Working for Google? For Free?

Posted by admin on July 15, 2008 under Search Engines |

So, earlier this evening, I was toying around on Google.  Doing my usual rankings testing and review, and noticed some new features on Google.  The ability to edit the search results in my personalized environment. Now, as a regular user of Google, I found this to be a pretty new feature, and it peaked my curiosity.

They are allowing me to remove pages, upgrade pages, and comment on pages within my results.  The part that got me intrigued though was the ability to see other folks edits.

So I’m wondering if Google is now using it’s own users to actually improve their product, free of compensation.  While obviously the thought is improving my own results, does the fact that Google allowing me to see others edits mean that they will be using this information to improve their results.

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but I potentially have a problem with Google using my feedback to improve a product that they make billions off of, without compensating me with anything more than improving search results.  I would like to ask Google to invest their profits into improving the technology surrounding the quality of your search engine instead of focusing on using feedback from your users without compensation.

Perhaps I’m not being fair…if you think so, then let me know!

Update:

There is a nice discussion on this new feature by Justin Hileman.  He does a nice job of walking through the full feature set.