1) Google _IS_ indexing RSS 2.0. Whether or not it is doing so as aggressively as it is attempting to index RSS 1.0 and ATOM is the question, and it hasn’t yet been answered conclusively. I tried to point that out.
2) Google _DOES NOT_ “own” the RSS 1.0 and ATOM formats.
3) They _DO NOT_ own the _ONLY_ tools available to create those formats. I can create an ATOM feed with almost _ANY_ tool available.

I’m curious, would there be _ANY_ outrage at all if Google was excluding RSS 1.0 or ATOM? What if Blogger only produced RSS 2.0 feeds? Would that still be tying? If that were the case, the facts would be the same (only the names would have changed), yet there would be no complaint. There’d probably be a little note on Scripting News with a little italicized “bing!” next to it.

“If you want to have a productive discussion, maybe you should *try* to present the argument you don’t agree with in a slightly reasonable way.”

Hmm…I linked directly to the entirety of Dave’s original argument. Shouldn’t that be sufficient? The great value of the web is that I don’t *need* to restate what he said…I can just link to his opposing view.

In this case, I tried to present the *evidence* and interpret it to the best of my ability. Dave didn’t even wait for more than a smattering of superficially suspicious data to come in before rendering his verdict.

The superficially suspicious data you speak of is a server log transcript from my own webserver. I have to ask – do you seriously think someone would go to the trouble of fabricating such data ? If so – you are the one with tinfoil on your head.

walter

I said it was superficially suspicious, not fabricated. It’s outlandish to suggest that I’ve ever implied the data is fabricated. A woefully inconclusive and inadequate basis for such sweeping accusations, yes. Fabricated? No.

In fact, additional data, including my own logs (also un-fabricated), suggest that GoogleBot’s behavior belies a far less nefarious plan.

It is totally different from the word processor analogy above, because Atom is an open format that any software can use, whereas WP formats are typically quite hard to clone.

I just don’t see how this matters except to certain people whose egos are invested in the success of certain formats. It doesn’t seem that there is any nontrivial business issue at stake here.

I make that very point (although much more verbosely; kudos for brevity) in a follow-up to the current post:

http://www.h2os.org/archives/2004/04/22/do_formats_really_matter_that_much

Again, my logs, as well those of some of the commentators at photomatt show that Google is, in fact, regularly indexing RSS 2.0 feeds. Mine has been indexed eleven times since April 1st.

Jumping to conclusions based on limited data is not justified by saying that it was all you had to work with. The evidence was obviously inconclusive. Additional research should’ve been done before publishing any conclusion.

Frankly, such research wouldn’t have been tough as Google appears to have indexed your rss.xml file:

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=rss.xml+site%3Ascripting.com&btnG=Search

I don’t know how often they index yours, but they index mine nearly every other day. No exclusion going on.

In fact, they seem to know about Walter’s rss.xml as well:

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=rss.xml+site%3Axanadb.com&btnG=Search