Improve Google Results

If you have ever complained because of seeing poor quality web sites listed in Google, be aware that they are hiring actual humans to help improve the SERPs.

For example, you could apply for the currently open position of “Search Quality Evaluator” if you live in Mountain View or want to move there.

“We can’t tell how much this helps Google with its search results. But it is clear that some problems are still better handled by people.”
Saul Hansell
New York Times

Or, you could apply to become a Google Linguist and help analyze the content that Google indexes. Incidentally, the fact that Google is hiring linguists coupled with the fact that they are currently scanning and indexing thousands of college library books (and have been doing so for some time) should really drive home the importance of writing web site content for humans, not robots. That Google is doing this indicates that they are improving the ability of Googlebot to recognize normal human speech and language patterns. Translation: pages that are written for robots will probably soon be dropping in the SERPs. Write for humans.

You could even apply for one of the many temporary positions such as Google Quality Rater.

It is nice to see Google trying to supplement their Search algorithms with some actual human interaction. Too many times, it seems that quality web sites are penalized for some obscure, unclear violation while spammy, made-for-adsense sites flourish.