NEWS

Yahoo Extends Deadline for Deletion of Yahoo Groups Data

Published

2 years ago

December 13, 2019

Yahoo is extending the date that it plans to delete all Yahoo Groups data, which was originally scheduled to happen this week.

It was announced in October that all content on Yahoo Groups would be deleted by December 14. Now, Yahoo says it will not delete Groups data until January 31, 2020.

A Verizon Media spokesperson sent the following statement via email:

“We are amazed at the vibrant community Yahoo Groups has become, which is why we want to support our Groups users through the next phase of the transition by providing a way to download previously posted content. Yahoo Groups is not going away – but we are making adjustments to ultimately serve you better.”

Yahoo also confirmed the deadline extension on Twitter:

We will stop making the content available or viewable from the https://t.co/AI347YbZxo portal at 11:59 PM PT on Dec 14, 2019, but we will not delete it until all requests submitted prior to Jan 31, 2020 have been processed.
— Yahoo Customer Care (@YahooCare) December 10, 2019

Users now have until January 31 to request a download of their Yahoo Groups data. The content will no longer be viewable on the web after December 14, but Yahoo assures users that data will not be deleted until all requests submitted by January 31 are processed.

Yahoo Groups is not as relevant as it once was, but it does hold a significant amount of the internet’s early history. Jason Scott of The Internet Archive has pledged to preserve as much Yahoo Groups content as possible, which means it might not all be lost forever.

Of COURSE Archive Team is going to go after it. We will take a huge-ass snapshot, and people will lose ALL the functionality of access, search, reference. That’s the price that’s paid – we turn things into snapshots instead of reference books and living things.
— Jason Scott (@textfiles) October 16, 2019

Individual users can download any content they’ve posted on Yahoo Groups from the privacy dashboard of their Yahoo account. Once the content is deleted after January 31, the only thing users will be able to do on the platform is email members of groups they belong to.

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NEWS

Google December Product Reviews Update Affects More Than English Language Sites? via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Published

5 months ago

December 28, 2021

Roger Montti

Google’s Product Reviews update was announced to be rolling out to the English language. No mention was made as to if or when it would roll out to other languages. Mueller answered a question as to whether it is rolling out to other languages.

Google December 2021 Product Reviews Update

On December 1, 2021, Google announced on Twitter that a Product Review update would be rolling out that would focus on English language web pages.

Our December 2021 product reviews update is now rolling out for English-language pages. It will take about three weeks to complete. We have also extended our advice for product review creators: https://t.co/N4rjJWoaqE
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 1, 2021

The focus of the update was for improving the quality of reviews shown in Google search, specifically targeting review sites.

A Googler tweeted a description of the kinds of sites that would be targeted for demotion in the search rankings:

“Mainly relevant to sites that post articles reviewing products.
Think of sites like “best TVs under $200″.com.
Goal is to improve the quality and usefulness of reviews we show users.”

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Google also published a blog post with more guidance on the product review update that introduced two new best practices that Google’s algorithm would be looking for.

The first best practice was a requirement of evidence that a product was actually handled and reviewed.

The second best practice was to provide links to more than one place that a user could purchase the product.

The Twitter announcement stated that it was rolling out to English language websites. The blog post did not mention what languages it was rolling out to nor did the blog post specify that the product review update was limited to the English language.

Google’s Mueller Thinking About Product Reviews Update

Product Review Update Targets More Languages?

The person asking the question was rightly under the impression that the product review update only affected English language search results.

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But he asserted that he was seeing search volatility in the German language that appears to be related to Google’s December 2021 Product Review Update.

This is his question:

“I was seeing some movements in German search as well.
So I was wondering if there could also be an effect on websites in other languages by this product reviews update… because we had lots of movement and volatility in the last weeks.
…My question is, is it possible that the product reviews update affects other sites as well?”

John Mueller answered:

“I don’t know… like other languages?
My assumption was this was global and and across all languages.
But I don’t know what we announced in the blog post specifically.
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But usually we try to push the engineering team to make a decision on that so that we can document it properly in the blog post.
I don’t know if that happened with the product reviews update. I don’t recall the complete blog post.
But it’s… from my point of view it seems like something that we could be doing in multiple languages and wouldn’t be tied to English.
And even if it were English initially, it feels like something that is relevant across the board, and we should try to find ways to roll that out to other languages over time as well.
So I’m not particularly surprised that you see changes in Germany.
But I also don’t know what we actually announced with regards to the locations and languages that are involved.”

Does Product Reviews Update Affect More Languages?

While the tweeted announcement specified that the product reviews update was limited to the English language the official blog post did not mention any such limitations.

Google’s John Mueller offered his opinion that the product reviews update is something that Google could do in multiple languages.

One must wonder if the tweet was meant to communicate that the update was rolling out first in English and subsequently to other languages.

It’s unclear if the product reviews update was rolled out globally to more languages. Hopefully Google will clarify this soon.