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Posted on 05/23/2014 10:09:30 AM PDT by Yossarian
Free Republic is a great resource to visit and browse, but it also is valuable to use as a searchable resource. It is very useful to see what FReepers have to say on various subjects, as we come from wide array of backgrounds, and have lived practical lives in the very-real world.
Hence, one of the ways I access FR is via Google's search engine. I do a search, but specify to ONLY get results from Free Republic by appending "site:freerepublic.com" to the search term(s). In the past, this would guide me to the pages hosted on freerepublic.com, full of FReeper commentary, and this would help inform me on various topics.
HOWEVER, this recently has changed. Now, when I perform the same kind of site-restricted search, the results I get from Google look the same as before, showing links that should take one to freerepublic.com. However, when one clicks on the link, it brings up FR's "redirect to an external website" mechanism. As a result, it takes me to the external web page of the article being discussed, rather than the Free Republic-hosted page full of FReeper commentary on the article.
The end effect is EXTREMELY maddening: it effectively silences FReeper commentary. So far, I only see this affecting freerepublic.com - corresponding checks on dailykos.com, or democraticunderground.com do NOT lead to unexpected forwarding to the external article that is the item of discussion.
Are other people seeing this problem? What is an effective fix (beyond using a different search engine)? Can JohnRob fix this?
Thanks much for your time,
Yossarian
old-timer
I was able to find these from 2002 that might be relevant, however if you wrote using the name Gen.Blather back then I’m having a hard time finding anything from the same time frame.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/732107/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/732594/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/675940/posts
I’m not intentionally quibbling with you. I’m just a pedant.
Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying. I’ve reserved my screen name at lots of lib sites. If you really want to test it, we can do that. (Pick a site that doesn’t take long to moderate comments though.)
Just FYI - Look at Alexa’s rankings to see just how popular FR is. It’s in the top 10,000 global sites. Think about how many sites Google crawls across the globe.
What I was looking for was information on the deaths of Florida’s children while in Florida’s care. Those have all disappeared from Google.
Perhaps this thread is the perfect place to discuss "Wayback Machine." I assume it is still operational.
Actually, it's testimony to the skill of John Robinson.
Sometime, look at the source of an FR thread. Towards the bottom, you will see something like:
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">_uacct = "UA-2288668-1"; urchinTracker();</script>
That notifies Google's spider to wake up and suck down the current thread and update those indexes!
This can be quite useful when some crackpot posts garbage on a thread. Just look up what he posted. If the current thread comes up first in the search results, you can bet he's invalid!
Sometime, look at the source of an FR thread.
That notifies Google's spider to wake up and suck down the current thread and update those indexes!
For an advertising driven website I can see the utility of this, but how does a quick response from google to a Freeper thread help Free Republic?
This can be quite useful when some crackpot posts garbage on a thread. Just look up what he posted. If the current thread comes up first in the search results, you can bet he's invalid!
I'm not following your point here. I'm not grasping the utility of this.
It testifies to our importance.
It also makes it easier to find things. E.g., has an issue been discussed recently? Has a piece of breaking news already been posted?
I'm not following your point here. I'm not grasping the utility of this.
If a crackpot posts what isn't so, and it appears at the top of the SERP, that's often evidence he's making it up as he goes along. On, the other hand, if it's true, it's likely confirmatory hits will come first or at least be present.
Try something like site:freerepublic.com posted on * * 2002 florida dcf dead children.
I’ve written on the sorry state of Florida’s DCF (Now called something else...as in rebranding.) The data that I used, newspaper reports and state board reports used to be easily accessible on Google. I know from a friend that the state investigators just wrote a report stating the department currently is unable to find some 450 children who are supposedly under its care. (The number of unaccounted for children out of 44,000 average per year is usually around 400.) This data is no longer readily found.
Same here.
A lot of times, newspapers will delete old stories. E.g., an AP story on DCF and the Rilya Wilson case was posted here on FR in 2002. The story link now 404's if you follow it to naplesnews.com. However, you can easily find several versions of the same Catherine Wilson story online.
Thank you. I will investigate later as it’s early here.
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