The Sites That Blekko Bans

Upstart search engine Blekko has its work cut out for it going up against the big boys, but it’s worked hard to distinguish itself as offering a different kind of search, adding a human touch to algorithms: First, with its unique slashtag system, and then by fighting against the “content farms” responsible for the alleged decline in search quality. Search watchers complain that the likes of eHow and ChaCha game Google search and clutter up the first-page results with low-quality, ever-present results, which make it harder to find what one is looking for, but turn a tidy profit for the content farms, which likely spent far less producing the content than a ‘legitimate’ source might have.

So Blekko has gone ahead and cut the Gordian knot: According to TechCrunch, rather than trying to find algorithmic ways to punish these sources, Blekko is simply banning content from what it says are the biggest offenders.

Here’s the current list of banned sites:

ehow.com

experts-exchange.com

naymz.com

activehotels.com

robtex.com

encyclopedia.com

fixya.com

chacha.com

123people.com

download3k.com

petitionspot.com

thefreedictionary.com

networkedblogs.com

buzzillions.com

shopwiki.com

wowxos.com

answerbag.com

allexperts.com

freewebs.com

copygator.com

Good idea/bad idea?

(via TechCrunch)