Google Plans to Make Editorial Judgments on Search Results
Posted 12/14/08 at 02:12:52 PM by Justin Kerr
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Articles have been sprouting up around the web in response to Google’s admission that staff will help hand pick search results displayed to users. Many of these articles are rather opinionated, but we will leave it up to you to decide if this is really the end of search as we know it.
For years now Google has washed their hands of all responsibility for its search results using variations on a phrase that has been prominently posted at the bottom of sites like news.google.com for years now. “The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program”. In general however, our belief that Google’s results were a 100 per cent derivative of the page rank system was mostly one of faith. Under this system popularity is determined by counting links from other popular pages around the web as a way of gauging an articles creditability. Presumably some human intervention was used to prevent people from gaming the system, but that’s about it.
This week Google’s Marissa Meyer explained that going forward “editorial judgments will play a key role in Google searches”. Mayer also hinted about the possibility of using the data supplied by users using the new wiki search. Currently changes made using this method only influence your own search results, but it’s hard to argue that it might not have some practical use in crowd sourcing the relevance of certain searches. But with the abuse we have witnessed in the past, such as the anti spore backlash that was unleashed on Amazon, would human oversight be required to help moderate the impact of such user submitted data?
Assuming Google doesn’t abuse its power when interfering with the page ranking system, is this really such a bad thing? Let us know what you think.
Anybody who's been paying
Submitted by horzo on Mon, 12/15/2008 - 4:33pm
Anybody who's been paying attention should be getting increasingly nervous about Google. I suspect in five years, we'll be looking back on the "evil empire" Microsoft with nostalgia.
Pay for Play Search Results
Submitted by r3dd4wg on Mon, 12/15/2008 - 6:54am
Sounds like a good thing on the surface but can open the door for a greedy editor to start implementing pay-for-play (ala Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich) search results.
Submitted by dougreding on Mon, 12/15/2008 - 5:34am
There is no doubt in my mind. Ostensibly, they will say it will be
for better accuracy or better user results, but ultimately it will all
end up being about censorship. Google may be bribe-proof as a
corporation, but their paid editors (or even volunteer editors if they
were to be so foolish) will be all too willing to take bribes. Expect
to see "hate speech" to be first on the list, and it will be used to
eliminate even the most tame politically incorrect speech as "hate
speech"."They" have been working on this problem of theirs for
some time... remember the Ron Paul campaign? That spread like wildfire
on the web (while the mainstream media covered it with barely a peep)
and was something "they" could not even begin control, which is
entirely unacceptable to "them"."They" know that it will be
impossible to legislatively control and censor the internet. People
would revolt into open war before they would allow the one place that
we are truly free to be placed under censored control. But "they"
are not willing to accept a source of media outside their own control
and have probably been pulling their hair out trying to figure out a
way.... well it's easy. Make people DIG like crazy, and most won't
bother. Bury or remove what "they" do not want you to see on Youtube,
Google search results, etc etc.
Submitted by kendavis on Sun, 12/14/2008 - 7:29pm
Search results are the product that Google produces in order to sell ads just as news stories are the products that newspapers produce in order to sell ads. Google wants their results to be as useful as possible. There is no moral imperative that these results be produced by a machine, particularly if machine-made results can be "gamed". In my opinion, usefulness is the only criterion.
Submitted by Caskey.100 on Sun, 12/14/2008 - 7:00pm
As long as Google avoids overstepping their boundaries, this could prove to be a useful tool. I could see some parental control features over a google search come out of using this technique of serch management.
________________________________________________________________________________
"Only trust a computer by how far ou can throw it"
- Steve Wozniak (A.K.A The PC God)
CURRENT HATE LIST: Vista, Comcast, Google
Submitted by Germ on Sun, 12/14/2008 - 2:59pm
"Assuming Google doesn’t abuse its power ..."
You know what they say about "Ass" "u" "me" ...
Google, you are overstepping....
Submitted by ghot on Sun, 12/14/2008 - 1:02pm
I don't want or need Google to decide what my searches turn up. They already seel the results of anyones searches to whoever has the money.....this has got to stop. There are other search engines out the ...GOOGLE!
Best keep YOUR opinions out of your search engine or I suspect that you will lose all those AD dollars as wiser folks switch to alternative search engines. I don't recall signing an agreement with Google that YOU could decide what MY searches turn up, in fact, I've already noticed that the results of my searches no longer turn up what they used to......for example I search for a file used by Norton (to see what it does) and lo and behold, I don't see any Symantec entries in my results until I scroll to the bottom of the page or to page 2 or 3.
I'm no genius but I would suspect that Symantec knows MORE about what thier files do than ANYone else. It's been fun Google and useful, but I for one am an adult and do NOT need YOU filtering my searches ^^
P.S. btw Google, if you insist on forcing OEM's to use your' search engine (as Iv'e recently read rumors about) you will surely feel the wrath of the consumer as did MS and their forcing OEM's to install Vista. The wise, learn from others' mistakes :)
Submitted by knight77 on Sun, 12/14/2008 - 6:31pm
I agree with ghot. WE do NOT need GOOGLE to TELL/CHOOSE what us ADULTS can view, read, check out, visit, or any thing else that involves CENSORSHIP of ANY kind! What The F#~k is this world coming too? & while we are on the subject about the bulls#%t on the net ... what the hell happen to public chatrooms like YAHOO once had? Just because a few parents bitch because their kids & the parents were being careless about who their kids talk to, so now ALL of us GROWN ADULTS don't get to chat? Now you have to download an IM & chat with only those in your friends list. What The F#~k is this world & the freedom of the internet coming too? Now we have soccermoms & the bigwigs telling us what we can & can NOT see. Thank you soccermoms & bigwigs, I don't know how I would of ever been saved if it wasn't for you saving me LOL WTF EVER!
Hey Maximumpc.com, how about adding a public chatroom to your website? Help us bring back public chat!
Thank you for hearing me out.
Let's all become ATI-GOOGLE, maybe then they might get the clue!
Submitted by Vegan on Sun, 12/14/2008 - 8:29pm
You're a grown adult? You sure don't sound like one.
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