Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
Search engines think I plagiarized my own content My Hacker News Case Study (semking.com)
5 points by semking on Jan 2, 2025 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments


Being the author, the plagiarist and the victim is a strange experience, especially when you are a senior organic growth strategist!

It all started on December 18, 2024 after I shared one of my articles entitled "Google, the search engine that’s forgotten how to search" on Hacker News.

This was my first time on HN. My article got 100+ comments in a few hours and the upvotes reached 80 points.

Sure, that’s not much but I was happy because I discovered an intellectually curious community, clearly more technically proficient than most!

And then, my critical article about Google Search got shadow-banned by… Google and Bing!

Here's what happened to me and how you can protect yourself as a tiny web publisher or content creator!


It turns out 9,300+ word articles are NOT popular on Hacker News! :)


The past article discussed in this case study is available here:

"Google, the search engine that’s forgotten how to search"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42446995

https://semking.com/google-search-real-user-feedback/


Someone at Mozilla apparently created links to my PREVIOUS article after reading today's case study demonstrating how Google and Bing shadow-banned the content!

Thank you, whoever you are and I cannot wait to see if this will lead to major SERP changes in the coming weeks ;)




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: