Google will begin punishing sites for back button hijacking in June
So you thought you’d just read that webpage and then go back to the previous page? A bold assumption. All too often, clicking the back button in your browser doesn’t actually take you back. It’s called back button hijacking, and Google has thus far tolerated it. That ends in June, when the company will designate it a “malicious practice,” and any site continuing to do it will face consequences.Back button hijacking is a way of wringing more pageviews out of visitors. It’s common on sites that live and die on search traffic. You may end up on a page because it looks like something you want, but instead of letting you leave the domain, it manipulates your page history to insert something else when you click back.
The phantom page is usually a collection of additional content suggestions or a pop-up that tries to eke out a few more clicks from each visitor. Some sites get a little more creative with it, though. For example, LinkedIn has a nasty habit of sending you “back” to the social feed after you land on a link to a profile or job posting.
Google says the back button should always do what you expect it to do—go back. Anything else amounts to a deceptive user experience that can discourage users from visiting unfamiliar pages in the future.
Google will begin punishing sites for back button hijacking in June
Google says it could penalize back button hijacking by demoting websites in search ranking.Ryan Whitwam (Ars Technica)
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OwOarchist
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Long overdue, really.
Hijacking like this is one of many reasons I'm running noscript these days.
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definitemaybe
in reply to OwOarchist • • •like this
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Powderhorn
in reply to OwOarchist • • •These days? I've been using it for years, alongside uBO. It's astounding how many trackers and third-party sources pop up on many websites. I pissed off my last live-in girlfriend by having a pihole and blocking anything Facebook owns at the router level. She had to use mobile data for her addiction to Facebook and Instagram. But I'm not letting that tracking pixel into my home.
You get used to a page not loading, checking NoScript and whitelisting the site (temporarily). When that unleashes the additional 15-20 sites that also want access to MY computer, I look for another source. Like, I can accept they're using a CDN, but past that, it's stealing my bandwidth just for data harvesting, and I've gotten too old for that shit.
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LedgeDrop
in reply to OwOarchist • • •This is the number one reason, why I have hundreds of open tabs - I welcome this improvement.
Now do the same for hijacking control-f to replace my browsers "find" functionality.
OwOarchist
in reply to LedgeDrop • • •Bookmarks, people -- use 'em!
Easier to search, more organizable, easier to transfer to new devices, more resistant to being lost, they don't eat up all your RAM ... the advantages over endless open tabs are immense!
deliriousdreams
in reply to OwOarchist • • •PenguinCoder
in reply to LedgeDrop • • •rockSlayer
in reply to Powderhorn • • •like this
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recentSlinky
in reply to Powderhorn • • •like this
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TheReturnOfPEB
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Punish them how ? Stealing even more that website's content for their LLM ?
Google as a web search tool hasn't been relevant for that kind of threat for a few years now.
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Shellofbiomatter
in reply to TheReturnOfPEB • • •No, it's still the most popular search engine by a long margin.
83% of the searches that happen on PC are done with google and 95% of the searches done on mobile are done with google.
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skarn
in reply to Shellofbiomatter • • •So 12% of users didn't change the default from Edge with Bing?
Shellofbiomatter
in reply to skarn • • •Almost, Bing is 10,5% on PC and 0,72% on mobile. So yeah there's a considerable number of people not changing the default on PC.
gs.statcounter.com/search-engi…
Desktop Search Engine Market Share Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats
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Sina
in reply to TheReturnOfPEB • • •Lenny
in reply to Powderhorn • • •notfromhere
in reply to Powderhorn • • •unique_hemp
in reply to notfromhere • • •ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝
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cybernihongo
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Okay Google.
KEEP ANDROID OPEN.
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mr_anny
in reply to Powderhorn • • •like this
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It_is_gaslighting
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Powderhorn
in reply to It_is_gaslighting • • •It_is_gaslighting
in reply to Powderhorn • • •I use Vanadium on the phone and for browsing on desktop Firefox and Mulvad.
Powderhorn
in reply to It_is_gaslighting • • •