Could Google be using Reddit to revive an ancient, failed project 60,000+ Redditors may well be mTurking for Google Answers 2.0

Date:
Tue, 27 Feb 2024 12:59:38 +0000

Description:
Reddit over-indexing on Google, then the $60 million Google AI deal: Is something else brewing?

FULL STORY ======================================================================

18 years ago, Google shut down Google Answers, a service that allowed anyone to ask a question to freelancers, known as Google Answers Researchers (GAR), for a fee. Launched in April 2002, it competed against the free-to-use Yahoo! Answers. The answers fed directly into Googles own index (theyd appear in Google Search results page) and offered an interesting alternative to the existing knowledge base back then.

Fast forward to 2024 and Reddit a website that offers something similar to Google Answers (albeit in an expanded form), just announced its IPO as well
as a deal to pocket $60 million in annual fees from Google to allow the
latter from training its AI on existing Reddit content, content that is curated and maintained by an army of more than 60,000 volunteers, the Redditors.

They are the key to Reddits sustained success, dealing with spam accounts
(and spam content) and maintaining a modicum of consistency. Redditors are in effect manually doing what an algorithm may have done, reminding me of mTurk
, the little known crowdsourcing marketplace owned by Amazon, that allowed businesses and individuals to outsource their processes and jobs.

Redditors keep the data cleaner for free and make it better by using their
own experience (and time), something akin to the open source community that maintain source code in applications that powers most of the internet as we know it.

Reddit, or the front page of the internet as it is also known, thrives on its user generated content, produced by a staggering 73 million daily active users. The company said in its IPO filling that it had more than one billion cumulative posts, spread over more than 100,000 active communities.

More importantly for us at Future (and many other publishers), a recent
Google algorithm change saw Reddits Visibility Index surge, making it one of the most visible domains in Google Search (US), according to SEO tool
Sistrix. SERP-mageddon

In terms of Google Search potential in the US, reddit.com is almost as big as facebook.com wrote Steve Paine , last week. And thats because Reddit has an estimated 11 million daily Google search clicks, all of which represent
search intent and may turn Reddit into a formidable rival to more established players.

By ranking higher in SERP (search engine results page), Reddit is likely to grow in size, attracting more new members. Increasing in size would mean new topics and - hopefully - better answers, all with Googles apparent blessing. But to paraphrase Stan Lee, with great power comes great responsibility and this is where cracks have started to appear.

Not everyone is liking Reddits businessification. Reddit warned us that its users were a risk factor, and boy do they sound excited about shorting its stock quipped Elizabeth Lopatto from The Verge in what could be interpreted
as a warning shot to Reddits owners.

Then theres Google. Reddit has pushed a lot of sites off lucrative SERP positions and has caused growing frustration amongst SEO professionals like Glen Allsopp or Lily Ray because of an expanding spam issue. In a research piece published last week, Allsopp pointed out that the Discussions and Forums SERP feature was present in 77% of searches, and Reddit was present in 97.5% of those. What I havent yet told you is that 51% of Reddits top-ranking threads currently have spam as a top comment.

To make things even more complicated, Reddit also appears on its own in
SERPs, usually with a cluster of links (rather than just one link like most competitors). These links are chosen by Google based on unknown factors,
other than recency, which means that some results are from 2022 , even for highly competitive terms.

Where will it end? The commenting system on Google Answers was used (and abused) by the SEO community and may have contributed to the demise of the service (back then, Google only said that they considered many factors in reaching this decision). AI and the intervention of state actors could make
it even more difficult for Redditors to moderate and ironically, Googles Reddit move could end up hurting the online ecosystem more than AI-produced content. More from TechRadar Pro

Want to supercharge your SEO? Check out our list of the best SEO tools . ChatGPT is not where true generative AI innovation lies AI isnt just great
for SEO, weve compiled a list of the best AI tools



======================================================================
Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/could-google-be-using-reddit-to-revive-an-ancien t-failed-project-60000-redditors-may-well-be-mturking-for-google-answers-20


--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 (Linux/64)
* Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100)