| Google Raters – Who Are They? |
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Who are they? What do they do? Google Quality Raters are out there rating not only organic search results, but also Google ads (AdWords) and Videos, and probably more things but those are the three types of raters I am sure of. The Raters I will be talking about today are the ones that rate the organic results – called Search Quality Raters. In a nutshell, Google outsources this job to outside companies and those outside companies hire independent contractors to do the work.
What Is a Google Search Quality Rater? How Do They Get Hired? According to some source these Google Search Quality Rater are from the companies like Lionbridge, Leapforce and Butler Hill. They called this position as either internet assessor or a Search Engine Evaluator. You don’t get hired directly by Google. So basically these people are only working at home. The position passes a 2-part exam in order to qualify. The first is a in theory question and second part is a practical exams. It’s a 10-20 hours work required per week and paid by hour for around $12-$15/hr. These QRs are only allowed to work for a year then have to wait for 3 months before they can apply again for the position. Now, these folks, for the most part, are not internet marketers or especially experienced with Google or organic rankings from the perspective we are. They are “normal” users of Google. They hire these raters from all over the world and those speaking all types of languages. According to the speculation it is likely that Google has been doing this for 8 years already.
What Do Google Search Quality Raters Do?
These Quality Raters for organic results in Google are given 2 types of rating assignments. One type is when they are given one keyword and one url and are instructed to rate the relevance (ie, “utility”) of the url to the intent of the keyword. “Intent” according to the quality raters handbook is summed up as a keyword being a “do”, “know”, or “go” type keyword. Then they look at the url and decide if that url is relevant to that specific search query. They are also given an opportunity to mark that url as spam and to give notes about that url. Important to mention: A Rater is allowed to rate a url as BOTH spam AND as being relevant. An example of this, to me, would be a keyword like ‘buy digital camera’ and the url DOES offer a way to buy a digital camera but the site is chock full of banner ads of other “spam-like” stuff. Important Take-Away: Since these raters are typically “normal” users of Google, first impressions of your url count BIG TIME. I think we all agree that when we each come to a web page, we cast judgement within 3 seconds of landing on that page, don’t we? Quality Raters are totally the same. The other type of assignment these raters get is when they get 2 sets of search results (ie, a first page result for a keyword search). One result page is the “before” page and the other is the “After” (if you don’t know how this works, learn how Google makes algo changes on this post here at PotPieGirl.com. The video is short and very helpful – and yes, there is an info-graphic picture, too). With this type of assignment the raters pretty much rate which set of results is “better” in their opinion
What Are The Performance Requirements for a Google Quality Rater? Since they are paid by the hour, they are required to maintain a level of performance. They received progress reports on their performance based on star-rating sytems. Their performance is judge by how many urls they do per hour. For single url/keyword assignments, it appears they are required to do 20-30 minimum per hour but it is uncertain coz they don’t know the exact criteria for judging their work. Rater’s rate things according to their own perpective so it is very important that your snippet like url meta description is as relevant to your target query as possible. Now, Google can, and does, auto-generate these on their own MANY times, but try and control what you can.
Can ONE Quality Rater Change the Ranking of a Url? In an interview with Google’s Engineering Director, Scott Huffman by John Paczowski asked JP: So you’re describing a process in which these evaluators are going to specific Web pages and rating them according to a specific criteria. Do these data have any effect on those sites’ page ranks or pay-per-click and Ad Word bids? Mr Huffman replied: SH: We don’t use any of the data we gather in that way. I mean, it is conceivable you could. But the evaluation site ratings that we gather never directly affect the search results that we return. We never go back and say, “Oh, we learned from a rater that this result isn’t as good as that one, so let’s put them in a different order.” Doing something like that would skew the whole evaluation by-and-large. So we never touch it. A rater cannot cause a ranking change. However it is uncertain if there are many certain percentage of raters have the same rate that could affect that url.
Do Quality Raters Rate EVERY Query Space? It looks quite impossible to have every single query space. However with raters assignments, Google is possibly doing some testing on algo changes. The way they are rated can cause the algo change to roll out which can affect a MUCH larger set of query spaces without a human ever looking at your url. In that situation, there is bound to be many “false positives” and there is not a whole lot you can do about it other than wrack your brain and try and figure out what the algo change was targeting.
How To Survive Google Raters Here are 4 tips to help survive a manual review: 1. Accept what you cannot change– There is nothing we can do about Human Raters judging our urls or the things that happen to the algo due to OTHER urls being rated. Therefor, I think the most important thing we can do is – don’t stress over it. Just do the best you can. 2. Be proactive– make sure you site/url gives a great FIRST impression 3. Check Your Snippets– Keep an eye on how your snippet reads in a Google search result for your target keyword(s). Does it tell a potential visitor that your page IS what they are looking for? Does your snippet match what a visitor will actually FIND on your page? 4. Evaluate Intent and Be Relevant– Lastly, really think about your target keyword(s)….if YOU typed that phrase into Google, what would YOU expect/want to find? Is your url and content truly relevant to the intent of the keyword used to find your web page? All in all, remember that these raters are people simply trying to earn some money from home. For the most part, they really don’t care what happens to a web page, they just want to do the job that is expected of them. Many aren’t exactly sure what IS expected of them, either. I would also imagine that many aren’t sure, don’t know, or simply don’t care how their actions fit into the BIG picture either. Google was not created for webmasters – it was created for SEARCHERS. These human raters are the people they (Google) are catering to – not us marketers.
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