Slashdot Mirror
Google TrustRank
Philipp Lenssen writes "Google registered a trademark for the word "TrustRank", as Search Engine Watch reveals. Is this a sign we can expect a follow-up to Google's PageRank? An earlier, possibly related paper on TrustRank is available; it proposes techniques to semi-automatically separate good pages from spam by the use of a small selection of reputable seed pages."
Its not censorship. Google couldn't censor even if they wanted to. Rather than explaining to you what censorship means, let me just tell you that what Google is doing is siply doing their job better. I don't want to find spam when searching for anything, and neither does anyone else. Ergo, eliminating spam from the search results makes everyone (except spammers) happier.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Yes, this is always a problem. How can you possibly know whether or not a site is spam just by looking at who's linked to it? A lot of great sites have very few external links to them and often they're from blogs and other sites that will likely be identified as spam prone.
This is a basic problem of filtering web-content. How do you avoid throwing out the baby with the bath water? I'm running into that problem in designing a custom filter to keep my son from inadvertently seeing pornography as he looks for his "r0mz," but that's peanuts compared to Google's dilemma.
The fact is, spam filtering is inherently censorship. This kind of interference will always have a negative impact on the marketplace of ideas that is the modern internet. On the other hand, as a side effect, removing blogs from search results (as this trust metric very likely will) may increase the usability of Google overall. I suspect there will be some people who are not as happy about that as I am.
-- Molly Lipton, Born Again Technologist.
You fail to understand that google is incapable of actually censoring anything. Them not displaying a webpage in their results does not, indeed, remove it from the web.
Google's primary responsibility now is to it's shareholders, which means increasing the chance that you and I find exactly what we are trying to look for, and not to unabashedly display every peddler that serves up content over http.
To see Google's TrustRank Trademark info on the USPTO site, click here , click "New User Form Search (Basic)", and search for "TrustRank".
Given that one of the authors of the referenced paper is an employee of Yahoo, I have to wonder if whatever Google has in mind has anything whatsoever to do with the trustrank scheme we're talking about here. I mean, all we know is they trademarked the word, nothing more.
With Google's "portal system" they're developing, the trust comes from within; the company trusts its users because they are clicking into an agreement of terms. That being said, hacks that would make this new TrustRank unreliable would probably just lead to the termination of services of the account.
This to me keys that Google's trying to become a more involved company; instead of just sitting back, caching and searching the internet, they are now trying to serve you best and give you the results you are looking for. I would imagine with TrustRank, you will see a little star or something near a link on Google's home page, and the star would indicate if it is something in your field that you would be looking for. For example, if you were a Biologist and searched for a certain kind of fish, say "Blue Tuna", it would put stars next to sites with the fish's breeding habits, etc., but if you were a general consumer, it would provide links to the local fishery.
The internet is an extremely powerful tool, and search engines have simply evolved to the point that they are now "dumb technology". Without more user invervention (and not simply by throwing in more keywords and praying), they will continue to be as they are now. Once the company better knows what we'll be looking for, they can better serve us. And that's all I see this new tech as being.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
This is wierd. It is the 19th hit (on the second page) of a google search for "trustrank" It requires a login from google's results page, but a google's cache reveals a directory including the paper linked to by /.
I guess we weren't supposed to read this. And you shouldn't have read *this*!
It would be amazing if Google gave us the ability to assign trust values to sites that we ourselves trust. This way, for example, I might give Wikipedia or the BBC a 10/10 trust rating for all their off-site links (and set it so that links off the linked sites are at 50% of their parent trust rating etc.). If we could also subscribe to someone else's trust ratings then technically illiterate people could hand over the responsibility of managing their trust database to someone else. From first thoughts, this looks like it could solve the problem of malicious SEO.
"Freedom of Speech"
First of all, the only protection that is guaranteed you here is that the gov't will make no law abridging the freedom of speech.
Google, as influential as they might be, are not the government (insert 'Do No Evil' joke here). Therefore, they are not bound to this "Freedom of Speech" argument.
Secondly, "Freedom of Speech" is not this universal, higher-being ordained preserve at all cost idea that we have transformed it into.
Freedom of speech does not give you the right to spray-paint your slogan all over my front door, nor, in this case, does it give you a 'right' to be listed on Google. Nor do you have a 'right' to have your name printed on the front page of your local paper in 36pt font.
Not being listed in Google does not amount to censorship in any definition of the word. The net existed before google, and people still managed to find web-sites. Google gives (through PageRank or whatever mechanism they choose) free advertisement to 'good' sites. They have every right to only display sites that pay money, if they so desired. You have absolutely zero (0) 'rights' to be listed for free on Google.
Trotting out the Freedom of SPEECH argument is nothing more than whining about Big Brother coming to get you because what you have to say isn't worth hearing. Guess what? If you want to be heard, say something that's worth listening to. All that glitters is not gold, and much that is said (or printed) is worthless drivel. Much like this post.