I have better ways to spend my euro’s…

    Nic;o)

    By nico5038 on Dec 7, 2007

  175. Be careful he will take your money automatically everymonth even though u don’t use it

    By vrn on Dec 21, 2007

  176. The real point nobody here seems to want to talk about is the fact that like so many early websites, EE used to be free because it HAD NO CONTENT, and therefore depended on people like me (the experts) to document the problems and solutions for them. Fine, I enjoyed that as an old IT guy out to share my solutions with others. What chaps my ass is the fact that EE NEVER told us they ultimately planned to turn it into a pay site. Now I’m no lawyer, but it kinda seems like a bait and switch scam to me, and basically they are now profiting handsomely off all the work people like me did for them for FREE, when their only cost was running the website. Screw that. I feel quite justifyably misled and used.

    By grouchy on Jan 2, 2008

  177. LOL!! People is not stupid, look at the alexa rank, going down.

    http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/experts-exchange.com

    grouchy, law can’t do nothing since they just bought the co. to others while it was bankrupt, but looks like scam.

    The EE db is public and anyone can create a bot to download de whole db as google does and i’d recommend to all co. to do it and not pay for corporate accounts that costs thousands.

    EE should pay to all experts, not only giveaway 3 computers an 3 premium service accounts to user who are already experts.

    By Anonymous on Jan 4, 2008

  178. “People is not stupid” uh….

    By J on Feb 6, 2008

  179. dang, I read about every 20 posts or so someone chimes in with the revelation that the answers ARE NOT cloaked in any way, all you need to do is

    **********
    SCROLL **
    **
    DOWN **
    **
    TO THE **
    **
    BOTTOM **
    **
    OF THE **
    **
    PAGE **
    **
    **********

    By Haynal Fisher on Feb 8, 2008

  180. In a nutshell, EE are trying to get the benefits of running a pay service (=they get money) without the drawbacks (=they don’t get so many hits on Google) by slightly disguising their web pages so as to fool the casual reader into thinking they need to sign up. This is dishonest, and those running the site should be fed to a shoal of ravenous carp.

    By John Johnston on Feb 8, 2008

  181. Haynal, if you refresh the page, the answers will disappear. They cookie your browser.

    It’s unfortunate how many people are completely missing the point of the post. I know there are ways around the blur. I don’t care. It reminds me of when people used to put invisible text on the page that they want a search engine to index that has nothing to do with the content of the page itself.

    By jon on Feb 8, 2008

  182. I’ve complained to Google numerous times about experts-exchange, and nothing has ever happened. I wonder if Google care, or are getting some kick-backs.

    Good luck with your mission.

    Rich.

    By Rich on Feb 9, 2008

  183. I finally got upset with bogus EE results in my google searches and filed a spam report with google, as suggested. I got here by using “remove experts exchange google” in google.

    By PG on Feb 12, 2008

  184. ahh crap, its all there… I didn’t go to the bottom.

    By PG on Feb 12, 2008

  185. dumbass, scroll down…

    By anon coward on Feb 23, 2008

  186. To all the “OMG SCROOL DOWN” morons:

    I figured that out the first time I hit one of their pages. Guess what happens?

    You scroll down and find the answers are useless.

    All you retards posting “SCROLLDOWNSCROLLDOWN OR WE WILL CUT OURSELVES AND BLEED ON YOU!!!!11111ONE” need to step back and realize that the real problem is that the site is not only obfuscated but poor quality due to the “exchange” model that it uses, which encourages bogus answers to bogus questions in a sort of big circle-jerk of the uninformed.

    It’s a pollution of the results.

    But it is funny and appropriate that the original domain was expertsexchange.

    By Anonymous on Apr 22, 2008

  187. You are absolutely correct about Experts Exchange. They are using a technique called Cloaking, to allow the Search Engines crawl the legitimate content, but when a regular user (you or me) goes there, we are presented with a bull&$t signup page. This is clearly a violation w/ Google’s TOS. The sad thing is, Experts Exchange does usually have some good help - that’s where Google’s Cache comes in handy. :)

    By Eric on May 3, 2008

  188. Drives me nuts. I cant stand that site. Who in their right mind would pay that kind of money to access a glorified forum?

    By Christian on May 11, 2008

  189. I agree FUCK THEM

    By Josh on Jun 16, 2008

  190. Nice to find other people who’ve had unpleasant experiences with that site appearing in the search results (especially when it appears at the top). Filed a spam report as well. Cheers!

    By M on Jun 24, 2008

  191. Complain with google filed! In fact, I filed several of them. Glad I found this page using “experts-exchange google” - it came up as the first link on the first page - an indicator that this is a prevalent problem since ranking is a function of relevance and this is a problem affecting many people. “Using Linksys WAP54G as Wireless Repeater” still shows experts-exchange as the first link. Fuck you experts-exchange for having to weed you out to get to the REAL information. And fuck you I’m not going to pay you shit for content users have freely contributed. And Google, what the fuck is your problem?? I’ve filed numerous complaints to have exchange-exchange taken off their indexing but they’re still there! Ideas anyone?

    By Bryan on Jun 25, 2008

  192. In answer to: “Guys - get off your high horses will you - EE is a useful tool and you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to - have you got a problem with people paying the rent? go to another site if you don’t like EE - it’s your choice - stop whining like school girls”

    That is not the fucking point. Let me walk you through one more time. EE is polluting the web with their shit so it makes it harder to get info. To those say “DUMB ASS SCROLL DOWN” that is not the point either. If you’re hunky-dory with going out of the way to get to technical information you’re seeking every single FUCKING time, that’s well and good - but for the rest of us we’re not like you DUMB ASSES.

    By Terri Cox on Jun 25, 2008

  193. Ya I’m also pretty annoyed at Google
    I filed a spam report.

    ExpertsExchange breaks up to Expert Sex Change

    now thats pretty cool :)

    By FUCK-EXPERT EXCHANGE on Jun 27, 2008

  194. Giving different content to bots than visitors goes against Google’s Terms of Service, they definitely should be banned.

    Are people getting what they are searching for? NO, so Google must be Flawed as they give irrelevant results to searches first.

    By MrApples on Jul 3, 2008

  195. Is this fair to other legitimate websites? No.

    Expert’s Exchange are CRIMINALS. It is a SCAM. Just because the Internet is lacking regulation doesn’t change the fact.

    Think about it relatively, what Google is to the Internet, apply that to the Real World. They are CHEATING, I don’t even know how to apply it to the Real World, it goes beyond physical limitations.

    Just because you may not care doesn’t mean you should criticize the ones that do. If you don’t care, don’t comment?

    By JerseyFoo on Jul 3, 2008

  196. Screw Google and EE. I guess there are plenty of idiots out there. For folks who can’t tie their own shoes, I run a website where I hire out idiots to come to your house take your shoes and give you velcro ones, so you can ride the short bus.

    By 3i Traffic Exchange on Jul 15, 2008

  197. I hope Experts Exchange dies a painful death. It’s just plain rotten what they do to people looking to fix a router and they click on the Google result and get male bovine excrement instead. It’s wasting bandwidth, which according to the business “religion” that they follow, isn’t free. I don’t think any bit should of ever been paid for since the beginning of time. If I were king I’d make everybody who profited from a waveform pay back in full everyone who paid for it.

    By Brent Fisher on Jul 28, 2008

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