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Google Outlines the Role of Its Human Evaluators

Posted by timothy on from the humans-are-dead-they're-probably-dead dept.

An anonymous reader writes "For many years, Google, on its Explanation of Our Search Results page, claimed that 'a site's ranking in Google's search results is automatically determined by computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query.' Then in May of 2007, that statement changed: 'A site's ranking in Google's search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query.' What happened? Google's core search team explain."

3 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Google is PEOPLE by Kotoku · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In reality this is why search engines like Wolfram Alpha without the broad research and knowledge of Google in the industry don't stand much of a chance unless Google drops the ball.

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  2. Re:Summary, missing from TFS by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think having an indefinite human element would be a good thing for Google. College students are reasonably smart and many of them would enjoy doing such a simple thing to make a few bucks on the side for beer or textbook money. It's a lot like Slashdot's mod system. Hopefully it will drastically reduce spam pages being in the top results.

  3. Article is somewhat inventive by jpallas · · Score: 5, Insightful
    That part about "mostly college students" comes from the interviewer, not from Google:

    JP: So are these raters college students or random folks responding to a job post? What are the requirements?

    SH: It's a pretty wide range of folks. The job requirements are not super-specific. Essentially, we require a basic level of education, mainly because we need them to be able to communicate back and forth with us, give us comments and things like that in writing.

    Funny how the introduction restates the interviewer's preconception even though the actual interview implies otherwise.