> > Paul Hutchinson wrote:
> > 
> > Google Scholar and Google books take the attitude that it 
> is better to 
> > let you know that the information is out there even if you can't 
> > access the complete information for free. Personally it 
> doesn't bother 
> > me to see a standards body restricted access document 
> listed first in 
> > the results. If I really need to see the information I'll head to a 
> > library or have my employer buy it.
> 
> I agree with those results on Google Scholar and Google 
> Books; after all, that's what they are for. But it really 
> bugs me when the first page of hits on a search item in plain 
> Google turn out to be irrelevant or paid sources
> -- which are irrelevant for me, and for a large majority of 
> users. There was a time where this was not so.
> 
> Whether money changes hands or not, indexing sources where 
> the subscribers are only a tiny minority among the general 
> Google users is more a nuisance than a service. It is not 
> much more than advertising for those paid-for services, 
> without much usefulness otherwise. 
> 
> I really would like an option to blank those results out. 
> They do me no good. I found Google was better when they weren't there.
> 
> Gerhard


Fixing subscriptions is harder than it looks.

You have the ones mentioned which are paid only, but Google magically
manages to read.

Then there are situations when the content is free, but requires free
registration, such as YahooGroups and some newspapers.  You have
www.newscientist.com which provides page 1 of some articles, but you need to
subscribe to see the rest.  Newspapers like www.smh.com.au show articles for
10 days, content older than this requires payment.

Removing subscriber links will remove a lot of stuff.  Ok, YahooGroups stuff
usually doesn't show up, but it would be nice if it did.

Like Paul, I'd prefer to see that the information exists, but perhap Google
can add a "Subsciber" or "$ubscriber" code to the result.

Tony

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