> 1. flagging all Google Alerts sent to my Gmail inbox as spam (cuz uh,
> they contain spammy results)
> 2. unsubscribing from Google Alerts -- since the results returned
> aren't relevant and they certainly aren't fresh.  (Come on, isn't
> Google's mission to organize the world's information?  This is clearly
> disorganized and in a very bad way.)

> Google: we've been pretty darn patient.  This thread started in
> December and referenced an even older incident.  It's February now.
> Is ANYONE paying attention to this?  Please?

> Thanks.

> (p.s. a Google Alert email just prompted this post update.  I don't
> really post about this out of the blue.)

> On Feb 2, 12:11 am, Kyle_Texas <Reiko.Admi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Yeah, same thing for me.  It keeps reverting to these old results
> > which are completely worthless.

> > On Jan 31, 7:00 pm, tamar <puntr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > Today, I got links from 2006 and 2007 in my link: query emails.

> > > :(

> > > On Jan 28, 6:25 pm, Kyle_Texas <Reiko.Admi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > > Yep, the problem remains.  Either SPAM or Blogroll for 90% of
> > > > results.  The SPAM is actually getting worse.  It's funny to see
> > > > SPLOGS at the top of the relevancy rankings, or better yet, almost the
> > > > entire first page of relevancy rankings being SPLOGS.

> > > > On Jan 27, 10:22 am, tamar <puntr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > > > It looks like no progress has been made on this front AT ALL.  The
> > > > > Google Alert emails I receive are spam and nothing but at this point.
> > > > > Plus, I keep receiving the same emails again and again -- it's not
> > > > > necessarily a "blogroll" issue but the same OLD content is being
> > > > > treated by Google Blogsearch as new content.  On one search query,
> > > > > I've received the same result at least 10 times.

> > > > > Jeremy and team, please don't forget about us.

> > > > > On Jan 22, 9:39 am, tamar <puntr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > > > > Any update?  It's been 3 weeks.

> > > > > > On Jan 7, 12:58 pm, Jeremy Hylton <jhyl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > On Jan 1, 9:54 pm, tamar <puntr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > > Jeremy, I'm doing searches for "tamar weinberg," my blog title name,
> > > > > > > > or link:www.domain.com(wheredomain.comismyblog).

> > > > > > > > I don't check blogsearch results regularly, but I just performed a
> > > > > > > > search for the purposes of giving you as much information as possible
> > > > > > > > and saw a result that showed my blog on the sidebar navigation from 4
> > > > > > > > hours ago.

> > > > > > > > That said, I'm pretty certain that this isn't fully addressed. :(

> > > > > > > I agree that the problem isn't fully addressed :-(.  I just did a
> > > > > > > link: search for your blog.  It returned 10 results ranging from 37
> > > > > > > minutes old to several days old (Jan 1).  There were two results that
> > > > > > > obviously came from the blogroll, one fromhttp://janefouts.com/and
> > > > > > > one fromhttp://simplystated.realsimple.com/.  We'll have to see why
> > > > > > > we failed to detect those links as coming from the blogroll.  There
> > > > > > > are also a few results that came from Techcrunch posts that you
> > > > > > > commented on.  The comment has a link to your blog.  I think those are
> > > > > > > legitimate results, but I'd be interested to hear what users thinks.

> > > > > > > So we're at 80% accuracy at this very moment.  It's better than it
> > > > > > > was, but obviously a lot of room for improvement.

> > > > > > > Jeremy

> > > > > > > > On Dec 29 2008, 11:35 am, Jeremy Hylton <jhyl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > > > On Dec 28, 11:10 pm, Kyle_Texas <Reiko.Admi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > > > > Tamar,

> > > > > > > > > > It has become even more common.  If Google Blog Search isn't finding
> > > > > > > > > > these blogroll hits, it is finding spam.  In the last 3 days, I have
> > > > > > > > > > seen exactly ONE result which was not a result from the blogroll or a
> > > > > > > > > > SPLOG.

> > > > > > > > > Can you tell me the specific queries that are showing bad results?
> > > > > > > > > Also, is the problem specific to alerts or do you see them in regular
> > > > > > > > > blogsearch results, too?

> > > > > > > > > Jeremy

> > > > > > > > > > On Dec 26, 8:34 am, tamar <puntr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > > > > > Curious - around the same time of the initial report, I started
> > > > > > > > > > > getting Google Alerts with blogroll links.  If anything, it's become
> > > > > > > > > > > *more* common and not less common lately.  Does the change you write
> > > > > > > > > > > about, Jeremy, impact Google Alerts?

> > > > > > > > > > > If not, perhaps someone should take a look.

> > > > > > > > > > > Thanks.

> > > > > > > > > > > On Dec 19, 1:25 pm, Jeremy Hylton <jhyl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > > > > > > I wanted to give everyone a brief end-of-the-year update on the
> > > > > > > > > > > > blogroll problem.  When we switched blogsearch to indexing the full
> > > > > > > > > > > > text of posts, we started seeing a lot more results where the only
> > > > > > > > > > > > matches for a query where from the blogroll or other parts of the page
> > > > > > > > > > > > that frame the actual post.  (There's been a lot of discussion of the
> > > > > > > > > > > > problem.  You can search for [google blogsearch] using Google
> > > > > > > > > > > > Blogsearch.)

> > > > > > > > > > > > We're in the midst of deploying a solution for this problem.  The
> > > > > > > > > > > > basic approach is to analyze each blog to look for text and markup
> > > > > > > > > > > > that is common to all of the posts.  Usually, these comment elements
> > > > > > > > > > > > include the blogroll, any navigational elements, and other parts of
> > > > > > > > > > > > the page that aren't part of the post.  This approach works well for a
> > > > > > > > > > > > lot of blogs, but we're continuing to improve the algorithm.  The
> > > > > > > > > > > > search results should ignore matches that only come from these common
> > > > > > > > > > > > elements.  The indexing change to implement it is deployed almost
> > > > > > > > > > > > everywhere now.

> > > > > > > > > > > > We expect users will continue to see some spurious results, but many
> > > > > > > > > > > > fewer than before.  I tried a search for my own name, which does
> > > > > > > > > > > > appear in a few blogrolls, and all the results looked good.  If you
> > > > > > > > > > > > are still seeing blogroll hits, the problem is most likely caused by
> > > > > > > > > > > > our failure to analyze a particular blog correctly.  Feel free to
> > > > > > > > > > > > follow up with examples in private email or in this forum.

> > > > > > > > > > > > Jeremy Hylton
> > > > > > > > > > > > Google Blogsearch