Some webpages' information is useless, misleading, or even wrong!

The BBQ Pit
1

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I think many Dopers will agree with this thread’s thesis as expressed in the title: Some webpages’ information is useless, misleading, or even Wrong!
Still, it may be convenient to have a thread where examples can be posted.

I intend to show interesting examples that have nothing to do with politics, but I’ll start with the following, an ad for which caught my eye when I was on the (relatively useless) website Newser.Com :
[I do NOT recommend that you click this link]


https://pro.hsionlineorders.net/p/HSI170124A/PHSIT713/?aid=55&sid1=47485661&sid2=&sid3=&sid4=&sid5=&oid=393&tid=102148606fc24867bf312018b61f5c&h=true

(Wow! Look at all the parameters in the URL!)

The webpage loaded badly or not at all, but, curious to see the text newser.com quoted, I did a Save, grepped for ‘Hillary’ or ‘Clinton’ or ’ her ’ or ’ she ', and edited the result slightly. I’ve Spoilered the result. I’m not sure, but I think Hillary wanted to suppress cures for cancer so she’d have more grandmas to send to the death camps. The website will send you a FREE book telling you all about it.

(I’ve not even read the following, though I colored Red one particularly stupid claim that caught my eye. Even Alexandria needed more than $86.000 to win.)

[SPOILER] Don’t let Crooked Hillary’s Cartel pocket millions at
And Hillary Clinton’s one final, desperate act still to come…
It also exposes a corrupt conspiracy involving Clinton, a secret society of gangsters , and other high-ranking government officials…
Did Hillary rig the 2016 election all the way back in 1993 ?
It’s a secret plan cooked up by Crooked Hillary herself that I’ve identified as ‘Executive Plan 5.’
On January 20, 2017, Hillary was supposed to place her hand on the Bible and take the Presidential oath of office… NOT as the victor of an honest and fair election…
Fortunately, you and I both know how her story ended… she failed to become President. And thank God for that.
While President-elect Trump was watching his electoral votes flood in, Hillary went into hiding. Practically disappearing off the face of the earth.
Why? Because she knows this isn’t a simple case of ‘He Won; She Lost.’
And even though Hillary has all but disappeared now ’ her entire sinister plot is still unfolding…
Until I saw Hillary’s speech when she accepted the Democratic nomination.
It was her smug smile and the way she waved like a queen at the crowd through the sleeves of her $12,000 pantsuit jacket… she knew she’d already won.
I decided right then and there that I wasn’t going to let her get away with it… and I know you won’t either .
Hillary has co-signed the most devastating American scandal this country has ever known.
Because even though I truly believe Hillary is a force of evil against our great nation, she isn’t in this alone.
And manipulating Hillary’s career… with her FULL blessing.
My colleagues and I call that secret organization the Clinton Cartel .
And they’re every bit as power-hungry and despicable as Hillary herself.
Since all the way back in 1993 , the Clinton Cartel has been Hillary’s ally on every rung of the political ladder…
…moving all the right chess pieces to buy her elections…
…knowing that starting in 2017 ’ with Queen Hillary running the show ’ she’d be returning the favor.
That’s right, in exchange for delivering her Presidency on a silver platter… she’d look the other way while giving the Cartel full access to run one of our government’s biggest agencies… for limitless profits .
When Hillary’s scheme went into effect in 2017, the Cartel would have unprecedented access to our government… and a direct’path to your health’and’money .
With their plan set in motion, she was guaranteed to win…
I’ll explain exactly what I mean, but here’s the part that will really blow your mind… Clinton swore up and down the campaign trail that the Cartel are actually her ENEMIES.
She’s absolutely shameless . She publicly denounced them and says they’re out to take advantage of middle-class Americans (and they are!)…
What you’re about to see proves exactly why she was always unfit to be President, and why we could never allow her into the White House…
Here are the facts: When Bill first assigned Hillary to lead his Task Force on National Health Care Reform in 1993… she immediately put 33 corporate power players on her team.
Now, these were some real heavy hitters across several industries that she knew had the muscle to get things done in D.C… and weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty in the process.
Thankfully, the bill was destroyed before it ever got off the ground, and Hillary’s ‘teammates’ never got to cash their checks.
But failure has never stopped Hillary. She’s had plenty of it, but her lust for power is never-ending…
And she knew that in our country, money can still buy power . But you need LOTS of it…
So she decided to form a secret alliance with this group of corporate fat cats, and…
With nothing more than a secret meeting and brief handshake to seal their pact, the Clinton Cartel was born .
Fast forward to Hillary’s 2000 Senate bid… **the Cartel funneled $86,875 in cash into her campaign, ensuring her victory. **
During her re-election in 2006, they upped the ante and pumped $157,015 into her campaign… and, again, she won.
Then came the 2008 presidential election when the Cartel gave her $174,000 in cash .
The Cartel didn’t even care if Hillary lost in the primaries… they had their sights on 2016 THE ENTIRE TIME .
Fast forward to 2015 when Hillary announced that she was running for President.
Trying not to draw much attention to their partnership… they privately made additional contributions to the Clinton Foundation ranging from $1 million to $5 million each.
In total, it’s estimated that Hillary has accepted over $10.8 million in Cartel dirty money since 2000… and that’s ONLY including what’s publicly shown on her books.
With that kind of money buying all the votes she needed… the scheme was practically fool-proof.
Until her carefully-laid plan was OUTED in the final hours before the election.
Hillary rightfully lost, and the Cartel was once again left with their pockets turned inside out. But that just made them even angrier.
From my experience, I’ve found Clinton’s Cartel to be an extremely cunning and dangerous team…
Now that might not sound intimidating at first blush, but in partnership with Hillary they’ve already launched Executive Plan 5 with one simple goal …
So even without Hillary on their side, they can still have unprecedented power to influence our government’s healthcare laws and policies.
Well, that’s what the Clinton Cartel wants you to believe. But today, we’re exposing their most dangerous LIE .
And we are fighting back against Hillary and her slimy Cartel by exposing their biggest lie ever…
I’m unmasking and counting down the top 5 covered-up cures that Hillary’s Cartel and their partners at the FDA have openly tried to discredit…
So we’ve printed up every single cure in a free report we call… The Insider’s Book of Secrets: The REAL Cures Buried By Clinton’s Cartel.
We feel it’s our duty as Americans and patriots. And it’s the ONLY way to stop the Clinton Cartel from carrying out the final phase of its deadly scheme.
But, a fair warning, the information I’m about to share is so explosive… and Hillary’s Cartel is SO powerful…
Everything is revealed on page 1 of your full report… The Insider’s Book of Secrets: The REAL Cures Buried By Clinton’s Cartel .
It’s nothing short of a miracle ’ and easy to see why Hillary’s Cartel wants this secret swept under the rug forever…
It’s clear Hillary’s Cartel isn’t interested in the cure. Only the cash .
And it’s all waiting for you on page 7 in your free copy of The Insider’s Book of Secrets: The REAL Cures Buried By Clinton’s Cartel .
And they’re how Hillary’s Cartel can afford to fill their closets with Italian leather loafers…
I promised you a no-pill solution to get rid of your arthritis… and that’s what you’ll get in your free copy of The Insider’s Book of Secrets: The REAL Cures Buried By Clinton’s Cartel .
Hillary’s cronies are going to be livid when news of the #2 cure gets out… because it’s a problem that affects over 50 million American adults right’this’second .
With thousands of raving new fans turning to this easy trick for a boost at night… you can see why Hillary’s Cartel is now terrified at the thought of giving up their precious payday (with over $58.1 billion in sales per year).
Your copy be gone… and you’ll know that Hillary’s dirty Cartel has won.
Cures that Clinton’s Cartel wants to make sure you never find out about, so you keep buying their dangerous drugs instead.
This is how we fight back against (AND WIN) against Hillary, against her dishonest government cronies…
You see, I want to make sure you have every weapon in your arsenal ready ’ so you can fight back and protect yourself from her Cartel.
Your confidential report that blows the lid off Hillary’s shady Cartel and reveals 5 major covered up cures you can use today: The Insider’s Book of Secrets: The REAL Cures Buried By Clinton’s Cartel .
It’s our way of saying thank you for supporting our mission, and standing up to Hillary and her minions.
Are you sure you don’t want to claim your FREE copy of The Insider’s Book of Secrets: The REAL Cures Buried By Clinton’s Cartel and your 564-page encyclopedia, Miracles from the Vault ?
All you have to do is click the button below to get started and claim your copy of The Insider’s Book of Secrets: The REAL Cures Buried By Clinton’s Cartel , along with your 560-page encyclopedia, Miracles from the Vault .

"BEFORE YOU GO! Are you sure you don’t want to claim your copy of “The Insider’s Book of Secrets: The REAL Cures Buried By Clinton’s Cartel,” the 564-page “Miracles from the Vault” encyclopedia and “The Independent Patriot’s Guide to Staying in YOUR Home (Not Theirs’)”?
Remember, if you decide to cancel your membership, we’ll send you a full refund, no questions asked. And you’ll still get to keep your free copy of Miracles from the Vault!
Just click “Stay on this Page” or “Cancel” right now. "
[/SPOILER]
Remember: this “content” generates enough revenue to pay Newser.com to add a link. Think of the many thousands of low-information voters who developed the subconscious message “I don’t know Hillary well, but I think I recall hearing something bad about her.”

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I’ll give a few non-political examples where Google Search doesn’t yield results as nice as one would like.

(1) An amateur genealogist might try a search for, say,
Scharan genealogy
The first hit takes you a page that’s a template for information about Scharan — but the template is empty!
The second hit takes you to another site’s template, also empty, for Sharan — not even the correct surname! And so on. (Of course empty templates may be better than some of the webpages that pass for “useful genealogical data” but that’s another story.)

(2) Watch out when searching for a common name that is also a brand-name or company name. Google will prefer to offer links to unrelated advertisers, even when they have to misspell the search term to get the advertiser’s name! :smack:

(3) I once constructed a geography puzzle in which I wanted to use a Siberian village name in lieu of latitude/longitude coordinates. I Googled to see what I could learn about the village I’d found on Google maps. The main (or only) hit was to a “Find women in [obscure village] who want to date you!” page! There were photos of women, IIRC, but they weren’t even from Siberia — their location was associated with my IP address location.

I repeated this experiment just now, trying “Srednyaya Olekma” as the obscure Siberian village. I get 841 hits; almost all seem to be to weather charts. Hundreds of websites know how to mine databases for every place-name in the world and show the weather for the nearest weather station. (If you plow through these hits long enough, you’ll eventually find the “Girls in Srednyaya Olekma who want to date you” but these are just porn sites with long lists of random place-names.) Don’t ask me for the population or other information about Srednyaya Olekma. AFACT none of the 841 hits know the slightest thing about it besides its coordinates. It may be a missile silo or a dude ranch instead of a village.

(4) I used to search for strings like “Sekenen*”, using the wild-card symbol since I wasn’t sure how to spell the name of the 17th Dynasty Pharaoh. But Dont_Be_Evil.Com doesn’t understand wildcards anymore — maybe it decided they were evil. Any better search engines to recommend?

3

I, for one, endorse this pitting.

My would be fiance says she’s from Srednyaya Olekma, but there’s next to no information about that town. Could she be scamming me?

4

In other news, the sky is blue, grass is green, and water is wet.

5

This is the first thing I thought of after reading the OP.

6

gasps
clutches pearls
INCONCEIVABLE!

7

And men lie to get laid.

8

There’s a very extensive website to save the endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (Octopus paxarbolis). They were hunted extensively during the 1920s to feed the trade in tree octopus hats that were fashionable at the time. It’s quite a fascinating read.

Just one small problem, there is no such thing as the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. The entire site was created as an experiment to test school children’s critical thinking skills when doing research on the internet.

9

Better keep this quiet, or the Trump Administration will hear about it and outlaw it.

10

:gasp:

You mean they’re already extinct?!?

Oh, the [del]humanity[/del] cephalopodity!!!

11

He’s probably not too worried. Even after they were told it was a fake, some of the kids still believed it.

At least, according to a podcast I just listened to. So far, they seem pretty good about getting their facts straight.

12

Google has at least some partial improvement on one example I used to offer for ‘problems with search’–the definition of bumcivilian. Search used to offer nothing but straightforward assertions that bumcivilian is

The thing is that the site doesn’t tell users that it’s based on a UK comedy show, and of course the ‘science’ is completely made up.

The quoted bit is from the second hit; top hit is Urbandictionary, which also fails to note that the ‘definition’ is fake. Third hit is same site as the first. When you get to the fourth hit, you get the Wikipedia page about the show, which does tell you that it’s a comedy show and not, as it purports to be, a science show.

This may be an improvement made by Google, since the Wikipedia page doesn’t actually mention “bumcivilian”—yet the page shows up fourth in search.

So a search for “bumcivilian” would be a good classroom exercise; some of the kids, seeing that fourth hit on the page, would twig to the fact that it’s the invention of comedy writers. And some kids probably wouldn’t.

13

That’s magnificent. Thanks for the link.

14

Been having a Dickens of a time recently with one of my favourite pastimes - aggregating random LinkedIn profiles.
Starting to be way too much unhelpfully sketchy information.

15

Oh, I found his LinkedIn profile right away:

Dickens, Charles John Huffman “Chuckles”
Writer/barista and part-time social critic
15 novels, 5 novellas, 232 short stories, 138 non-fiction articles
Voted “Greatest novelist of the Victorian Era” by Writers of the London Slums Club, 1854
Joined “Literary Genius” Facebook Group, 1857

Hometown: Portsmouth, not the one in NH
Education: Indeed, he wishes t’were so…

Experienced in child labor factories and debtors’ prisons.
Can campaign vigorously for children’s rights, education, and various social reforms
Indefatigable letter writer
Available to perform readings from his own work, and is proficient in pasting labels on pots of boot blacking

16

Haven’t you heard? They dropped the “Don’t.”

17

“Terror of all Loggers and Forest Rangers”

Oh, that is fucking Classic!

18

The board’s hamsters will have a massive overload and collapse in a frenzy of squeaking and rodent fuzz if even 0.00000000000000000000039% of examples of webpages’ useless, misleading or wrong information is posted here.

Be careful what you ask for.

19

When I took animation classes, our class in box modelling was given an assignment to create a monster. We drew monster names out of a hat, and I drew the basilisk. We were told to browse for images to use as references. The basilisk is a cross between a hen and a snake, so I did a search for “hen” and got tentacle porn.

My classmate was more knowledgeable of anime than I was, and told me the search engine probably defaulted to “hentai.” More people search for tentacle porn than chickens.

20

Some web pages are not even wrong.