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Comment by kappuchino | Hacker News Reader

Ex Google Search quality Rater here, based in Germany. From 2004 to 2006 I worked on SQR and "special projects", with a much better pay (maybe because of german circumstances). I've been tracking the SQR-guide since then (public version here https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...), so I have still some current understanding. If you have questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them since my NDA has expired ;-).

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What do you think about gpt3 and ai content on serps and how will it be rated and ranked?

Good question, disapointing answer: Only time will tell. I have a hunch however, from stylometry work. Its that for short texts "generated" text will be virtually indestinguishable and this will grow as ml/ai systems advance to longer and longer texts. This will probably lead to different techniques to rate content (like more emphasis on the Your life/Your money factor).

Do you feel the rating guidelines were well thought out? Is there anything you would change?

Did you work from an office or remotely? Did you interact with other raters?

Was there an interview process? How about performance reviews? How did Google ensure quality?

I don't have any specific questions but would be really interested in hearing more!

Its an interesting boring job in its core. At least when I did it. You agree to see theoretically everything that people search for and try to rate it according to the linked manual. In my time - really long ago - britney spears was one of the most common searches (I remember it probably wrong, but the test I had to do was half rating questions on spears and tom hanks). But I also got to rate "donkey s*x" and things like "divorce help" which makes you think about the impact search results can have. The boring part was that it is kind of repetetive to rate and you seem to learn how simplistic people search most of the time (but then again, only common/frequent searches are tested, at least most of the time). And it was enlightning how search spammers adapted to each no measure to keep them out. I still know the names of the people who were infamous at that time for setting up fake, keyword stuffed "blogs" to get people to their shop.

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