DEV Community: Daniel Cuttridge

Developers need to turn their attention to 'infosites'

Daniel Cuttridge — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 13:50:06 +0000

Most people's tech heroes are Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds, Jack Dorsey, and co. I like them too - though I find myself most interested in names like Jimmy Wales, Jack Herrick, and of course, Tim Berners-Lee. Each responsible for the creation of the informational empires they are now most credited for.

Information on the web offers access to what you could not get outside of college lecture halls, for everyone. At the individual level, it can help save lives, or show you how to change a lightbulb... In millions of big and small ways, access to free & accurate information makes things better for people.

Despite that quality infosites (informational websites), such as Wikipedia, are among some of the most important contributions to the web since its inception, they don't get a lot of positive attention. Perhaps this is because of what we value as a society, and I think that is part of it... But it is not the only reason.

There are now low-quality sites that are pumped out daily by those looking to make a quick buck. We also see traditional news publishers getting in on the action, dishing out affiliate guides alongside the ever more paywalled journalistic pieces. The information is often biased, the reviews often fake, and a lot of us know it.

When you consider both of these things, it is not hard to see why more skilled professionals do not look at infosites as a good use of their time or ability. In the late 00s, the rise of so-called 'rags to riches' social media giants helped this process along. This helped even more computer scientists, developers, and software engineers lose interest in running infosites. It seemed like for the better part of a decade that everyone wanted to work at Google, Apple, and Facebook, or form their own startups. That is changing, but the change is slow.

Today, a lot of people who remember the 'wild west' days of the web are wishing it would go back to how it once was. I would include myself in this group, it was the old web that inspired me to learn to code in 2004. If I were now 14 again - looking at the web today - I am not sure I would bother. That said, I'm here, and so I have a responsibility to fix the problems that I see. With Project Urchin, for example, I decided to tackle an issue involving specific information being actively retracted from the web by companies looking for quick profits.

On the web, the freedom of information, the quality, and the accuracy of information are more at risk than ever. Also, let me be clear... There are not enough people working on these problems to stop the rot.

The many who wanted to work at the corporate tech companies are starting to understand that algorithms have squeezed the life out of the web. The hermetically-sealed filter bubbles that they helped create have diminished the web, and they know it. The problem is that as these talented developers, scientists, and engineers look outward, there is a good chance they will not look to the ecosystem as a whole. If people want the 'feeling' back from the old web, then we need to change what we look at as a good use of time and talent.

More evidence to the idea that informational sites have been overlooked is that we have not seen the full-potential of infosites. With so few talented tech-folk working on infosites, it is no surprise that most infosites out there are low tech. Most of these sites are 'Proudly powered by WordPress', which is sort of like driving a '67 Ford Anglia when everyone else has a Tesla. Yes, we have not seen much progress in these areas for over a decade, except for a few exceptions.

We need progression and reform at many levels...

Things have not only stagnated in terms of technology, but also the diversity of information out there. It is popular to blame Google and there is a lot of blame that is justified... For example, due to a variety of reasons their algorithms do not focus on the information itself as much as they could. It is now hard work to find sites you have not already heard of - even if better information exists. Yet, I do not think it is fair to place all of the blame on them, as individuals, we are also responsible. In one industry I have been involved in over the last 10 years, great articles do not get shared but average articles by big names do. I have also been witness to changing times - where once people blogged, people now tweet all day and speak at conferences.

This is not how things should be.

For those who still aren't convinced that infosites are worth the time and effort, just remember that the web is just an information ecosystem. Just like any ecosystem, there needs to be diversity and there needs to be balance. It is by that reckoning that infosites are a great health marker of the entire ecosystem of the web.

While I do think that social media can be a force for good - if implemented right - it is also not what people referred to when they said that the web is 'the great leveler'. It was around the time that social media really started to explode that people started to say the opposite. When people said the web could be the great leveler, this was based on utopian visions for collaboration, information-freedom, and social mobility.

Right now, wake-up call... It is not.

I love infosites because they enable us to help others, improve our society, and change the world. I also have to love them because I love the web. They are one of the foundational elements to what can enable the web to be great. We just need more people to acknowledge that. We also need better tech designed for it, and we need better minds working on it. There was a time when the web was little more than personal sites, informational sites, webrings, message boards, and forums. Things thrived, or we wouldn't be here. I also think it was that balance that so easily stirs our fondest memories of 'the wild west days of the web'.

Web builders need to look back if they want to move forward.

Should You Use The NoFollow Attribute?

Daniel Cuttridge — Fri, 11 Dec 2020 19:32:05 +0000

Originally posted on DanielCuttridge.com, and edited for brevity for Dev.to.

In 2019, Google introduced some new rel attributes for helping web developers to assist the search engine with understanding links.

rel="sponsored"
rel="ugc"

Sponsored is to denote that a post is sponsored, this includes paid guest posts.

UGC is to denote that it is User-generated Content.

They also announced that they would now be using the NoFollow attribute as a hint in the future.

NoFollow as Hint

Google wants to convince webmasters and developers to stop using the NoFollow attribute.

Do they have a good reason for doing this?

Sort of.

The SEO (Search Engine Optimization) industry has abused the NoFollow attribute for years to assist in Link Sculpting. This is a technique that evolved out of PageRank sculpting, where you selectively NoFollow links that you do not wish to pass any value to. This is only a half explanation. A now ex-Google employee, Matt Cutts, showed this was ineffective over 5 years ago. So that explanation does not make a lick of sense. I'm not convinced...

A better explanation is that they are hoping to convince websites to adopt this standard to assist in machine-learning. Google's fight against paid links is no secret, and they have also done nothing to hide the fact that they dislike user-generated content.

So is there a good reason for Google to introduce the attributes? For them, yes. For you, not really.

Killing Their Darlings

Google's Lighthouse Tool will flag generic anchor text on your website, such as 'Learn more' on buttons, as non-descriptive. The solution to this problem has always been to implement the NoFollow attribute. If developers stopped using NoFollow this would surely create issues for Google when determining relevance through anchor text. So it would seem reasonable to assume that their own team is not in full agreement on this particular set of changes.

Other Search Engines

It can be easy to forget about other search engines, but these can be important sources of traffic for many websites.

Bing and DuckDuckGo are not required to treat attributes in the same way as Google does. Other crawlers on the web may also choose to honor the NoFollow attribute. This isn't the web as Google wants it. We are not all developing for Google.

Don't Let These Changes Whip Up Fear

With Google using the NoFollow attribute as a 'hint' from now on, you shouldn't feel afraid to use the attribute when you aren't sure if it is necessary.

Should you be using NoFollow? I think we all know the answer to that, so long as it remains in the HTML5 spec.

WebP: Compress THEN Convert

Daniel Cuttridge — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 14:42:01 +0000

A common task on the web is converting images such as .png files into other formats, such as WebP.

WebP has often been criticized unfairly for not having full-native browser support until recent times. One criticism that was justified, was the actual filesize savings...

A JPG/JPEG file converted into WebP for example can often offer very little compared to simply compressing the JPG/JPEG.

Compressing prior to converting into the WebP format makes all the difference. In the case above, the total filesize reduction totaled 92.07% when compressed AND then converted.

Why Include Browser Updates As Part Of Your Dev Cycle?

Daniel Cuttridge — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 22:31:53 +0000

Browser updates and the development cycles of new versions of browsers seem to be increasing…

Chrome release history:
2019– 11 releases
2018– 8 releases
2017– 8 releases
2016– 8 releases

Disclaimer: I’m focusing on Chrome here and not Firefox as Chrome has around 70% market share for desktop users. Though all of my points hold equally valid with Mozilla Firefox as well.

In 2019 we saw some pretty big changes, and most of the big ones pertain to good things such as improved load times, security and privacy.

In order to achieve this, browsers are having to scrutinize websites more closely than ever.

This is changing the landscape online, and it’s costing brands, small businesses, and startups money...

Starting in Chrome 79 Google announced that they would start blocking what is called Mixed Content…

Mixed content would be any resource that loads with http:// on a https:// website.

This is a security measure, and any content that is “mixed” will contain insecure content.

Thankfully a lot of people are going to get away with it, as they are placing in provisions that will auto-upgrade content such as images to https:// by the time Chrome 81 released in February 2020.

Note: It can only do this if your site has an https:// version available, they aren’t accessing your site and changing it. Rather they are changing the file in the browser and then providing the alternative. This comes with an obvious speed or load time cost.

Additionally, this is important for SEO...

In 2019 Google rolled out an Evergreen version of Chromium for site rendering. This means that Google can finally see your website the same way as you do (for the most part).

As browsers continue to change what they will and won't display, the benefit to staying up to date with them is clear.

Stay up to date with the changes: