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Google released an extension for the firm’s Chrome web browser which enables users to block sites from web search results and feed these results back to Google.
"We’ve been exploring different algorithms to detect content farms, which are sites with shallow or low-quality content," wrote Google principal engineer Matt Cutts on the Google blog.
"One of the signals we’re exploring is explicit feedback from users," he said. The experimental Personal Blocklist extension is designed to block domains and hosts from appearing in Google search results.
Cutts said that the extension sends the blocked site information back to Google and that the firm would examine the feedback with a few to using it as a "ranking signal" for Google’s main search results.
Sites may be blocked via a link that appears underneath search results and the sites can be revoked by either selecting a link which shows blocked search results or by accessing the extension icon in the top right hand window of the Chrome browser.
