This Forum is on Google Now

[BigMoneyJim]

Google wouldn't search the old forum because of the "cgi-bin" URLs. The new software has search-engine-friendly URLs. It took a couple of weeks, but Google has added many of the posts to their search engine:

Google search for "site:early-retirement.org"

Last time I checked there were only 15-16 results for this query, almost all of which was non-forum stuff. Now there's well over 780 results.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

That has both ups and downs.

Nice that people can quickly find some of the stuff we've put up here and that people can easily find the forum.

But I can say for myself that I've said things here that I'd rather not be broadcast to any googler out there. I sort of liked that you had to come here and be part of the community to read it.

Since we've been on a sci-fi jag lately, I'm now reminded of the many stories written where we launched Voyager, happily letting a variety of unpleasant alien species know where we are and all about us.

 

[Marshac]

That has both ups and downs.

Nice that people can quickly find some of the stuff we've put up here and that people can easily find the forum.

But I can say for myself that I've said things here that I'd rather not be broadcast to any googler out there.  I sort of liked that you had to come here and be part of the community to read it.

We should put this to a vote maybe? A simple robots.txt will stop google...

 

[laurence]

Can't we wait and see what the dragnet brings in? If we are flooded with flotsam and jetsam we can browbeat them into leaving and then implement the counter measures. Honestly, I did not have ER on the brain until I tried to figure out what income stream my 401k would give me. At my work 62 is early, it's just not on the radar.

 

[unclemick]

My original 8% and 10% 401k/IRA lines on engineering graph paper had me retiring at age 63 with 1.3 mil and a full defined pension.

Life didn't work out that way. Yea! Whoopee!!!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

My concern wasnt so much with new visitors, but with the fact that I've maligned people and companies I've worked for and bought stuff from and would probably rather that didnt crop up in a standard google search. My liability insurance provider probably would like that too.

 

[Martha]

My concern wasnt so much with new visitors, but with the fact that I've maligned people and companies I've worked for and bought stuff from and would probably rather that didnt crop up in a standard google search. My liability insurance provider probably would like that too.

I'm with TH on this issue.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I've changed my user name and have a new tagline while this 'googling' menace exists...

 

[Nords]

My concern wasnt so much with new visitors, but with the fact that I've maligned people and companies I've worked for and bought stuff from and would probably rather that didnt crop up in a standard google search.  My liability insurance provider probably would like that too.

Google returns about 62,800,000 hits for "th" and  25,800 for your name.  "Nords" only got 87,300 hits and seven for my name.  Hey, what would Dubya say?  "Bring it on!"?

Are you implying that they can't handle the truth or that you wish that you hadn't spoken in a manner so unadorned with tact?  It can't be a concern that you wouldn't be able to get a job or a purchase order from them again...

I can understand wishing that sort of thing remains a secret, but it's not necessarily a disaster that it gets out.  (Although I understand that many people wish they'd deleted their Usenet rants AFTER Google archived them.)  It's only libel/slander if it's NOT proved true, right?  You may lose a few invitations to country club birthday parties but if these people were still good (or at least respected) friends then there wouldn't have been any (possibly Freudian) urges to post in the first place.

Just like billions of others, once I e-mailed my boss concerning a fellow department head's seeming lack of cooperation with doing things my way.  In the e-mail I used the phrase "or else I'll ram it down her throat" which could have been interpreted in a wide variety of unfortunate ways.  A microsecond after I pressed the "Send" button I realized that I'd mistakenly ("Freudianly"?) used the "Reply All" feature instead of to just my boss.  I never heard a word from anyone (except the routine obligatory "There, there, Nords, try to get along nicely with others" from the boss) but the fellow DH's behavior problems cleared right up.  (No sexual harassment complaints, either.)  My point is that a little unvarnished truth overheard by naked emperors while you're clearly talking in presumed confidence to others isn't always a bad thing.

Besides, from the way you describe them, I doubt they'd be interested in doing a Google search on the subject anyway.  And you know that GE isn't agonizing over how to improve their refrigeration quality numbers, either...

You can always tell them that I said it.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I'm thinking more like I have ~20 pictures of my son on here, a post thats read-only with the date of his birth, and enough read-only posts of what town I live in...thats enough to make me a little bit nervous.

The stuff I said about people I worked with or companies I worked for is somewhat bothersome in the context that many might be considering ER'ing and might land on some of it. Dont really care about that.

GE still sucks.

But then again, You Dont Know Me!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Hmmm...thats interesting...I went to look at the 'old boards' and got a very weird page layout...just the first three fori (help, news, faq), and then a double 'pages 1 2 3 4 5 6' at the bottom. Looks like the other sub-fori are gone or unavailable. Which for the purpose of the above referenced concern is perfectly ok with me.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Nope, they're not gone, just not directly addressable. A seartch pulls up the threads in the sub-fori that arent visible.

 

[dory36]

We merged the old posts into the new structure where applicable. So they will still be available in seartches. Or searches.

 

[MJ]

I'm thinking more like I have ~20 pictures of my son on here, a post thats read-only with the date of his birth, and enough read-only posts of what town I live in...thats enough to make me a little bit nervous.

The stuff I said about people I worked with or companies I worked for is somewhat bothersome in the context that many might be considering ER'ing and might land on some of it. Dont really care about that.

You're right ydkm to be a little concerned. But it's too bad since the nice thing about this forum was the personal sharing that we sometimes have.

mj

 

[laurence]

I hope that the implication here isn't for us to get cryptic and not share personal tidbits of life. That would take a lot of the joy out, since we all know life is more than money, otherwise why would we want to ER? I mean, if somebody had an axe to grind, I'm sure they could find me no matter how mysterious I was on this board, or didn't post at all.

 

[dory36]

I've changed my user name and have a new tagline while this 'googling' menace exists...

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

 

[dory36]

Google wouldn't search the old forum because of the "cgi-bin" URLs. The new software has search-engine-friendly URLs. It took a couple of weeks, but Google has added many of the posts to their search engine:

Google search for "site:early-retirement.org"

Last time I checked there were only 15-16 results for this query, almost all of which was non-forum stuff. Now there's well over 780 results.

We have both hit the big time, and inserted so much stuff in Google that our privacy is once again assured. Sort of like burying the stuff you don't want the boss to see in the midst of a long report. It is there, but he'll never see it.


Searching for "dryer sheets" on google, and limiting the search to our forum, using http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=dryer+sheets+site:early-retirement.org gets:
Results 1 - 10 of about 7,860 from early-retirement.org for dryer sheets

OK, having said that, is there real concern about being googled? The way I look at it, public is public, and if someone searching for dryer sheets happens across our site, nothing much will be lost. Those looking for e-r issues will quickly find Intercst's site, and we are linked from there, so there is no way any of these posts will be private unless we make it members-only, and that seems unreasonable.

Personally, my accidental discovery of Intercst's e-r site speeded up my retirement by at least 5 years, and if we can help someone else with similar motivations, why not?

However, most of the people I have bad-mouthed are 10,00 miles away, so I may be less sensitive to this than others...

John Smith

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Dear JS...(I used to have a john smith that worked for me, and I always used to call him up and ask him what his REAL name was

Only two things I was mildly concerned about are that a bunch of wealthy people who obviously use computers a lot because they're here in an online forum might be a very good source of targets for identity theft, and that I gave out probably too much personal information regarding our newborn. I deleted the info on the ankle-biter that concerned me.

That I bad mouthed a lot of idiots at my old company (and others) doesnt bug me as much. It might be disappointing for people who still work there to read some of the stuff and discover that they work for a moron, or that the company is managed in part by deranged baboons, but they probably already know that. That I might have divulged a few pieces of information that would have been considered 'non-disclosure' might be a problem, but most of what I talked about has already been released and I would doubt my old buddies in baboonland would sue me over some tidbit or two of old info.

Now, if Digital were still around and I told you a few more things about tops-10 and saturn developments that were derailed, I could be in some very, very serious trouble

GE still sucks.

 

[Eagle43]

I have deliberately not mentioned MegaCorp's real name, my profession, or anything that could be attributed to them. That doesn't mean that an employee who knew me couldn't figure it out. I just believe that most will not care what I say. It's not like they haven't heard it before (to use a double negative).

Eagle43, Eagle 44, Eagle 45, Eagle 46, Eagle 1/2