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Comment by lovemenot | Hacker News Reader

Fascinating use of language. Superstition implies belief in fate / deity.

It doesn't surprise to see this written now, even if only ironically. "The algorithm cannot be understood by anyone" - which is a fact. So we summon the fates to describe its expected behaviour.

If this comment seems personal, that wasn't intended. I really don't know how people in SEO tend to communicate. But I just heard this kind of language for the first time. So it's just a sign of the times.

More like this to come. Surely.

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Showing different content to Google and visitors is genuinely against Google's webmaster guidelines. It will get you delisted. It's known as cloaking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355?hl=en

>> It's bad luck to return something different to GoogleBot than what regular people see.

It's [against policy] to return something different to GoogleBot than what regular people see.

The facts are on your side, but GP's language choice remains interesting. Not right now perhaps, but down the road?

I can't tell if this is a bit where you play the oblivious pedant, or if you can't tell they were referring to this policy. Either way, I don't think they were suggesting some cosmic influence.

@Kye No pedantry from here. I had already understood the policy. So this comment wasn't about the policy, it was all about the language. You seem to wish to understand, so ...

It was a pretty wide tangent from the start. I imagine (perhaps incorrectly) that it may eventually become common for people to understand algorithm-lore as say the Runes were once understood. I interpreted the language used here as a harbinger.

Google also sends google-bot without the header. If it notices different content it will take the public version as truth.

So many people are doing this but not getting delisted. Not sure how solid a rule it still is.

I am vouching for this comment. The choice of words seems interesting to me too. You don't have to agree with it but I do not see any sign of commenting in bad faith - I think this comment should be unflagged.

I think the mistake was "Superstition implies belief in fate / deity." After reading the whole thing, I guess what they probably meant was dry linguisting commentary, but on first glance it looks like they're saying the person they're replying to is irrational.

Noted.

This is a mistake I used to make. It's fun to pull apart language, but to the person whose language is being analysed, it often feels like mockery. It's important to make it 100% crystal clear your fun analysis isn't about the person. Make it clear it's an aside by focusing on the point before moving on to the postscript with a clear topic shift.

>> It's important to make it 100% crystal clear your fun analysis isn't about the person.

>> If this comment seems personal, that wasn't intended.

That wasn't an edit, it was in my first commit. 100% Crystal clear?

I appreciate you're trying to help but, in doing so please don't belittle my comment as "fun analysis". Though it mightn't have come over perfectly, I meant it. And it's important. To me at least.

You're being too literal about it. I was referring to the policy.

It ain't superstition, it's humor. It's how I sometimes say "you don't want to do that."

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