View source for Experts Exchange

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{{Infobox website
| name           = Experts Exchange
| logo           = Experts Exchange logo.svg
| screenshot     =
| caption        =
| url            = {{URL|experts-exchange.com}}
| commercial     = Yes
| type           =
| language       = English
| registration   = Yes
| owner          = Randy Redberg
| author         =
| launch_date    = 1996
| current_status = Active
| revenue        = 
}}

'''Experts Exchange''' ('''EE''') is a website for people in [[information technology]] (IT) related jobs to ask each other for tech help, receive instant help via chat, hire freelancers, and browse tech jobs. Controversy has surrounded their policy of providing answers only via paid subscription.

== History ==
Experts Exchange went live in October 1996. The first question asked was for a "Case sensitive Win31 HTML Editor".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/10000001/Case-sensitivite-Win31-HTML-Editor.html|title=Case sensitivite Win31 HTML Editor|publisher=Experts Exchange|date=1996-10-08}}</ref>

Experts Exchange went bankrupt in 2001<ref>{{cite web|url=http://geekswithblogs.net/gyoung/articles/60933.aspx|title=Patterns aren't just for software. (Copy of Experts Exchange's newsletter on 2005/10/04)|author=Young, Greg|access-date=2008-02-24}}</ref> after venture capitalists moved the company to [[San Mateo, CA]], and was brought back largely through the efforts of unpaid volunteers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.experts-exchange.com/Community_Support/Input/Q_20462342.html#7754371|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120729152807/http://www.experts-exchange.com/Community_Support/Input/Q_20462342.html%237754371|url-status=dead|archive-date=2012-07-29|title=Expert-Exchange's Topic|publisher=Experts-Exchange|date=2003-01-18|access-date=2007-02-12}}</ref>

Later, Austin Miller and Randy Redberg took ownership of Experts Exchange, and the company was made profitable again. Experts Exchange claims to have more than 3 million solutions.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.experts-exchange.com/threeMillionSolutions.jsp|title=Experts-Exchange 3 million solutions|access-date=2011-04-04|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110426152310/http://www.experts-exchange.com/threeMillionSolutions.jsp|archive-date=26 April 2011}}</ref> Its users are mainly young to middle-aged males in the IT field.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.quantcast.com/experts-exchange.com|title=Audience profile for Experts-Exchange|publisher=Quantcast|access-date=2008-09-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019062452/http://www.quantcast.com/experts-exchange.com|archive-date=19 October 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref>

== Paywall ==
In the past, the site employed [[HTTP cookie]] and [[HTTP referer]] inspection to display content selectively. The page shown employed [[JavaScript]] to display answers to humans after some content showing how to become a member. Subsequently, when an internal link was clicked by the user, they were blocked from viewing the answer information until either becoming a paid member or spoofing their browser's [[User Agent]] string to that of a search engine [[webcrawler|crawler]] such as [[GoogleBot]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.walkernews.net/2007/08/18/how-to-bypass-experts-exchange-membership-restriction/ |title=Experts Exchange Sucks Now? Make It Work For You Again! |publisher=Walkernews.net |date=2007-08-18 |access-date=2012-11-27}}</ref>

In response to these obfuscation techniques, which prevented anonymous users from seeing answer content, a few members of the community wrote articles<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.coffeepowered.net/2009/02/07/desuckifying-experts-exchange/ |title=Desuckifying Experts Exchange |publisher=Coffeepowered.net |date=2009-02-07 |access-date=2012-11-27 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121126232939/http://www.coffeepowered.net/2009/02/07/desuckifying-experts-exchange/ |archive-date=26 November 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rustyrazorblade.com/2007/07/experts-exchange-should-be-removed-from-google-search-results/|title=Experts Exchange should be removed from Google search results – Rustyrazorblade|first=Jon|last=Haddad|website=rustyrazorblade.com}}</ref> about how to bypass the obfuscation by spoofing one's web browser referrer using an addon like Smart Referrer<ref>{{cite web|url=https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/smart-referer/?src=search|title=Smart Referer}}</ref> and setting the [[referer]] as being from Google.

[[Stack Overflow]] founder [[Jeff Atwood]] cited Experts-Exchange's poor reputation and paywall as a motivation for creating Stack Overflow.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://blog.codinghorror.com/introducing-stackoverflow-com/|title=Introducing Stackoverflow.com|website=blog.codinghorror.com|access-date=2019-11-24}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://blog.codinghorror.com/whos-your-arch-enemy/|title=Who's Your Arch-Enemy?|website=blog.codinghorror.com|access-date=2019-11-24}}</ref>

==See also==<!-- PLEASE RESPECT ALPHABETICAL ORDER -->
{{Portal|Internet}}
* [[Bulletin board system]]
* [[Chat room]]
* [[Internet forum]]
* [[Virtual community]]

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.experts-exchange.com Experts Exchange]

[[Category:American social networking websites]]
[[Category:Software developer communities]]
[[Category:Internet properties established in 1996]]
[[Category:Question-and-answer websites]]