I recently read an article in The Register about Google’s recent issues with the massive amounts of spam online. Let’s just be honest moment here: SEO is great but it’s exploited WAY too much on what I would consider illegitimate websites. You know – the ones whose sole purpose is for the display of advertisements, portals, etc.
Here’s an idea: Let’s apply a Web 2.0 ideology to our searches in much the same way we see sites like Slashdot, Digg, and Newsvine moderate reader comments. One crucial difference: we don’t necessarily elevate page rankings for any given page – that task is to be completed as it’s always been done. Rather, those irrelevant sites should probably suffer de-listing if enough users give it a thumbs-down based on the nature of the content. Before you begin explaining the counter-arguments, let me save you some keystrokes. What happens if users begin thumbing-down legitimate sites based on their personal viewpoints and beliefs, on the basis of competition, or other that’s-not-the-point-of-this-self-regulating-system reason? Maybe one way around it is to flag the page (or even domain) for review by a select group of people. People could first earn the title of moderator, then even earn rewards for proper moderation, as reviewed by peers (those who want to be moderators?). Either way, it’s a community approach to regulating the quality of search results.
…just ideas I had while reading the article. I’m tired of all the junk on the net and in my email.