Google to use TrustRank for News, Possibly More

mike slaven writes "In a follow-up to Tuesday's post about Google registering a trademark on the term TrustRank, an article on NewScientist explains how Google plans to track the credibility of news sources. The article also mentions that the patent on TrustRank is not limited to ranking just news stories: 'The patent also reveals that the same system could be roped in to rank other search results, not simply news. So sales and services could in the future be listed on the basis of price and the reputation of the company involved.'"

Comments

I see problems coming if Google uses trust rank

[DeadSea]

From what I have read about trust rank, the basic premise is that they pick 200 or so "trusted sites". The trust rank for any page is then basically the number of link hops to the page from a trusted site.

The problem I have with this is that there are many problems with identifying trusted sites and maintaining the trustworthiness of such sites after they have been chosen.

From Google's point of view, a trusted site would have to have strict editorial standards and link to a lot of sites. I can think of a lot of sites with strict editorial content, but they generally do not link to a lot of sites. The open directory projects seems to me to be a candidate for a trusted site. It has editorial controls and links to a heck of a lot of sites.

The first question to ask is: "After the trusted sites is chosen, how much would it cost to buy one?". I suppose dmoz itself would be hard to buy outright, but how much would it take to buy one of the editors, or to buy an editorial position? Probably not much. Dmoz alread has a lot of editorial fraud and it would make the problem worse. I'm not sure that its fair to expect trusted sites not to degrade to some extent.

The second question to ask is: "How hard is it to buy links from trusted sites?". The answer has to be that it is pretty easy. Forget about corrupting the people as I discussed in the last point. Any trusted site that links to lots of pages is going to have a huge link management problem. Every day hundreds of domains that it links to may expire. You can snap those up and buy trust.

All this doesn't even include folks who make sites look trustworthy with the sole intention of turning them to the dark side later. All of this happens currently with pagerank, but it will be much worse once the trust power is put into the hands of a few.

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Re:I see problems coming if Google uses trust rank

[Psiolent]

I find it hard to believe that Google, (or any other competent company implementing something like this,) hasn't had the forethought to avoid these pitfalls.

I don't know, it seems like making an assumption like that is not really a good idea. I think a company like Google certainly has shown competent decision making in the past, but we should never accept something at face value just because of an apparent pattern of competence. Question everything!

Re:I see problems coming if Google uses trust rank

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

All Bullshit.

It means that CBS News and MSNBC get a heavy "trust" rating, while Juan Cole, tomflocco.com or Scoop.nz get "Le Shafte".

More coprorate sponsored media is not why I click. This is Google being used to "mainstream" the Internet as an information source - which is now a loose cannon in the world of controlled messages. Millions, just hearing about "'blogs on the Innernets" for the first time will now be safely served "more of the same" - while having alternative messages and analysis spun away with "low-trust".

Don't Be Evil, my ass.
You want the real truth on "trustworthy" news sources from Google? Search for "The Mighty Wurlitzer"+CIA or "Project Mockingbird".

This Worries Me...

[smug_lisp_weenie]

Basically what they patented (from what I gather) is the idea of taking many factoids about a news company and putting it into a balanced formula to create a "trust" number.

However, they are not patenting the formula itself, but just the idea of using such a formula, it seems...

This seems like another case of taking an obvious idea and trying to block the competition by patenting it.

Astroturf

[Doc Ruby]

"Trust, but verify." - Ronnie "Rayguns" Reagan

Idea vs. implementation...

[TVmisGuided]

The idea isn't exactly new...refereed and peer-reviewed professional journals have been doing something along these lines for decades. Google, as I read it, is attempting to apply some basic scholarly principles to their listings.

Now the bad news...I don't think it will work as described. Counting "number of bureaux cited" or hops from originator isn't exactly going to keep faked articles off their listings; as someone else already pointed out, it may be a matter of shucking out the cash for a domain that suddenly gets listed as "high trust level." Then that domain can be used to post pretty much whatever they want to make people think is accurate journalism.

Sorry...I like the concept of automating the tedious task of fact-checking, but until Google can get their clusters' AI well beyond the Turing-test phase, it's not going to happen. Humans will still need to examine articles and references and make decisions as to whether a particular submission is, in fact, valid and accurate.

Just my two cents' worth...save up the change for a root beer or something...