Google Personal Blocklist Chrome Extension Fights Content FarmsBy CIOinsight | Posted 02-15-2011
Google took another step to stomp out content farms Feb. 14 by launching a small application for its Google Chrome Web browser that lets people block Websites from their Web search results on Google.com.
When installed by a user, the Personal Blocklist Chrome extension will let users click the "block url" button to block a site so they won't see results from that domain again in their search results on Google.com.
Personal Blocklist users may also undo blocks and edit blocked sites by clicking on the extension's icon in the top right of the Chrome window.
What clicking the block URL does is feed Google information about blocked Websites. Google will study the "resulting feedback and explore using it as a potential ranking signal for our search results," wrote Google Principal Engineer Matt Cutts.
What Cutts means is Google is asking for users to help weed out content farms, which he defined as "sites with shallow or low-quality content."
For more, read the eWeek article: Google Chrome Extension Punts Content Farms in Search.