Comments on: Google Experimenting with User Voting – No More Wikipedia?

By: Andy Beal

Andy Beal — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:17:40 +0000

@Gab – you noticed this story was from Nov 29th, right?

By: Gab Goldenberg

Gab Goldenberg — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 03:24:35 +0000

It seems I’ve seen this story somewhere else, Andy. Did SEL or someone cover this already?

Speaking of participating in Google’s UI experiments, check this out: http://www.google.com/experimental/

By: Funny Picture

Funny Picture — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:46:14 +0000

It should be interesting to see if Google is able to build something like a community of spammers out of this.

By: Andy Beal

Andy Beal — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:15:45 +0000

It get’s worse – I quote Wikipedia in the new book. I know, I know, go ahead and pelt me.

By: Jordan McCollum

Jordan McCollum — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:04:09 +0000

@Doug—If you're using Firefox, you perform a Wikipedia search right in your search box (and a couple dozen others). That's what I usually do if I want to look on Wikipedia. Which, GASP, sometimes I do! What? Don't look at me that way. Where would you go if you wanted Marcel Duchamp's brief bio ASAP?

By: Doug Mehus

Doug Mehus — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:53:28 +0000

I actually make a point of adding a “+wikipedia” modifier to any search query I enter into Google, especially when researching a specific topic such as a company. This is to ensure that a Wikipedia result ends up within the top 5 Google search results for the query. Does anyone else do this?

I do believe Wikipedia is an immensely popular tool.

I like the idea of user voting on search results, but my concern is with SEO types or domain squatters to pump their own results and put down everyone else. As they will be the most aggressive in the voting, whereas everyday users may not utilize the buttons to any great degree, their votes could carry an unnecessary and unhealthy weight. Does that make sense?

Perhaps we could nip that potential problem by limiting its effectiveness to the user’s search preferences only and not having it affect the general Web search results everyone sees?

Cheers,
Doug

By: Matt Ellsworth

Matt Ellsworth — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:44:22 +0000

I think its a great feature for personalized search – not so great for everyone…

By: Andy Beal

Andy Beal — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:59:07 +0000

@roguespammer – I’m sure it will remain a personalized option. Previous SEs tried to include “time on site” factors and they were stung.
@Mike – if there are sites you don’t find useful – and Google can learn from that – then its a good tool.

If nothing else, shady-SEOs can delete their client’s competitors from the SERPs and then send the client a screenshot – “see, you’re #1!!”

By: » New Google Experiment Allows Users To Vote Search Engine Optimization Journal

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:43:30 +0000

[...] a good idea, but I could find no record, either at TechCrunch, on Google’s own website, or at Marketing Pilgrim, which also ran a story on the topic, of how to sign up for this [...]

By: Mike Mothner

Mike Mothner — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:42:42 +0000

User voting seems like a great way to make the searching experience more personalized to an individual’s specific preferences and/or needs. I will be very interested, however, to see whether it catches on or not. My question is whether people will actually take advantage of this option.

By: roguespammer

roguespammer — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:24:29 +0000

It’s interesting that they’re trying this. I doubt it will become a mainstay in the algo though. It’s all to easy to manipulate. They’re better off just tracking entries and exit times to websites. Thats still manipulatable, but less so than this method. But it would be a good feature for igoogle or something, to personalize your search more.