Liane - 9:13 am on Jun 6, 2005 (gmt 0)

I find it fairly fascinating and eye popping.

I don't find this eye popping at all. Everyone knows that Google has spam reports, and presumably, several in house methods of gauging quality control.

We also knew that Google was hiring Quality Raters [google.com] ... they've never made that a secret.

some of the implications such as the whitelisting of sites ...

Also no secret ... Combating Web Spam with Trust Rank [dbpubs.stanford.edu]

But when Henk van Ess submitted his own blog to Slashdot, he asserted "Real people, from all over the world, are paid to finetune the index of Google," and that made it sound like people were reaching in via this console to tweak results directly, which just isn't true at all.

The keyword in Google Guy's post being "passive" versus "active".

>Speculation<
Presumably, these are just reports which Google will then work with, comparing several reports to their own findings and then work on it in house to determine how to come to the same conclusion via their algo.

I have serious reservations about Henk van Ess taking information from one of his own students (who presumably signed a non-disclosure agreement when the student agreed to help rate the quality of our results) and posting that information online.

I would too! I imagine the lawyers at the plex are abuzz with their newest project.

God help us what has the world come to. When egos go at play and sway decisions to pull websites merely by looks or ethics of link placement you have got yourself in a sticky situation.

Apparently, you didn't see the same pages I did. On the page titled "Goggle Secret Lab, Prelude" on searchbistro, I saw nothing there to indicate that sites would be pulled based on "looks", "link placement" or anything else for that matter. Nor did I see anything to indicate such a thing in Mr. Ess's flash movie.

From what I can tell, it appears Google has supplied the raters with a Spam Guide, allowing them to use the guide and rate the sites in question via this form. So what? Isn't Google entitled to have quality control systems? Isn't Google permitted to hire people to evaluate sites based on a set of guidelines they have outlined?

DMOZ and Yahoo editors review and rate sites all the time for their directories! What's so different about this?

I think its great! "Humans do it better" is a well know saying and one I agree with. I think its a good thing that Google is employing people to help achieve better quality in the search results. I do believe that Yahoo still has human editors ... do they not?

I don't get what the big deal is here?

I'm not aware of restrictions.

I get the feeling you will become more aware of "restrictions" relatively soon!

Both you and your student, Debbie (Frost) ... whom you so readily outed, might want to contact a lawyer regarding non-disclosure agreements. You might also want to look up the meaning of "Google Proprietary and Confidential" and what leagal ramifications you might expect as a result of displaying this information on your website! ;)

Google Guy, do you really think it's irrelevant to talk about Google's Human Quality Evaluation?

"Talking" about Google's Human Quality Evaluation is one thing, disclosing proprietary and confidential information is quite another!

But I didn't see the word "irrelevant" in Google Guy's post and I don't think he implied as much either. What he said was that your assertion ...

"Real people, from all over the world, are paid to finetune the index of Google"

... made it sound like people were reaching in via this console to tweak results directly, which Google Guy stated:

... just isn't true at all.

Good luck Mr. Ess!

[edited by: Liane at 9:30 am (utc) on June 6, 2005]