Absolutely. I can't tell you how friggin' sick I am of inadvertently clicking on an "Experts Exchange" link in a google search set. The microsecond it takes my eyes to register an EE site and click back is one too many. I'm pretty sure EE owes me about 10 years of my life up to this point.
Interestingly it seems to be based on a referrer. It worked when I clicked the link from Google, not when I clicked it from here. Why are these clowns still in Google's index anyways, cloaking isn't allowed.
At the risk of getting downmodded, can I suggest that if you're getting helpful answers off EE, it would be nice to pay the subscription fee and help support the business?
It is EE's choice to play sleazy games where they represent one thing to search engines and deliver something else to the users who arrive at their site.
They can stop deceiving people about their public content and go to a standard gated subscription model any time they like. Until they do, the more people who work around their weasel tactics, the better.
It's fair to be irritated by the search engine listings.
I'm going to disagree that it's equally fair to swipe content that you find to be helpful from a subscription-based site without paying for it.
I guess I see it like this: I'm irritated that there's a Starbucks on every corner of the SF financial district; but that doesn't mean I go in and grab a cup of coffee off the counter when no one's looking. Regardless of my irritation, if I'm going to consume the coffee, I pay for it -- or else I can take my business to a different coffee shop or go to city council meetings and try to stop Starbucks from getting approved to set up shop on every corner.
I know a lot of us here have the skills to find workarounds to lots of business models, whether it's paying sub fees or viewing ads or whatever. But a lot of us are also trying to build our own businesses. And at some point, we're going to want our potential customers to play within our business models and do a fair exchange (of cash or ad views or whatever) if they get value out of the goods and services we provide. So it just seems like good karma to not go taking things you don't pay for from other businesses.
As for EE's tactics, a more constructive way to get them to stop is to let them know you don't like it, let others know, and let Google know.
I've had some hard times finding error codes and resolution, but in general I'm used to and happy with Google.
You're not selling me with that.
And would they let Google crawl the site? If so, then badda bing, badda boom, we're back to just using Google again.
There have been some great ideas for how this site could be better than a simple search. I'd like to hear the pitch from the founders as to their unique selling factors.
