
Stack Overflow ranks #2 for Google Search for "Stack Overflow" - momchenr
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
======
lancefisher
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>

~~~
pmylund
And here's why: <http://stackoverflow.com/a/5411601/620239>. Forgot to change
that first occurrence after pasting it in. "Oh, it works. I'm done."

~~~
signed0
Another good reason why you should always use "example.com".

~~~
fidz
I'm surprised <http://example.com> is reserved by IANA.

~~~
saraid216
...why is that surprising?

~~~
jthol
Because it makes sense. These sorts of things normal are allowed to go through
so that horrible unintended consequences can be wrought on the unsuspecting.

------
protomyth
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...](http://www.doi.gov/archive/news/08_News_Releases/080523a.html)

~~~
xxpor
Wait what? Why does the DOI disconnect from the internet on a regular basis? I
feel like there's a backstory here.

~~~
antoncohen
So, apparently in 2001 a class action lawsuit accused the Department of the
Interior of mismanaging Indian trust accounts. As part of that lawsuit court
appointed hackers broke into DOI computers. The judge ordered all DOI
computers to be disconnected from the internet. Some parts of the DOI came
back online quickly, but others remained disconnected for over 6 years.
Employee desktops couldn't even access the internet, so they could only send
emails within their intranet.

[http://www.nextgov.com/technology-news/2008/05/interior-
allo...](http://www.nextgov.com/technology-news/2008/05/interior-allowed-to-
reconnect-to-internet/42094/)

[http://www.govexec.com/federal-news/2002/02/pressure-
builds-...](http://www.govexec.com/federal-news/2002/02/pressure-builds-on-
interior-to-fix-indian-trust-fund-system/11120/)

------
ComputerGuru
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
I don't think that a simple algorithm would lead to less poorly ranked search
results.

------
mherdeg
Conversation from three days ago at
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/169405/google-
indexi...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/169405/google-indexing-
issue-for-keyword-stackoverflow) 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.")

~~~
mherdeg
(Actually the explanation at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5311430>
looks a lot better. I do wonder what's up with the DoI's recent "security
concerns").

~~~
protomyth
They have a rather long history of security concerns. Many times ending up in
front of a judge.

------
geargrinder
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.

~~~
rschmitty
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

~~~
geargrinder
According to the Google Adwords tool, "stack overflow" is googled 74,000 times
each month. Not to mention all the permutations.

If I worked for Stack Overflow, I would also try to optimize for more general
terms. The questions and answers are good at getting those long-tail keywords,
but not so good at the more generic ones like "coding help" or "javascript
help" or a hundred others. Stack Overflow isn't on the first page for either
of those examples, or many others.

------
fidz

      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

~~~
Andrex
How about this?

<http://googl.com/#q=stack+overflow>

Source: [http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-shortest-
google...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-shortest-google-
search-urls.html)

~~~
martin-adams
That link sadly does not work for me who uses iGoogle (for now) on
google.co.uk.

If it's a short URL you want, then <http://bit.ly/YUJZLu>. But you'll have to
trust me when you click that as you've no idea where it'll take you to.

~~~
dangrossman
Right click and copy link, paste into address bar, add a + to the end to see
where it goes.

<http://bit.ly/YUJZLu+>

~~~
nkorth
And that doesn't work on mobile, because they have a "forgetful" mobile site
:(

------
mike_herrera
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
For me it shows that one of my friends +1'd it. I'm pretty sure he +1'd the
real Stack Overflow though.

~~~
Evbn
That is worth verifying, as it would be an interesting bug in how Google
transfers juice between redirects.

------
rmp2150
Stack Overflow ranks #1 for Bing Search for "Stack Overflow".

~~~
fabm
People actually use Bing?

~~~
calvin
Yes. And DuckDuckGo. And Google.

Why give all your searches to one search engine and one company?

Depending on what you're searching for, Google doesn't always provide the best
results.

~~~
jlgreco
Google almost universally provides the best results if you are actually
_searching_ for something.

Compare the results for queries like _"that movie where a computer plays tic
tac toe"_ A very reasonable search if you forget what the name of War Games
is, but bing fails it utterly and completely; not a single mention of War
Games until the second results page, and the wikipedia page for it doesn't
appear until the third. Meanwhile on google the first results page barely has
anything that _isn't_ about War Games.

Now, if you just search "War Games" both will do fine. For that matter, so
does Wikipedia's builtin search...

You can push it even further and get more vague, something like _"that car
that james may goes fast in"_ and while at that point google starts to
degrade, it still easily beats out bing.

Suppose I am looking for _"that movie with a button"_. Yup, google get's it,
"The Box". Bing thinks I am thinking of Benjamin Button, which was google's
second suggestion (I wasn't). Fair enough though, suppose I actually had been
thinking about _"that movie where the guy get's younger"_. Both google and
bing don't do _great_ , though google still definitively does better.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
> Suppose I am looking for "that movie with a button". Yup, google get's it,
> "The Box". Bing thinks I am thinking of Benjamin Button, which was google's
> second suggestion

Hm. There is no one google. In the google that I see, for that search, it's
the other way around: "Benjamin Button" is #1, and "The Box" is #2 (both on
IMDB).

Life before search engines was different and it's easy to be blasé. IMHO,
getting the one that you are vaguely thinking of anywhere in the top 5 _is_ a
great and amazing technical feat. And also good enough to jog your memory, so
#1 or #2 makes no difference.

------
ck2
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
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?

~~~
lobster_johnson
Would a person struggling with a stack overflow actually google "stack
overflow", though? Surely only a very fresh programmer would need to google
it, and only if he/she knew what the concept was. But here's what an infinite
recursion in a C program prints if I run it:

    
    
        Segmentation fault: 11
    

Well, that's C for you. If I try Ruby:

    
    
        test.rb:2: stack level too deep (SystemStackError)
    

Ok, still not the same nomenclature. Python:

    
    
        RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded
    

Nope. How about Go? ... Actually, an infinitely recursing function in Go never
completes on my machine. I wonder why. Perhaps it's not using the stack the
way I expect.

If you do the same thing in Java:

    
    
        Exception in thread "main" java.lang.StackOverflowError
    

Ok, there it is.

But if do you get that, would you not google "StackOverflowError", as opposed
to "stack overflow"?

(Then again, my Google searches are perhaps uncommonly precise. If a function
"foobar()" in library "libfoo" overflowed when processing HTTPS URLs, I would
probably google for "foobar stack overflow libfoo https url".)

The Wikipedia entry for stack overflow (the concept) is the fourth hit on a
search for "stack overflow". Should be acceptable to a newbie.

~~~
ycombobreaker
> Actually, an infinitely recursing function in Go never completes on my
> machine.

Maybe your function is tail-recursive? Try to use the return value from the
recursive call in a nontrivial way, so that stack storage is necessary to
store some local variable.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Apparently Go allocates the stack as a heap structure, as was pointed out in
another comment: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4226964/how-come-go-
doesn...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4226964/how-come-go-doesnt-have-
stackoverflows)

------
piyush_soni
May be _someone_ fixed _something_ , but I'm seeing stackoverflow as the top
result now for both with or without inverted commas.

~~~
jan_g
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
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
It's just wrong, overall, the actual Stackoverflow page was the one that had
that many +1s.

------
jbrooksuk
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.

------
arikrak
Google thinks doioig.gov is StackOverflow.com. See what happens when you do a
search for info: <http://www.google.com/search?q=info:stackoverflow.com>

Note what site shows up as the result and for the links for "similar" and
"link to".

------
Axsuul
The power of .gov backlinks.

------
afshinmeh
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.

------
ajasmin
I don't see the Stack Overflow home page at all in my search results.
<http://imgur.com/3WHKhGv>

Second link is the login page

------
shrikrishna
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
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.

------
spullara
The Wikipedia description of a stack overflow should probably be the best link
and it ranks 5th.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_overflow>

~~~
matthuggins
That's pretty subjective. Why would that be the "best" link?

~~~
Nursie
Because it describes what a stack overflow is, rather than being a site named
after the thing?

That would be my thinking. Ok so maybe wikipedia doesn't have to be the top
result, but I'd rather have results relating to the thing I'm searching for
come above sites just named after it.

~~~
icebraining
Maybe people are actually searching for the site, and not the thing that named
it?

~~~
spullara
You'll notice that people search for facebook not "face book" when they go
there.

~~~
magicalist
Stack Overflow is officially named "Stack Overflow" (with the space)[1],
though it's common to refer to it as stackoverflow (no space), of course.

[1] <http://stackoverflow.com/about>

~~~
spullara
Their logo has no space, nor does their web address. People typing in "stack
overflow" I bet are not looking for the web site. I'm sure google analytics
for stackoverflow.com could tell us if it was true.

------
6ren
It's #3 if you use quotes
<https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Stack+Overflow%22> (wikipedia is #2)

------
halayli
The power of a .gov domain authority in google's algorithms.

------
momchenr
Aaaaaaand, looks like it's back to normal. :)

<http://googl.com/#q=stack+overflow>

------
Tloewald
Victory for Bing!

------
mwsherman
Unfortunately our plan for disrupting the Inspector General market got leaked
a bit early.

------
Mahn
This may be well the first time in my life I'm able to see a bug in Google
Search.

------
itchitawa
doioig.gov ranks highly for both "stack" and "overflow" separately. That site
is about stacks and overflows afterall. Perhaps that's why combining the two
gives it superpowers.

------
michool
It's 3rd on google.co.uk, after www.doioig.gov and Wikipedia

------
mtgx
It ranks 1, 2, 3 and 4 for me - in the same time.

~~~
nkurz
Do you have your preferences set to return more than the default 10 results?
When set to the max of 100, I get a lot of suboptimal results. It's getting
better than it used to be, but the worst case I found had slots 1-70 all
occupied by the same site.

I think it there must not be much testing for the non-default settings. I much
preferred the earlier interface where results from the same site were grouped,
capped at a small number, and there was a "More results from this site" link.

------
miga
Not any more...

------
largesse
I love how this post points out a problem and fixes it at the same time.

