http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5RZOU6vK4Q
This is essentially an advertisement for Google Search, but still shows
a few rather peculiar mindsets, at least from the librarian point of
view. The first thing I noticed is where one of their specialists said
that they are interested in getting the best results *for each user*,
which actually reveal quite a bit I think.
Someone notices that a search "is not performing as well as they would
like" and it goes to "ranking engineers" who work with it. Then it goes
to "raters", i.e. external people who have been trained to judge whether
one ranking is more relevant or higher quality than another. Then it all
goes to a "search analyst" and a related committee, where the ultimate
goal is "to provide an informed, data-driven decision and to present an
unbiased view." Then comes a real example. Also, they claim they make
over 500 updates a year to the search results.
So, from this short film there is an overall impression of search
results that are changing constantly, i.e. updates of almost 2 a day;
plus a great deal of subjectivity, i.e. the best results *for each
user*, mixed with supposed objectivity (reliance on "experts" and
data-driven analysis to get an unbiased view) that, when you consider
it, doesn't really explain anything at all. For instance, who are these
"raters" and who trains them and how? They seem to be the focal point.
I just discovered this (via a Google search!): Google General Guidelines
for Remote Quality Raters (2007)
http://www.seobook.com/full-text-googles-general-guidelines-remote-quality-raters-april-2007
It was taken down along with some videos at Google's request! (That is
revealing!) But I found a summary of it:
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google-Optimization-Help/Googles-Quality-Rater-Guidelines-Leaked/.
In spite of all this, it seems that Google remains completely a black
box that takes in information and spits it out and no one, at least no
one outside of the company, really knows why it ranks sites the way it
does. What does it mean when they say a search "does not perform as well
as they would like"? Still, reading those guidelines for raters makes me
wonder if this is going to be what the Subject Heading Manuals will
become someday.
I hope not!
--
James Weinheimer weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
Cooperative Cataloging Rules: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Received on Mon Aug 29 2011 - 08:06:13 EDT