Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Has anyone noticed this before?

When i go to Google and type 'Guns N' Roses' in the search box, the first site it finds is the official site, www.gnronline.com

but check out what it says in the site description:

Guns N' Roses Official Site
Includes news, tour dates and information on Chinese Democracy due November 2004.

MY GOD, is this s**t official or what???  :beer:

Chinese Democracy is about to start  :smoking:


 

Interesting, to say the least. But where does that text come from? I tried checking out the source code, but couldn't find the bit anywhere.

Wow... that is rather exciting.  However, I will be even more excited when some sort of press release is given and posted on their "no news found" page.

Holy shit - ur right - it does say that :beer:

Before i get my hopes up - is there any one in the entire world other than gnronline's webmaster that can change whats written in that description? Maybe it was google that wrote that.....and not gnr's team......

where does it say that?.......... help me see.

google.com

-guns n roses

-Guns N' Roses Official Site
Includes news, tour dates and information on Chinese Democracy due November 2004.

 :smoking:

i think that these top spots on google can be bougth.
but i dont know who decide what's gonna be written under the link .... maybe the people from the link, maybe interscope random guy who bougth the spot ...  ::)

C'mon its not gonna be some random guy from interscope writing the link

Jarmo - did u write the description for ur site on google or does google do it for u?

We must find out who wrote that description, if its google then  :crying: but if only gnronline's webmaster can.... :drool:

THE DESCRIPTION IS WRITTEN IN YOUR META TAGS. ONLY THE WEBMASTER CAN DO THAT.

(http://www.rockview.net/cdnovember.JPG)[/img]

That's what I was thinking, but shouldn't the line then be visible in the page's source code?

yer but there are no meta tags in the code, so im thinking they cant be read....i dunno how to do tht tho...

I have a website myself, and when I wanted it to show on google, I had to type in the description for the site.
I think it has to be someone in the guns camp that has written it.

Wow! Im stunned!

Its the closest thing to official news on CD i've seen.

Ive always wondered how we'll learn the release date oneday, im expecting to oneday visit gnronline.com and see a massive.. CHINESE DEMOCRACY.. IN STORES XX/XX/XXXX!

Maybe as times passes and little adjustments are made to get the announcement and news ready, we'll pick up on them and know what's coming  ;)

This sounds like a job for mysteron or jarmo to check out

Must be official.. I mean nobody from google would pick up on the rumour from BTM and put it in to attract attention or anything.. what do they care?

Maybe the record co. got BTM to announce a Nov date and put the google thing in, to start really mounting pressure on Axl?

Its exciting anyway! Things are looking good!

wow, this was actually a bit exciting! :D

Now I'm excited.
This is indeed official. Nobody else except the webmaster of GNRonline could have done this, so I assume it is for real.


/lastroots

Who knows, maybe we have a BIG gnronline.com update ahead of us...round 2...  :smoking:

when that 'privacy policy' showed up @www.gnronline.com?
i havnt checked that site for a while so its something new for me!

The privacy policy has been there for a long time mate.

Yeah...that is pretty cool. Wonder if November is indeed the plan or if (as GunnerDownUnder offered) perhaps it's the record company's slick way of adding more pressure on Axl. I'd like to believe the first line of reasoning, but as long as the album is released I don't care how it gets done at this point.

My site's desription is taken from the META tags.

Don't know about Gnronline though.



/jarmo

I'm starting to believe this now!!!

I wonder if this means the damn site will finally be updated. Could this be the positive news that we heard about from the GNR rumorboard?

I can not help finding this really really interesting...

Bests,

N ! 3 |(

Other search engines pull up different descriptions, so that makes me think that interscope either added the description to their google profile, or an overvelous google employee to some creative license with that site.

MSN Search talks about their upcomming plans to play the Hard Rock on New Years Eve.

Lycos talks about the privacy policy and the search of tour dates.

I wonder what Sanctuary "Deny Everything" Management has to say about this...? Could it be another faction of the media? ;D Just teasing! ;)

In any case, that backs up my theory, which is: Geffen/Interscope want to push that release, even if they have to force the band to do so. Why would they say on a Google search that the new album is due in Nov. 2004, if it's not true, or if the management is not ok with that? Hmmm...They may very well be trying to use the "trap" strategy: saying everywhere the album is due in Nov. 2004 (VH1, CNN, Google -- more to come?) so that the band has basically no choice: whether they agree or not, the album will be released. That might be part of their contract. Geffen must have some legal advantage in order to do that. We'll see...

I spoke with my company's SEO person (the person who handles submissions into website search engines) and she said the text must come from the website, there's no way they can enter the text that shows up.  She thought the text must have been there in the past, but I said that was impossible.

She's trying to figure out how it could have happened, and I've e-mailed Google to see what they say.

FUCK IT IM GETTING REALLY EXCITED NOW!!
ITS BETTER THAN HEARING NOTHING OR JUST HEARSAY AND NEGATIVE BOLLOCKS. I SAY CHINESE DEMOCRACY IS GETTING VERY CLOSE NOW. LOOK OUT FOR AN ANNOUNCEMENT ON THE 4TH AUGUST. NOTHING TO THIS OTHER THAN ITS MY 28TH BIRTHDAY AND SOMETHING ALWAYS SEEMS TO HAPPEN ON MY BIRTHDAY EVERY YEAR!!

I remember I saw something like that in other thread here about another search engine. So, I guess it's not only the Google people who predicted the november release date.

OK, well, she came up with a conclusion which isn't so good.  This might not be the case, but it makes sense.

Google tries to come up with the description based on content from the website.  But, there's no content on the website, so it finds the description from other websites.   If you search for the exact content of the description, with quotes around it, two other sites come up with this description - right after the gnronline.com website.  She said she saw this happen with another website we did, which had almost content for a couple of years, and and pretty soon the google description was pulled from other sites that linked to it.

Anyway, who knows for sure, hopefully google will respond to my question and let me know.

I don't know, I tried what you said and I got two sites indeed...but to me it seemed like those two web sites took their description from gnronline. You could be right though...and that would mean we're back to square one! :no:

That's what I thought too, but my coworker said there was no way they could force a description for the website, so there's no other way the text could have gotten there.  Of course, whether or not Google employees update descriptions if their friends ask is another question.  It does seem odd that the two other sites would have the exact same text, unless one of them it got it from the other.

This is the results I got from the search:

"news, tour dates and information on Chinese Democracy due November 2004"

Guns N' Roses Pics, Pictures, Photos, Photo Gallery, Picture, Pic - [ Traduzca esta p?gina ]
... available. Official Guns N' Roses site - Includes news, tour dates and
information on Chinese Democracy due November 2004. Here Today... ...
www.321celebs.com/guns_n_roses_pics.html - 15k - 18 Jul 2004 - En cach? - P?ginas similares

DWKC.com Music Directory - [ Traduzca esta p?gina ]
... Official Guns N' Roses site - Includes news, tour dates and information
on Chinese Democracy due November 2004. ? PopMatters ...
dwkc.com/directory/Top/Arts/ Music/Bands_and_Artists/G/Guns_N'_Roses/ - 61k - En cach? - P?ginas similares

Yep, those are the two sites.  I'm as excited as anyone about this being "the beginning", but I think my coworker might be right.

Google doesn't allow you to update your own description, and they pride themselves on offering non-biased results.  The first result for searching for the word "jew" was an anti-semetic site, and they included an apology for that result, but would not change the results because they didn't want to affect the search results anyway.   I don't know whether this same stance would fall over to something like a website description, but it seems likely.

If they can't enter their own description, then the text had to come from somewhere.  Both of those sites listed are directory sites, so if one of them entered that text, the other one could have just stolen the listings and used the same text.  Two sites having the exact same description after the name "gnronline.com" would be enough for google to use that as it's official description, if there was no real content on the website.

But again, I really don't know.   :peace:  I'm hoping for the best.

Ok, this is the other thread about the same description: http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/board/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=13447
The site is dmoz.org and it shows the exact same quote: http://dmoz.org/Arts/Music/Bands_and_Artists/G/Guns_N%27_Roses/ (http://dmoz.org/Arts/Music/Bands_and_Artists/G/Guns_N%27_Roses/)

Official Guns N' Roses site - Includes news, tour dates and information on Chinese Democracy due November 2004.

This was posted here in June 26. It was before BTM?

loretian is right i think.
and the /index.html file doesnt have any meta-tags.

it just how google works, and it seems that everything is pushing Axl to a november release, lol, google, vh1, his mom, elements, saint seiya knights, everybody.

if we start puting this sentence :

Chinese Democracy due November 2004

everywhere on our websites, it will grow, grow, grow until axl recieve a spam with that phrase in it :)

 :o

Because the official site doesn't have it's own description, it is defaulting to the description in the Google directory  : ok:

Although the information may turn out to be correct, no official date has yet been set (as you have probably guessed).... so please regard this information with your usual caution

Please note that this situation is being dealt with so please do not go bothering management or Google about this

And most importantly, be excellent to each other  :peace:

Yes, BTM was aired early July.

We always look at the management, but does anyone have any link/contact with Geffen? That would be interesting to get info from there.

Maybe november is a target, but nobody set the day yet.
BTW, you speak like Axl "be nice to each other"..  :hihi:

The reason I am not getting excited yet is because Yahoo and all these other search engines say the same old crap.Why is it they say different stuff?

If all the search engines said the same thing, then it would get boring. :D

damn, we are truly a cursed spieces. How many false alarms can a gnr fan endure? Why is every spec of hope immediately quashed.

Some friends and I watched all the Bill and Ted movies again on Saturday and had a few beers. Since then I keep on quoting the movies   :D Childish really  :rofl:

Absolutely bogus, were they?

yeah.  All of Google's search engine is automated anyway. Just like their Google News, and the Google Mail - there is no human intervention.   But I'm confused about how it came from the page's metatags and the results shown for other search engines.  


It's definitely intriguing, but a little too early to say if it's good.  ;)

EDIT:  So I refreshed the page, and read Mysteron's comment.  nevermind then. ;D

The description does not necessarily come from the meta tags. When you add a site to google, the ask you to enter a short description, which will later appear below your website.
http://www.google.com/addurl.html

But I haven't found a link yet to change that description

This confirms it!: MYSTERON IS AXL!  :rofl:

dogpile and webcrawler carry the same information, for what it's worth.

Exactly, and Google, the mostly automatic sonuvabitch it is, derives this information from the Dmoz directory. So basically, it's the Dmoz listing of GNR Online. I think Yahoo uses the Dmoz listings as well (or did use in the past), can't say why they show a different text. Maybe it'll show up once they update their categories ;D

I havent been on this forum that long so Im noit sure but


is mysteron Axl?  Seriously?  Someone on here must be Axl.  He seems to be the obvious choice.

and if CD doesnt come out in Nov.  I'm going to be really depressed.  

No , Mysteron is not axl. He is a very normal person who has a family member in the music buisness. He has some contact info with mangement and thats how he gets his answers. To be honest , any one of you guys could get the same answers mysteron gets just as easily.

 

The Magic 8 Ball (http://www.mattelgames.com/magic8/flash_index.asp) say "no".


 

Yes, seriously.



I've banned people who thought they were Axl. Does that count?



/jarmo

I don?t blame Jarmo, there are too many Axls on GNR boards. Starting with AxlFink,  Axl 23..

That's right  : ok:

That's right too

It's the people I know who pull the strings for me

I'm positive Axl's been here, but I doubt he comes back often, frankly it wouldn't be very healthy for him since there's so much negativity.  But, to be fair we all have a right to be pissed, some just excercise more patience than others.
I put no faith in the Google thing, but I still hold out hope that I'll see CD in the fairly near future.
Keep the faith, my GNR brethren, we have to be the most devoted fans ever.

This is right off of dmoz.org:

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.
The web continues to grow at staggering rates. Automated search engines are increasingly unable to turn up useful results to search queries. The small paid editorial staffs at commercial directory sites can't keep up with submissions, and the quality and comprehensiveness of their directories has suffered. Link rot is setting in and they can't keep pace with the growth of the Internet.  
Instead of fighting the explosive growth of the Internet, the Open Directory provides the means for the Internet to organize itself. As the Internet grows, so do the number of net-citizens. These citizens can each organize a small portion of the web and present it back to the rest of the population, culling out the bad and useless and keeping only the best content.
The Open Directory is the most widely distributed data base of Web content classified by humans.  Its editorial standards body of net-citizens provide the collective brain behind resource discovery on the Web.  The Open Directory powers the core directory services for the Web's largest and most popular search engines and portals, including Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others.

Now wait a sec! That Magic 8 Ball bit is MINE! I want credit when its used by other posters!
 ;) :) :hihi:

so it's dmoz problem. From where is their directory information gathered? other websites if the content of the website is empty ?

IT'S PEOPLE!!! Dmoz is made by PEOPLE!!!!!! AHHHH!!!!!!

Now It appears that if this is (I hope not but,,,) to go over the same path to GH, noone of us would make a petition this time perhaps. Would you?  ::)

What??

Sorry but I don?t know how to explain this further more than to read Will?s posts. (besides I'm tipsy!)

My fear is that it appears that this November release date was out before the BTM aired.  Now that makes me wonder if BTM did a google search and saw the anticipated release date and in turned used that in their show.

How funny would it be if BTM got that information from google.   :confused:  That of course would mean that we are no closer to knowing the release date of CD than we were before BTM aired. :(

-TyRod-

Well, according to VH1, that date came from both management and the label. Bottom line: someone is lying.

Anyway, it's been established that the google description came from DMOZ, right? And if it hasn't: that is where it came from. I have a website that is on a lot of search engines and it has no meta tags. They all take the description from DMOZ (which was set by me, mind you - they don't make their own description for sites).

I think in order to get to the complete bottom of what is going on, you'd have to find out who input that description to DMOZ.

I'm not an expert on Google or anything, but I know for a fact that a few months ago there was a trick where if you typed in "incompetent" or "idiot" or some derogatory term (I can't remember which) the first webpage that would pop up would be the official George W. Bush government website. So people can definitely do some tricks for humorous purposes (or mess-with-gnr-fans purposes) on google. My guess is that someone similar to those gnfr.com guys is just having a little fun with all of us.  ;)

Weird,When I go tognronline.com (http://gnronline.com)and click search the 2002 dates pop up I thought they took those down

doh!

me too?

Don't worry,I did a guns n roses google search after BTM (I was fuckin bored!) and it didn't say that

i guess you can be afraid...

WE ARE NO CLOSER to knowing the release date of CD than we were before BTM aired.!

 :crying:

I disagree. I think we will hear something before this summer is out.

But, you guys can't take search results seriously as proof that we are closer or further away from a possible release date.

I don't think that google got their information from dmoz, given that the dmoz.org search contains the following:

Guns N' Roses Official Web Site at Interscope Records - Includes news, tour dates, mailing list and merchandise.
-- http://www.gnronline.com/   Arts: Music: Bands and Artists: G: Guns N' Roses   (1)

FYI, back when the other thread was active, it most CERTAINLY gave the November release date.  I checked it myself.  I'm wondering WHEN that changed, and if it was changed as part of what Mysteron was referencing when he said it was being "handled".  I guess we'll have to wait a bit and see if the Google description changes over the next couple of days.

This is right off of dmoz.org:
Official Guns N' Roses site - Includes news, tour dates and information on Chinese Democracy due November 2004.

the above links right to gnronline

I'm not sure how dmoz.org works, but it definitely doesn't say Nov. 2004 for me either.

It was one of the first things I checked this morning, and I've checked throughout the day, and it still doesn't say 2004 for me (I even cleared my cache just to be sure)

How are you guys finding Guns N' Roses?  Are you browsing the directories?  I'm just searching for the text "guns n roses".

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Music/Bands_and_Artists/G/Guns_N%27_Roses/

it can also be reached by going to:
http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=Guns+N%27+Roses

then click on 1. Arts:  Music: Bands and Artists: G: Guns N' Roses
under Open Directory Categories (1-5 of 5)

It says november 2004 for me.

same with me...November 2004

Doesnt say Nov 2004 at dmoz.org for me now.

YAHOO:

1. Guns N' Roses Official Site  
No News Found. Privacy Policy. No Events Found. All Events. Upcoming Events. next week. next month. next year. last month. last year. All states/countries. Alabama. Alaska. Arizona. Arkansas. California. Colorado. Connecticut. Delaware
www.gnronline.com/ mais resultados deste site

So, just GOOGLE shows that ?

From that Dmoz link (http://dmoz.org/Arts/Music/Bands_and_Artists/G/Guns_N%27_Roses/):

Official Guns N' Roses site - Includes news, tour dates and information on Chinese Democracy.

did they change it to eliminate the november 2004 part??

Clear your cache Gunner?? I dunno why some people see it and some don't.  I've been looking at all these links, and the Nov 2004 still shows for me, even after clearing my cache a few times. Comps are fucked up things lol

This whole thing has me slightly optimistic.  Although, the cynical part of me says that someone, somewhere, saw that VH1 thing and put it in a description.  Whether Google picked it up elsewhere or someone at Google put it in manually, I dunno.  

Then again, I don't know much about comps in general so who knows  :-\

Oh,so you're the one who started these rumors on that other message board,but hey I did the search and it does say that,maybe we'll get the album soon :beer:

It's fairly easy to modify your existing Dmoz listing and this is something you can basically do yourself. One of the things you can do with a simple form (http://dmoz.org/cgi-bin/update.cgi?where=Arts/Music/Bands_and_Artists/G/Guns_N%27_Roses) is to "Suggest a new description when the scope of the site has changed." Basically, it could be done by anyone willing to give a valid e-mail addy, although every submission does go through validation. I wouldn't be very much surprised either if someone representing, say, management, contacted the category editors directly. Anyway, it's gone now.

I think Google will now catch the new description within a month or so, the next time they do an update.

Look at this screenshot I've made:
http://8ung.at/karle34/dmoz.gif

That's how the left screenshot is made:
And that's how the right screenshot is made:

strange.....  :confused:

Says November 2004 for me. This is odd in the fact that it shows up for some and not others.

The fact is, a search engine is not going to 'break' the Chinese Democracy Wall of Secrecy. Vh1 is still the best info we have. We know that managment told vh1 that November was the slated release month. We know other sites have picked up Vh1's snippet. Managament denies when asked directly, though issues no public denial in the form of a press clipping. These are the facts. Still more reason than not to think that November is the target date, doesnt mean anything'll happen, but it might.

P.S. (I get November 2004 on my search  ;) )

It won't disappear from Google for a while. What matters is that it's gone from Dmoz. If any of you still see it there, try refreshing the site, then clear your browser's cache and page history.


Truest words of the whole thread.

Well looks like the mods and their "management" were wrong. I now know who and not to believe if they say they are friends with Geffen and have inside information and whatnot.

Nah.. here's link to a Norwegian search site:
http://search.kvasir.no/query?q=Guns+N%27+Roses&what=web

But as said before, the info is taken from dmoz

Weird, the nov. 2004 disappeared for me now, on that dmoz web site.

It just says "...on Chinese Democracy" where it says before "...on Chinese Democracy due November 2004".

From what we gathered, it seems like "someone" modified that description as soon as the word spread out...Very odd. Looks like "someone" doesn't want that date to be spread. That behind the scenes stuff is very weird! :nervous:

Maybe, someone told them to change it:smoking:

:drool: Maybe that someone was axl maybe he has been on the board and seen this post maybe

Google.dk:

Guns N' Roses Official Site
Includes news, tour dates and information on Chinese Democracy due November 2004.
www.gnronline.com/ - 2k - Cached - Lignende sider

The key words.... Who wrote that information????

It's nothing fantastical. The information came from the Google directory/dmoz

They have now changed their info

End of story

FYI, I e-mailed Google about this when we first found out about it (sorry, Mysteron, I did this before you asked us to not e-mail Google about it).

They said the description was triggered by the two sites that list GNROnline.com, who apparently got their info from Dmoz.  The google directory listing also came from this, so it was the Dmoz listing that originally triggered it, but the two pages that listed the text that actually caused Google to use the description.

Not that it matters anyway.   :)  :peace:

The official GnR website gnronline has been recently changed.  Although you cannot see anything new at the site, if you Google it the description is as follows: Includes news, tour dates and information on Chinese Democracy due November 2004

Also there is not a "cached" version of it on Google so I believe this means google has not scanned a new version of it.. Maybe another clue to an upcoming announcement? Or just a hoax?

We have a thread on this in the main forum, and it was confirmed that the description on google for the site originated from the dmoz.org listing, which could have been entered by anyone.  It definitely didn't come from the gnronline.com site.

bastards  :crying:

so Axl/ Interscope has spent 15 million or so on the album, they'll need to spend probably a few million promoting the hell out of it to make Axl look sane, and the first salvo in the promotional blitz is a 6 word blurb on the google search description for the official site?

wow, we really will cling to ANYTHING we can get our hands on huh?

Another let down.  What's that, like 1,000?

www.gnronline.com seems to be down today....

Maybe theres going to be a massive update!!!!!


Or maybe not.

Or not... lol

www.interscope.com is down too. They have a pretty shitty host/server. They're down like 20-30% of the time.

Both gnronline and interscope are back up. Guess what? No update!

Wow, that official website is pretty generic. Only 2 links, News and Tour dates, and both have nothing there. I wonder if Axl is upset at Google for saying CD will be released from his official site?

Gnronline.com is Interscope's GN'R site.

Originally created to promote Live Era and Oh My God.


I don't know how much the band has to do with that site.


/jarmo

And don't forget the '02 tour!

:)

Well, Live Era and Oh My God were released in 1999 which was before 2002...... So it was originally created in 1999 and then used in 2002. ;)



/jarmo

Sorry if this has been posted before, but I've only just noticed that when you type Guns n Roses into google, and the official site link comes up, there is a line of text which says something like ''Info on the November 2004 chinese Democracy release date''.

Is this new or not?

Should I be excited?

No, don't get excited.  This is researched in another thread.
/Mike

Thanks Mike, hadn't been on for a while  :drool: