New Google Patent
A WMW thread started by Tedster - Here We Go - It's Another Google Patent! speculates on human quality scoring (or comparison), again.
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.
Humans do do it better, even for Google? Is Google Co-Op coming down the tracks?
Defending against patent trolls
Many patents are filed only to keep future options open, and to provide leverage against patent trolls. Watching Google patents isn't very productive. The stuff they patent is probably a large superset of what they are actually doing.
FTR...
...I can't access that WMW page. Coughs up a 404 if I click through.
Luckily, Kichus is sharing his thoughts (in a way that I can understand) here on 'SEO Kid'. I'm sure others are too. At the very least it's an interesting read on a rainy Saturday. Might even get some related ideas of my own LOL
AOL, too
AOL came out with a patent application on Thursday that mirrors a lot of what is covered in this Google patent - Web query classification.
Much ado over nothing
There is already a ‘human’ element as far as ‘manual editing’ when looking at SPAM reports and other ‘human’ initiated complaints. This merely takes the human interaction a level further IMHO.
If the early perception is true, (I have yet to read it in its entirety) over at WMW, I don’t really have a problem with an ‘editorial’ score as such. I can’t see it being a large factor in filtering the results in the early days and so I can afford to wait and see.
Our sites and our clients are legitimate sites (not MFA etc..) so I can’t see a major downside at this point…
My 1.90 cents Canadian