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Stack Overflow ranks #2 for Google Search for "Stack Overflow"

229 points| momchenr | 13 years ago |google.com

121 comments

order
[+] lancefisher|13 years ago|reply
Looks like it's a cut/paste error. If you do wget www.doioig.gov, this is the page you get. Notice the meta refresh that points to stackoverflow.com.

  <!DOCTYPE HTML>
  <html lang="en-US">
  <head>
      <meta charset="UTF-8">
      <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1;url=http://stackoverflow.com">
      <script language="javascript">
          window.location.href = "http://www.doi.gov/oig/index.cfm"
      </script>
      <title>Page Redirection</title>
  </head>
  <body>
  If you are not redirected automatically, please click the link to continue to the <a href='http://www.doi.gov/oig/index.cfm'>U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Inspector General.</a>
  </body>
  </html>
[+] adrr|13 years ago|reply
I bet there's some sort of logic on google's side that states, if a government homepage url redirects to another non .gov URL, that the .gov address should be the canonical page of the site thats being redirected too. Which would explain why stackoveflow's homepage isn't listed in the results. Just a guess.
[+] nodesocket|13 years ago|reply
Why would this rank them so high though? Does the googlebot actually follow the http-equiv="refresh". If so, would changing http://stackoverflow.com to say http://dell.com make them rank #1 for searching for dell as well?
[+] momchenr|13 years ago|reply
Glad to know someone who works for the government at least knows where to get their information.
[+] protomyth|13 years ago|reply
Given that the Department of Interior has been forced to take the whole department (expect for vital services) offline multiple times, I would not be surprised if it were hacked. I am hoping this doesn't get in front of a judge anytime soon as it can have some consequence for people caught in the way.

One such consequence, at one point a judge (curse his or her soul) decided since the DOI needed to be off the internet then all "affiliates" needed to be off the internet. This includes the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs). Which included both the .gov and .edu domain. At the time many Tribally chartered Community Colleges[1] were told to disconnect from the internet mid-semester. Even those colleges who paid for their own internet connection and had a .edu domain of their own.

Imagine having two weeks with no internet (most of our students don't have home internet) with classes going on. Finally, someone got the order rescinded for the schools.

I am not very fond of how the DOI handles its internet[2][3].

1) accredited just like state or private colleges with transferable classes.

2) don't even get me started about sending mail from a subdomain with no DNS entry for the sending mail server or subdomain and expecting us to not reject it.

3) http://www.doi.gov/archive/news/08_News_Releases/080523a.htm...

[+] xxpor|13 years ago|reply
Wait what? Why does the DOI disconnect from the internet on a regular basis? I feel like there's a backstory here.
[+] ComputerGuru|13 years ago|reply
Google's algorithm has gotten so big and so complicated over the years, that there are so many cracks and special cases that can cause sites to disappear from or be poorly ranked in search results, unless you're lucky enough to be huge in the tech scene or post here and get your comment seen by a Googler (as I have on occasion).

<plea>Any Googlers reading this, I'm looking into rebuttals of false DMCA requests being ignored by Google for months...</plea>

[+] ma2rten|13 years ago|reply
I don't think that a simple algorithm would lead to less poorly ranked search results.
[+] 3pt14159|13 years ago|reply
Also, the internet has gotten bigger, so the possibilities for cracks or errors have widened greatly.

That being said, I do think this specific failure has no reasonable explanation. No matter how I think about it, or look at it, the only explanation I can come up with is essentially: "What percentage of people would need to see a wrong version of a search result before it is reported" or "How long would it take us to fix a knowingly wrong result".

[+] moonlighter|13 years ago|reply
"Google's algorithm has gotten so big and so complicated over the years". Agreed! Just like the US tax code...
[+] wilfra|13 years ago|reply
Agreed. A hacker put some malicious code on one of my sites over a year ago and it was quickly buried in search results after ranking 1-3 on page one for years. I fixed it, changed hosts, notified Google and have tried everything else I can think of and it's still nowhere to be seen - even though it ranks near the top of both Yahoo and Bing.

If a Googler sees this, the site is http://starbuckslocations.com - please look into it!

[+] mherdeg|13 years ago|reply
Conversation from three days ago at http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/169405/google-indexi... suggests that the best hypothesis is that at some point in the past, www.doioig.gov was compromised and maybe redirected to StackOverflow.

(This hypothesis is supported by a Google cache of doioig.gov showing the message "Due to security concerns, our website will be unavailable until transition to the Department of the Interior web domain occurs. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and are working to speed up the transition. The following contact information is provided to assist you.")

[+] crgt|13 years ago|reply
Even if it had been redirected, why would it outrank the actual site?
[+] geargrinder|13 years ago|reply
Everyone seems to be focusing on the .gov site but if you take a look at the Stack Overflow home page, the page that would normally get indexed highly, there is very little telling Google what it is.

There is no <meta name="description"> tag in the header. The H1 tag, important to Google, says "Top Questions". The content of the first page constantly changes.

Plus, I would bet that most of the links into Stack Overflow are to individual articles, not the home page. Any particular article probably doesn't outrank a popular .gov site.

This is just very poor SEO on Stack Overflow's part.

[+] stormbrew|13 years ago|reply
I disagree it's necessarily poor SEO. They should do everything they can to ensure that pages that answer questions have better pageranks than their largely useless homepage. That's what gives the name stackoverflow power, questions actually getting answered.
[+] rschmitty|13 years ago|reply
Not sure I disagree with SEO on "Stack Overflow" who is googling for that term?

Practically any technical question I've searched for has resulted in a stack overflow (or super user) #1 result. I'd say they are doing a pretty good job, even if they don't do all the old school SEO stuff

[+] fidz|13 years ago|reply 

  https://www.google.com/search?q=stackoverflow&aq=0&oq=stackover&aqs=chrome.0.0j5j57j0j62.3537&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&safe=off&sclient=psy-ab&q=stack+overflow&oq=stack+overflow&gs_l=serp.3..0l4.4882.4882.0.5337.1.1.0.0.0.0.135.135.0j1.1.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.5.psy-ab.gWmJt4vWzvg&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.43148975,d.dmQ&fp=c1794afd088c3d78&biw=1440&bih=795
isn't that too long just for

  https://www.google.com/search?q=stackoverflow
[+] kristopolous|13 years ago|reply
I've often wondered what all those extra bits of information mean and whether there's information encoded in there that I may not want to give someone.
[+] mike_herrera|13 years ago|reply
I'm suspiciously seeing, "2,643 people +1'd this."

While I would be excited to see such enthusiasm relating to a government property, this doesn't smell kosher.

[+] signed0|13 years ago|reply
For me it shows that one of my friends +1'd it. I'm pretty sure he +1'd the real Stack Overflow though.
[+] rmp2150|13 years ago|reply
Stack Overflow ranks #1 for Bing Search for "Stack Overflow".
[+] fabm|13 years ago|reply
People actually use Bing?
[+] driax|13 years ago|reply
The other day I used Bing to search for "C++14 ...", because Google doesn't recognize it as a search term. Though it does understand C++11.

Granted I didn't get many worthwhile hits, but I did get some. Google simply provided me with the results of "C++ 14", which is pretty useless.

[+] sytelus|13 years ago|reply
Also Joel Spolsky's FB profile shows up in Social on right.
[+] ck2|13 years ago|reply
Not sure if they fixed it since this post went live on HN but I am not seeing that.

For me SO is first with six "breakout" links below it, and then wikipedia entry about it.

But I don't allow javascript or cookies on google search which may get me a less filtered result.

[+] bdcravens|13 years ago|reply
Gotta wonder though: should StackOverflow.com rank high for "stack overflow"? After all, a "stack overflow" isn't necessarily related to programming questions. Yes, you can ask questions on StackOverflow.com about stack overflows, but that's missing the point. So if I have a domain name that's a thing, but my site has very little content related to that thing, should I rank high for queries about that thing?
[+] piyush_soni|13 years ago|reply
May be someone fixed something, but I'm seeing stackoverflow as the top result now for both with or without inverted commas.
[+] jan_g|13 years ago|reply
Yep, it's ranked #1 for me too, but this could be linked to regional and/or personal data (I'm not based in US).
[+] zaidf|13 years ago|reply
The preferred .gov page has thousands of google plus likes. This seems like a fascinating example of google plus' terrible impact on google search and perhaps google corp.
[+] LolWolf|13 years ago|reply
It's just wrong, overall, the actual Stackoverflow page was the one that had that many +1s.
[+] jbrooksuk|13 years ago|reply
What doesn't make sense is why it's ranked beneath a Government site? www.doioig.gov

Plus, the content of the homepage doesn't even contain anything about Stack Overflow.

[+] Axsuul|13 years ago|reply
The power of .gov backlinks.
[+] afshinmeh|13 years ago|reply
Something strange happened here. Google displays `stackoverflow.com` content in `doioig.gov` description. For example I can see `careers 2.0` in the description of `doioig.gov` that really doesn't have.
[+] shrikrishna|13 years ago|reply
Well actually, "stack overflow" should ideally refer to the programming error. The site being talked about is "StackOverflow", and if that term is queried in any search engine, it should, and will provide the correct result.
[+] sublimit|13 years ago|reply
Don't be silly, that's just the way their logo is stylized. Their FAQ states it's indeed "Stack Overflow", and their mobile version has a logo with a space.