tedster - 1:36 am on Aug 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

Google was granted a new patent last Tuesday, August 22. The title is "System and method for supporting editorial opinion in the ranking of search results".

What, people would be involved? Yes indeed -- check this quote out, for example:

For each web page/site identified as favored and non-favored, the editors may determine an editorial opinion parameter for that site... For each web page in the result set that is associated with one of the web sites in the set of affected web sites, the server may determine an updated score using an editorial opinion parameter for that web site. US Patent 7096214 [patft.uspto.gov]