Post #2881314

2026-05-21 14:24 UTC

Assuming Google goes through with their newly announced changes, there&#39;s no longer any reason to not block their crawlers, right? They aren&#39;t going to be sending anyone to your site, just stealing what you wrote and rewording it with errors. So.… why not just block them?

Replies (9)

@xerz@masfloss.net 2026-05-21 14:26

@cancel@merveilles.town if you block them, it's harder for the agents to know you exist and even do as much as quote or link to you but yeah

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@d6@merveilles.town 2026-05-21 14:26

@cancel@merveilles.town agreed -- i had already given up on organic search and blocked them but that feels like a much less fringe position now.

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@khm@hj.9fs.net 2026-05-21 14:30

been blocking them for at least ten years, possibly longer. it has not affected my life in any way. strong recommend

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@liquor_american@universeodon.com 2026-05-21 16:07

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/116607455389757472 @cancel@merveilles.town Yep. Paul Cantrell had a few good posts about this yesterday: https://universeodon.com/@inthehands@hachyderm.io/116607455480400537

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@brib@bribstodon.xyz 2026-05-21 16:30

@cancel@merveilles.town why not just block them Because I like sending them to iocaine, that's why :))

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@Kierkegaanks@beige.party 2026-05-21 17:13

@cancel@merveilles.town could you make it so their crawlers only get random letters and numbers in return?

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@travisshears@dice.camp 2026-05-21 18:06

@cancel@merveilles.town Started blocking google a year or so ago on my personal site, via Anubis. https://anubis.techaro.lol

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@phooky@hexa.club 2026-05-21 19:02

@cancel@merveilles.town i am assuming they will eventually just crawl via VPNs, though.

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@saf@fosstodon.org 2026-05-22 15:59

@cancel@merveilles.town yeah

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