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Google Conducts Trial on User-Voted Search Results
Grim Reaping writes "A feature in testing at Google Labs allows users to not only prioritize their favorite results, but also move, ignore, and add search results to personalized records of their preferences. The experiment features a simple 'thumbs up' and 'thumbs down' option for each search result; users can also suggest a URL that might be more relevant to their query. 'Other Google users will not be affected by the individual tweaking: instead it will be stored along with the users' own personal information for the next time they search for this word or phrase, so users are required to log in to avail of it.'" The company is also clear on the experiment's page: this feature may never see full release on the site.
Obligatory.
...but eventually you just know that they'll start to prioritize search results with it.
At which point it will become the world's #1 target for gaming, primarily via mass vote-up botnets.
This will work wonders for their advertising model. You are essentially telling them what you to see advertised right off the bat. I couldn't see why this is a bad idea. I know they say "it may never be fully released," but everything with google is always a beta. Another win-win provided from google. It just goes to show business people everywhere that actually providing a service (ie not harming your customers or trying to milk them) is an extremely effective model for business.
I got a catholic block.
Too many searches I make (and Google isn;t the worst about this, in fact they are the least bad) had none of the search terms anywhere on the page that comes up in the search results. Someone (google?) needs a system like this. Hope it works and is implimented!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
That is exactly why this is only used for one person at a time.....
This isn't just useful for one person but has very broad implications. The goal of Google is to provide the most relevant data to the most people. If they had access to all sorts of data about you (such as income, marital status, gender, age group, etc. etc.) they could potentially determine the kind of results certain segments of the population are looking for. They could apply that data across the board and achieve fantastically relevant data for all sorts of people.
While this sounds great for search results, it's terrifying in regards to privacy. Does any company have the right to that kind of data? Does any person? Most of us would say no. So for the time being, it comes down to you individually tailoring your own algorithm and building off of Google's base work. Which I guess, is pretty good.
Yes, you can dance to Radiohead.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Bob: "Hey Phil you mind telling why Google gives me porn and Youtube videos as the top 10 results for *anything* I type on your computer?"
Phil: "Heh heh, it is quite bothersome using other peoples' computers , is it not?"
I like basketball!!1!
...hot or not?
What I really want is a personalized filter for all my Google searches. Maybe there is already a way to do this, but I want -site:expertsexchange.com as an argument to every search I do. I don't have an account with them, so I hate it when they appear in search results. And more importantly, I'm only interested in armature sex changes, so I simply never want to see search results from that site.
Diggle.
So, you can adjust your personal search results, which are then saved for your use next time... How is this useful? If the search results aren't what I want the first time, I'm not likely to dig through them looking for better links - I'm going to try a different search phrase.
On top of that, once I find what I'm looking for, I'm either going to bookmark it or forget about it. I'm not going to search on the same keyword/phrase every time I want to visit a website.
I realize this is just a trial, but seriously, can anyone explain to me how this a good idea?
Any plan which depends on a fundamental change in human behavior is doomed from the start.
Back on topic: Why not allow a "standard search" or "community-moderated search" toggle switch? The only downside to a community-modded search that I can see in goatse being voted up by hoards of trolls.
I don't get it. Why would anyone care if Google or any other company knows their marital status, gender or age?
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
That's what I though at first too, but then I realized that I have a bookmarks toolbar at the top of my browser which I NEVER touch and that I very often find pages over and over by googling them every time I need them. Maybe you have the time to carefully organize your bookmarks, but mine are old, unorganized, and useless because google is so effective that it doesn't make sense to bother with them. I'm guessing I'm not the only one.
the ability to tell Google "NO" when it suggests alternative phrases. You would think that would be valuable feedback.
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
Then don't vote on the results.
No more experts-exchange.com results!!
like ignore experts-exchange.com/*? Should I continue praying?
hmm... insightful.
who said anything about the same keyword? imagine that it actually learns about your general preferences and applies that to any other keyword searches.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I can't find this feature on Google's Experimental page. Did they remove it already? Did they get slashdotted?
All major search engines use click-throughs as one of the features in their rankers. I.e. if for a certain set of query terms people mostly click on fifth link in the results, this link will soon move up to be the first or second link. Of course, since this is not the only feature in the ranker, there's no "hard" guarantee of that happening, but on average relevant links get boosted pretty heavily that way.
I object! What are the charges?
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
1) IQ tests are not intelligence.
2) What deserves to be modded Insightful? Is not "I agree" implicit in the adjective?
3) "Sheeple" makes you sound arrogant, even when it's accurate.
4) Your quest would be a useful and great idea, if you actually responded to posts that were unjustly modded. And it looks like you were doing that for a while. But now all you do is copypasta the same "HELP, HELP, I'M BEING REPRESSED" rant over and over. In short, you've lost your legitimacy until you start owning idiots again. Don't give up - there are plenty of people who read at -1 and if some of them agree with you (put your account's purpose in the sig, maybe?) you'll be back in the green in no time.
--->
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
Yay! That means it's gonna be even easier to make things like that "miserable failure" meme happen! Now excuse me while I write a script that automatically "mods up" my sites and "mods down" sites I don't like using various anonymous proxies!
You just got troll'd!
No kidding. This at least will get rid of E x p e r t s E x c h a n g e and p l e n t o f f i s h links for some of us(POF has more gateway pages than any dating site I've ever seen and yet somehow Google does nothing to them). Though they should use the idea to make it much easier to report spam...but that would make too much sense, and also cut into their profits since, sadly, they make a decent chunk of change from the spammers. Kinda like the uncle that paid your way through college, but molested you.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
If it did actually learn about your preferences, that would be awesome, but such a feature would require an incredibly powerful AI to infer your preferences for future unrelated searches from your changes made.
Any plan which depends on a fundamental change in human behavior is doomed from the start.
Now, everyone can finally thumbs-down experts-exchange.com into oblivion.
Kid-proof tablet..
That said, Google does employ some serious headz, so they may be able to avoid having the searches turn into the equivalent of
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
This is obviously a precursor to Google's plan to replace the entire jury system.... with Google Trial! (they'd call it gtrial but that's already trademarked in the Netherlands).
O.J. Simpson? GUILTY!
Mumia? INNOCENT BY A HAIR!
Slobodan Milosevic, a war criminal? YES INDEED.
And so is President Bush.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I would love the search engines to come up with a better way to filter spam. I totally agree on the "this is spam" button. There's probably multiple ways they could accomplish it, everything from only giving you 'mod points' for a limited time period, randomly, to requiring you to have an authenticated install of a google app on your machine to be allowed to mod. Of course nothing is foolproof, but I think you could make it very effectively difficult to corrupt the results with bots. Maybe you could simply flag the voted sites and have other random users who are asked to volunteer a few seconds to judge if the site is spam. I'd gladly volunteer some of my time to an effort like that. Here's hoping!
It wouldn't be nearly as difficult as you think. If I search for "text editor" and don't click anything, but 10 seconds later search for "mac text editor" and push the arrow on TextMate, then doing a search for "web ide" might give higher priority to the ones that run on a mac. That would hardly require a fancy AI. It's a piece of cake next to many of the algorithm's google is already using.
I realize they're not doing this now, but it's the next step if customizing your results goes big. Google is already altering results per-user based on your IP address. If I search for "transport", one of the front page results is transport.qld.gov.au, which is the transport department for my state.
There is already a company that does user-rated/controlled search, it's called Mahalo. It's nothing new
Excuse me while I gather the virgin sacrifice and assemble the pentagram required to solve your problem
If I had a nickel for every time I clicked into experts exchange looking for the answer to some technical problem, only to curse myself for failing to look at the site I was being steered to by my Google search, I'd have, like, $2.55.
Ok, so I wouldn't retire rich. But still, that site is damned annoying, and any search engine that gives links to ExEx pages without charging them for it has been hoodwinked into giving away free advertising.
This is basically just incorporating StumbleUpon in their web searches. I wonder if StumbleUpon (an eBay company) has a patent on this technology? If nothing else, this will make the the already frigid relationship between Google and eBay a little more testy.
Oh, you're so much smarter than the developers at Google! I bet they never thought of that!
It lets you permanently remove search results you don't want to see.
Well, I've always wanted a way to filter out results from experts-exchange.com. They always show up when I search for something technical. The site might be useful except it costs $$$ to actually get to the answer. My employer certainly isn't going to buy me a subscription so the site is instead a c*ck tease and a waste of time. I would love a way to get them removed from my search results!
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
"On top of that, once I find what I'm looking for, I'm either going to bookmark it or forget about it. I'm not going to search on the same keyword/phrase every time I want to visit a website."
thats what I and I suspect many others do...unless? I need to get outside today..
I'll get my coat...
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
This is something I used to joke about when google was first emerging as the best browser. I would say "Google is so good if you wanted to buy a new Chevrolet you could type car into the search and it would give you a list of Chevrolets. If you wanted to buy a new Ford you could type car into the search and it would give you a list of Fords." This may very well produce that level of "knowning you" (hah i love scare quotes)
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Actually, the Roman emperor used some thumb gesture, and no one knows what it is.
The thumbs up and thumbs down is just something people see in movies, and assumed is true.
Deleted
I had this idea about 3 years ago (yeah I know that doesn't mean anything unless I had acted on it).
What would be better though is if they had incorporated this in to the Google Toolbar. Who wants to go back in the browser just to vote on the page they just visited. Makes more sense to do it while you are still on the page.
Imagine the hooplah we'd get over controversial topics. Like religion.
So let's assume that millions of eyeballs are basically rating the quality of the searches on huge numbers of word combinations. Then assume also that Google has the monetary incentive to hire very good linguists, and demographically wise statisticians to figure out how to closely model the ratings results into the algorithms that Google uses to rank pages. Add Google's incentive to factor in geolocation, and other demographically oriented tidbits even without tracking "who you are" and what next?
My thought is that their rankings again shoot ahead in terms of quality and applicability to MY searches. Your thoughts?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Well, they will probably just provide more than one ranking; like maybe normal search results, personal and community-based or something like that (perhaps only via iGoogle, so normal users won't be affected anyway)- and I guess they should do it soon.
With all the scam-sites, fanpages and other "related" websites to one project, it's sometimes a real pain to use Google for something as simple as searching for the official homepage of a project, movie or game or whatever. The best source for that seems to be Wikipedia and since most of my searches are exactly of this kind, I use it more often for searching than Google these days.
The workaround to get at the info on ExEx is to use Google's cached version of the link, and then browse just the cached text.
Is it wrong to do this? I'd assume ExEx thinks so, as their business model depends on it. However, their links would not appear as often on Google unless they indexed the answer too. It's wrong to offer search engines information, but users less or different stuff (which is why they're hated). Having the info accessible by other means is a price they find willing to accept in order to compete on the Internet.
As for other technical info, I would not mind if search relevance was aggregated by usergroup/tag. I doubt I'd be the first to search for a solution to a problem, so I'd find it beneficial for someone else to mod the solution (or relevant info) up. I'd tag myself with sysadmin and cisco, and contribute while reaping the benefits of a preexisting group. If there was a limit to the number of tags, link spammers would have a hard time influencing results. If the idea proved popular, one could create membership requirements for adding new members (everyone can use results, but only certain people can mod results).
Ok, I've already said this about 3 times in this thread but...have you bothered to read the summary? This is only for your own personal searches, not global. If I'm misunderstanding your point then forgive me but there seems to be a lot of confusion about how this is going to be applied.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
A lot of people seem to be complaining about this being useless because it only affects your own future search results, and for terms you've already searched. Who says it'll always be that way, though? Wouldn't it make more sense that this is a test to see how many people would take advantage of such a feature, and whether they agree with each other (or can be classified into people who are looking for footwear vs. people having trouble with lilo), and whether they do a good job of rewarding really useful sites over SEO masters like expertsexchange?
People are also arguing that spammers will make this useless. I have to wonder, though - given that Google has so many real address books and so many e-mails, shouldn't it be possible for them to quickly find the real humans and use that information to build a "web of trust" system for filtering out spammers? After all, ratings are tied to gmail accounts...
My server
Nah, every Google search will bring up nothing but Ron Paul pages in the first 100 results.
What I'd like to vote on is the fact that a link I followed has either changed its content, or has simply disappeared. I am getting enough of these to make searching a much less than a pleasurable experience. Google can then remove the link from their database. In this way we can all help Google to help us.
OOOPS!! So sorry I forgot - some people think helping a Giga-Corp. to help us is morally wrong.
well. Stuffit!! Which Google employeee should I send the idea to?
Funny, my first thought was "Great, at last I can filter out experts-exchange". Rather than basing this on keywords, they should allow you to give a personalised page rank modifier to a site. They could then use the information that 90% of people mark a site up or down and factor that into their base calculations. Obviously open to abuse by site owners, though in theory real users would mark it down as soon as it started being returned near the top of search results.
I'm a number, not a free man!
i did read the article and summary, but how long do you think its going to stay as individuals only? it's almost completely pointless for individuals.
#include <sig.h>
...all sorts of data about you (such as income, marital status, gender, age group, etc. etc.)Hypothetically, imagining that this does eventually affect other users' results, do you really think Google engineers are so dumb that they would not account for spammers?
You can rest assured that Google is not going to make any change that hurts the quality of its search results.