SEO Werkt!

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Video: Google Speaks About Search Quality Raters Google’s head of web spam, Matt Cutts, has published a video talking about a topic that Google has never…



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Google’s head of web spam, Matt Cutts, has published a video talking about a topic that Google has never really talked about publicly before – Google Quality Raters. The video goes through the process used by Google with these Quality Raters. Matt Cutts specifically says these quality…



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Matt McGee published An Interview With A Google Search Quality Rater this past Friday, it is the most detailed write up on a quality rater I have seen to date.

It goes through the various tasks, how they got the job, what interaction at all they have with Google and so on. Matt also posted the short version at Marketing Land:

• Raters are only hired after passing two tests, the second of which includes rating more than 140 different Google search results and demands a 90 percent score in order to pass.
• Each rating task is completed by multiple raters and, if they disagree in their ratings of Googleâs search results, thereâs a formal discussion and debate process that may involve higher-level moderators making the final decision on whoâs correct.
• Raters donât only look at Googleâs organic results, they may rate Googleâs paid search results as well as search results from News, Maps and other Google âuniversal searchâ products.
• Raters may also have tasks that involve grading the design and layout of specific web pages.
• One of the key considerations in those tasks involves the balance between content and ads on a page. (Thatâs reminiscent of Googleâs new page layout algorithm that was just announced on Thursday.)
• Tasks are not tailored to the Raterâs skills or interests.

There is discussion on this interview on Matt McGee’s Google+ page where some SEOs are diving into what they learned.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Image credit: Maxx-Studio / ShutterStock.

Since at least 2005, Google has been using a large, worldwide focus group to help review its search results and the quality of the web pages that rank well in its algorithm. The people in this program are called Quality Raters and, as you can imagine, the work they do is important to search…



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

There’s been a lot of fearmongering talk lately about Google’s human quality raters and just exactly what they’re used for and how their ratings are used internally at Google. Discussion was running rampant at Pubcon where I witnessed several SEOs grill Matt Cutts about the subject, and seems to have spread like wildfire across the [...]

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Pot Pie Girl has been busy the past couple months, first by publishing the Google quality raters guidelines and then by analyzing the forums to see how they rate things. One thing she said was that she believed these quality raters can raise a red flag at Google and lead to a downgrade in your [...]



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

November was a busy month for Google. From the the Panda 3.1 update on the 18th to them announcing two shifts of algorithm udpates and changing their black bar to ads impacting rankings – we had a ton to discuss.

The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has SEOs and webmasters tracking every hiccup at Google web search. The thread is discussing possible small tweaks to the Panda algorithm with webmasters noticing changes in rankings and GoogleBot activity in early December. Most of the discussion is around the Panda in the new thread.

In any event, to read last month’s Google webmaster report, click here.

Here are the more important Google webmaster related stories we covered this past month:

• Google Panda 3.1 Update : 11/18
• Google: Fresher Images & Blog Results, Better Long Tail & Original Content Indexing
• Google’s Ten Most Recent Search Display & Algorithm Updates
• Goodbye Black Google Bar, Welcome Google Drop Down Menu
• Google: Panda Goes Beyond Content Farms
• Google: Content Position & Ad Position Part Of Search Ranking
• Google Indexing & Displaying Images Within Universal Search Fast
• Google Images Removes Stolen Images
• Google Boasts Scraper Detection In Revised Duplicate Content Policy
• Google’s Response On Browser Specific Cloaking
• HTML Tables Showing in Google Snippets
• Google Anchor Sitelinks With HTML Entities
• Are Big Brand Publishers Abusing Google News?
• Who Are Google Quality Raters?
• More On Google’s Search Quality Raters Guide
• Google Literally Replaces + Operator With Verbatim Tool
• New Google Advanced Search Page Drops Links To Page
• Google News Doesn’t Retain Search Query From Google.com
• Google Shares The Evolution Of Their Search Engine
• Google Doesn’t Count Links They Do Not Trust
• Google’s New Search iPad App Impresses
• Google + Comes To Google Places
• Google + Pages & Direct Search
• Goodbye Knol, Friend Connect, Wave, Gears & More
• Matt Cutts: Google Distinguished Engineer

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google Panda 3.1 Update : 11/18
  Friday afternoon, sometime after 4pm I believe, Google tweeted that they pushed out a “minor” Panda update effecting less than one-percent of all searches.

  The tweet reads:

  Tiny weather report: Minor Panda algorithm data refresh (affects

• Who Are Google Quality Raters?
  PotPieGirl wrote an excellent post named Google Raters : Who Are They…
• Last Day For Yahoo Site Explorer
  Today is the last day you will be able to use Yahoo Site Explorer.

  Yahoo announced late on Friday that they are closing it down today, November 21st. They said:

  With the completion of algorithmic transition to Bing…

• Google News Doesn’t Retain Search Query From Google.com
  Last week we reported Google Forgets Your Query Between Verticals.

  At first, I thought Google not remembering your search query on Google.com to pass through to Google News was a mistake but it might not be.

  Try it yourself…

• Google Indexing & Displaying Images Within Universal Search Fast
  Back in April, I reported at Search Engine Land that Google was indexing images within hours and displaying time stamps on images.

  But since then, there has not been much discussion around the speed of Google indexing images recently…

• Before The PubCon Keynotes
  Kenichi Suzuki posted a picture of some of us on his Google + page. This is what the keynote room looks like about 45 minutes prior to the keynote.

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

• Crawler errors from Bing Image searches, Google Webmaster Help
• Lessons from Google about URL Lengths, Sphinn
• Problems with subscriptions: Publishing or receiving videos in feeds, subscriptions page, YouTube Help

PotPieGirl wrote an excellent post named Google Raters : Who Are They…

PotPieGirl wrote an excellent post named Google Raters : Who Are They?

The post examines the an open discussion forum where these Google Quality Raters hangout and ask questions about their daily tasks.

In summary, here findings include:

• Google Quality Raters are hired via Lionbridge, Leapforce and Butler Hill and not Google.
• They take a two part exam to qualify
• The pay isn’t bad but the work isn’t consistent ($12 â” $15 per hour & 10-20 hours per week)
• Google has raters for about 8 years
• They rate search results (but don’t have to see the landing page to rate)
• They are required to rate 30 per hour
• Do ratings by these raters impact search quality directly?

I am told by some other Quality Raters that not everything written in this document is legit. I did not get into specifics yet nor did I verify they are really quality raters. In any event, reading it really cannot hurt.

Forum discussion at Google +.

Image credit: Maxx-Studio / ShutterStock.