Members have raised concerns over information that is accessible on Google. We hear you, and we thought it important to make clear that we have made absolutely no changes that would alter what information is indexed by Google.Public information can be indexed and displayed by search engines. The public information available on the site today is the same information that was public on the site last week. Information that is not made public, such as private profile elements, content shared just to certain friend sets, or items published in private groups for instance, cannot be indexed and is not searchable.
Google changes its search algorithms from time to time, which may bring new web pages to the top of Google searches. When web pages are restructured, public information search engines (including Google) may also re-rank pages, making them more or less visible depending on the placement of information on the page.
Since Google does not reveal exact page ranking algorithms, we cannot be sure whether the "Googlability" of Gather content may have changed due to either of these things. Rest assured, however, your private content remains private; only what you choose to share publicly will appear in Google search results.
We have alsorecently heard from members who were concerned that they had begun receiving information in their Friend Feed about another member flagging articles on Gather.
Flagging does not and will not ever show up in feeds. In this particular instance, it was a member's tagline that caused what appeared to be a "flagging alert" to show up in a member's Friend Feed. Because of the confusion and distress this may cause our members, we ask that everyone please refrain from using use anything like "member flagged an article" as a tagline, going forward. Thanks to everyone for your support in this regard!
If you have an urgent question or need to discuss your concerns privately with Gather's support staff, you can always reach us directly by e-mail at support@gather.com. We always strive to respond to all email messages as quickly as we can.
Feel free to also drop us a line right here on Gather!
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 92
Technically this is true (barely), but the statement above is very misleading. Prior to Hawthorne members could not see information on Google or other search engines such as:
"_______ is now friends with ______"
"_______ has joined Manic Depressives"
"_______ has pinged ______"
Therefore the new Hawthorne release has added more information to public search indexes that did not previously exist, via the public profile feed.
i) do not accept pings.
ii) do not ping anyone in the community.
iii) only comment on private articles.
iv) only join private groups.
v) do not accept or send friend requests.
...among others.
I think the above would limit participation in the community.
Therefore, members need to be aware that their activities (like those listed in my comment above) will now be available in search engines, and was NOT indexed prior to this new release.
(ha ha - spelling - ha ha)
How about a whole dictionary so we can also look up catch fools/homophones if we want. Then I will never say depreciating instead of deprecatory again !!!!
Here's the bottom line... Google does not have access to any member feeds from the My Gather page. You absolutely have to be logged in to see that and Google is not logged in.
Google does have access to the My Feed section of any members profile page. So the information that "Pam pinged MaryAnne" is available to Google if and when Google indexes pam.gather.com.
The same level of information was ALWAYS PRESENT... even before the upgrade on April 11th.
Important Note: If and when Google does index pam.gather.com, all that appears are the last five activities in my profile feed. It does NOT pull up any history with my profile.
Your statement:
"The same level of information was ALWAYS PRESENT... even before the upgrade on April 11th."
is incorrect.
Some of the information in our profile feed was present ON GATHER prior to Hawthorne, but not ON GOOGLE and other search engines.
There is a big difference.
Gather has made NO CHANGE in this area.
Yes, pings could always be on Google.... BUT... NOW that Hawthorne HIGHLIGHTS pings and friend connections, they are more prevalent because they are recent activity - just like the five articles that showed up, not necessarily the history of my account?
So, if Hawthorne didn't highlight this activity as important recent activity, neither would Google?
I am not sure how you are doing the feeds from the technical side but it strikes me as totally possible - even likely - that the same things that turns Pings, etc into feed items makes those feed items available to search engines. I'm assuming it is being done with RSS or something like it. That would not mean that Gather changed what is available, just how it is available and Google is indexing information differently because of that.
Make sense? Maybe...?
It's true, the Google results on your Gather content might appear higher in a post-upgrade world... but what I want to be clear on is that Google indexes Gather... not the other way around.
"If the information was shared and public on Gather before Hawthorne, it was also available to Google and other search engines."
This also is incorrect.
When I joined a group, and what group I joined was NOT indexed previously.
When I connected with another member, and with WHOM was NOT indexed previously.
Etc.
In fact, to locate this same level of information on Gather would require a lot of prior knowledge, detective work and time. Now 'security by ignorance' has been removed, and this information is available to search indexes in text form, just as it appears in our profile feed.
This situation did not exist prior to Hawthorne.
However, allowing members to choose what elements appear on their profile feed will rectify this, and I am certain that you are looking into this capability. :-)
Jane gather - Gather Bloggers | Gather
books in Gather Essentials: Writing | Gather. August 10, 2007 12:17 PM EDT -- This is an interactive article because I hope ... Jane C. jcorn.gather.com ...
gofttips.org/content/jane-gather/ - 13k - Cached - Similar pages
Click on it and it goes to this: http://gofttips.org/content/jane-gather/
My article was blog-jacked and I do thank my lucky stars it doesn't front a porn site. A golf blog, not my choice. What can we do to prevent this when we write on Gather? Simply Google ourselves regularly?
one of the other unintended effects of this SO NO IMPROVED Hawthorne **** is that now, that means the deleted comment AND the corrected comment go into the feed and stay there for however long it takes until things disappear.
I was very perturbed one evening not long ago when, forgetting that I was not in a private article, I made a comment that I should not have made publicly. I immediately deleted it .... but it stayed and stayed and stayed and .... 15 minutes can be a very long time sometimes
It's true, your list of connections and groups was probably always public information, but changes were never announced publicly on the site. One of the features I've always liked about Gather is that acceptance or rejection of connection requests was relatively private. Someone with a strong motivation could research it but it wasn't thrown in the face of the casual observer.
I think it's worth doing some research on.
One thing I know won't work well: You can't expect people to be responsible just because it's the right thing to do. Asking people not to put things like "Flagged article for..." in their status or tag line is not the answer to the problem of the specious messages. When people can key in anything they'll key in anything. What you have to do is differentiate between changes in status and tagline in the feed and reports of real activity. Perhaps a prefix like "Suzy Articlewriter changed her status to:" might do the trick.
However, it's important to note that whether it's publishing an article, leaving a comment, or sending a ping - only the last five things you did on the sight appear on the page being pulled up by Google... not your entire site history. Just the five most recent things.
I have never expected privacy on the internet. Amazon.com knows more about me, (what I buy, what I look at, what I own), than Gather does, and that information is also readily available on Google. Except there, my last name is included.
Using information on my Gather profile, a person could easily acquire my home address and my cell phone number. Thing is, they could have done that any number of ways before I ever joined Gather.
I own several websites. One of them is listed in my Gather profile. One only has to do a Who Is look-up on the domain name using just about any domain registrar site, and there you go. Then, by using Google Earth and my address, one can get a look at my house and neighborhood. It's been this way for years and has yet to cause me any problems.
I might be the only one that was happy to believe flagging showed up on the feed with everything else. I would love to know who flags all of my articles, and I wouldn't flag anything unless willing to explain why.
Hmm. I Googled "janna r. gather" and a link to my entire feed "Janna's Feed" going back to April 7 at 4:27 pm came up. I don't care that the entire world knows that I had chicken curry for dinner on April 12, 2008, but I do care that it claims I am friends with people who merely requested a connection, ones that are still pending and I have not accepted.
Wine has also helped me make some very bad decisions--like to switch to shots of tequila.
Will you send a link to that feed page you describe to support@gather.com? Thanks.
janna r. gather
NO ONE is happy. (OK. Maybe 4 or 5 people.) I don't think I should have to reiterate what we've all been questioning since last Friday. The questions are on all of the threads.
I'm angry because it's our talent and our sense of community that generate the clicks that get the attention of the advertisers that fund your paychecks. Yet, we're treated insignificantly.
Every day, someone here is finding a new problem with Hawthorne. Every day, we're subjected to more double speak when addressing these concerns.
A week of this is more than enough. I come here for pleasure. It's not that way any more. I won't just suck it up.
What the heck? Did my browser get hosed somehow or is this something new on Gather?
Like I said, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. If you feel that we've ignored certain questions in the past, then please ask away. But send me a private message or an email - this comment thread concerns the issues stated in the article regarding Google searches.
Go figure.
The issue is the upgrade has made this information much more prominent and readily accessible. Before when I joined a group, changed my profile, updated my status, it just happened. Now each minor change is trumpeted with a status update, pushing meaningful or relevant activities off the page.
Is the possibility of a downgrade to the previous release even being considered, even if just as a temporary fix until all of the quirks of this upgrade can be corrected? I'd love to just get back to writing meaningful content instead of taking another swing at the dead horse.
Is anyone going to address the many, many people who have participated in Tom's chats as well as the weekend help articles and expressed great dislike for Hawthorne? I've asked several questions, on the thread where Tom asked for questions and again on his chat thread, and none were addressed. I know very few people who feel they were answered as opposed to put off.
I know that Chuck, in particular, you seemed to be the most helpful person here over the weekend, and you've always been so in the past, and I'm not trying to make more work for you or anyone there, but Ina asked Tom several questions already that were not answered or even acknowledged. So did I. So did CC Miranda, John O., Elsie Duggan, flit, Chris Carlisle, Nippy Katz, Joy M. Cranky-Pants, Lainie P., and so many other people I frankly can't remember them all and would like to extend a blanket apology to them for it. We've already asked twice and Ina is, I'm sure, not alone in not really wanting to ask again.
Also, they were publicly asked questions and many other people on those threads said "I agree with --" or "-- spoke for me too," so it seems that it would best serve the Gather community if they were publicly answered. Again, I'm not suggesting one poor person should do that, but someone should.
Wow, I just googled myself...scary...I expected that though, the internet certainly isn't private.
There...google
Shame on us for asking. Again.
I've spoken with our development team and they said that Google has been picking up on the "next" link under the profile feed. That is what explains the appearance of member feeds in Google's search results. We will be deploying a patch this afternoon that should prevent Google from following that link. I will post an announcement when the patch has been installed.
Questions were already asked in a public venue and that is how they should be answered. How many times to people need to say the same thing over, and over, and over, and over again?
The evasive tactics aren't working. Get on it and interact with your users like you ask them to interact with you.
I do in house business software so I speak to end users face to face. I've gotten a lot of help from them over the years.
However, there are many members that do care, and I feel that they should be aware of the new information that is now available on the net that did not exist in its current form prior to Hawthorne.
I was able to easily find members that showed multiple feed items in Google and Yahoo in plain text....who they pinged, who pinged them, what groups they joined and who they have now befriended, all in a neat little row of text. This was not available in this manner before the update, and I think that members should be aware of the situation.
While nothing we do in a public online forum is safe from scrutiny, there is (or was) at least a feeling that some actions taken in the community, such as accepting a friend request, wouldn't show up on Google the next day (or whenever) for anyone outside of the community to easily view, scrutinize or use.
Hopefully some level of control over this newly collated information will be forthcoming.
Here is the reality as I see it....anyone who writes anything on the internet should be aware that a potential employer, boss, friend, member of their church or other group....could see it. That is a given.
However, people on Gather need to know WHAT info they share here is indexed- and how and when - by Google. That is fair and open info for them to know, as well as any blurbs or what could be seen as promos about inviting people to Gather linked to their member names on Gather pages which are indexed on Google.
We encourage you to re-read the transcripts from Tom's chat earlier this week, as you may find that your questions or concerns have been answered there.
Talk to Tom Part 1
Talk to Tom Part 2
If you have additional how-to questions regarding your Gather experience, please send them along to us at support@gather.com, as we'd be glad to help you track down the information you need. We will also gladly pass your suggestions or feedback along to our product team.
I'd like to personally invite you all to our next "Talk to Tom" live chat which takes place next Tuesday (4/22) at 12N EST. During that chat Tom will share Gather's company Vision, Mission, and Values.
You all deserve to know why we rolled out these new features and much of the "why" can and will be answered at this next Talk to Tom chat.
We hope to see you there.
In order to ensure a modicum of privacy, members should
Turn off the ping option
Ensure that their profile is blank
Make no connections
Hmmmmmmmmmmm
Who's pwning who now?!
Isn't your comment a more prolix way of saying RTFM?
That said, I fail to see the difference between letting anybody on Gather see something vs. letting anybody who performs a search on Google from see that same information. Public is public. What if Gather were to acquire 50 Million members next week? Would you suddenly be offended at how many people know that you ate chicken salad for lunch last week?
I don't get it.
NUmber one yesterday: Now You, too, can check out your Gather Pings, Comments, Friend Requests and other Gather activities on Google (as of the writing of this article)
Also among the top articles: An Open Letter to Member Support, Tom, and Anyone Else in Charge: Your Members Aren't Going Away. But If This Keeps Up, We Will.
(updated) Gather update, er, never mind...
This article: Notice: Google Indexing and Gather Feeds is CURRENTLY at number 10. Congrats!
"I liked it much better when my content, articles and images were on my home page. I like the spotlight feature but I HATE the feed underneath it. It is not important to me and it looks bad. It was much better before. Pings are convenient but I liked them better on a separate page. The member content is what belongs on the home page...not the social interaction. It clutters the look and wastes space."
Ann R. | Gather
Invite; Publish; Mail. annrav.gather.com. Profile; Articles; Images; Video; Comments; People; Groups; Subscriptions. Ann R. view profile | Ping me ...
annrav.mittromney2008.gather.com/ - 71k - Cached - Similar pages
How did Mitt Romney2008 get into the link to my page? Never even considered him.
Yes, I will provide a further update when I have more information. The patch was indeed deployed yesterday afternoon, but I was waiting for clarification on precisely what we should expect from it. I believe that the patch should - in the future - prevent Google from indexing the "next" link that appears at the bottom of member's profile feeds. It was that first "next" view of the feed that was showing up in Google searches. Google will unfortunately still display these in search results until Google itself updates to reflect Gather's change (which could take weeks I'm afraid).
I am not and never will be an ASS KISSER. You are way out of line saying crap like that. I am one of many members who likes the upgrade and it has nothing to do with kissing ass or trying to make points with the Gather team. In fact a lot of my friends are "In the Black" and I refuse to join them because I do not feel the same way they do. Yes, it would be easy for me to jump on board with my friends, because after all these are people I choose to be friends with, people I respect and hold dear to my heart.
I think you owe myself and the other Gatherer's here who like the upgrade an apology.