I don't see missing or blurred text in your example,

http://www.quora.com/Bayesian-Inference/How-do-Bayesian-algo...

I checked with two different browsers (Opera and Firefox under Windows).

Could this mean that the Quora PR machine is up in full swing trying to undo damage (at least in the case of specific links that people cite)?

Did you scroll all the way down? Still blurry here: http://imgur.com/Bbifs (on google chrome)

Although I see in the html source there are some html comments "googleoff". I've never heard of those before.

I guess "googleon"'ing the first answer is enough to get google juice while staying within the letter of rules, it's still really spammy.

(Plus, how does that play with other search engines?)

Yes, you're right, I can see the blurring in certain cases now.

If I go to the link you cited directly it is not blurred.

But I if search for "How do Bayesian algorithms work" in Google, then click the link that Google finds, then it is blurred.

Once you get the blurred Quora page, then even going to the link directly will get you a blurred page. If you delete all the Quora cookies, then it'll be back to being readable (non-blurred).

Interestingly, if you use Google's encrypted service ( https://encrypted.google.com/ ) to search for "How do Bayesian algorithms work", you'll get a non-blurred Quora page.

I'm pleased -- perhaps -- in that enough Googlers read HN that now maybe this blurring BS will be addressed.

Of course, it will be addressed by another "true name" purveyor. My head hurts.

IIRC, https sites do not send referer, so that makes sense.

https sites sends referers only to other https sites (even crossdomain), but not when navigating from https to http.

I can't see those in the HTML, whether I'm logged in or not, but I have used googleoff & googleon in HTML comments before - they're used to control which parts of a page can be ignored when using a Google Search Appliance.

So, if Quora use a GSA (or rack of them) to power their site search, they can ensure parts of the page aren't added to the index of the search. This can be helpful if you want to exclude areas that are repeated a lot in the site but are not helpful if you are searching, like navigation or help panels.

(Quick edit) googleoff/googleon are completely ignored by normal Google, AFAIK it's only used for their Appliance products.

Interesting, it's not blurred for me either, although the other day I remember it was.

I tried this in Firefox and Chrome in both normal and Private/Incognito modes.

It looks like they've changed it. I added quora to my list of blocked domains in google immediately after noticing the blurred responses... I don't think I'll remove them.

Unreadable to humans with sight. Screen readers don't care! :-)

Matt Cutts does, though. I'm sure he'll look into it, if we ask him. :)

Just do "select all" (CTRL+A) to see all Quora hidden content.

Source: http://nerdr.com/see-quora-answers-without-signing-up/

I just tried, didn't work. (Firefox on a Mac, select all with command-A.)

Presumably I could View Source or something; but hey, there's no shortage of info on the web without the silly hoops.

I know this is not on topic, but I wrote that answer! It's a huge kick to see it on a random HN comment. :D