Looks like Google may be using human testers to evaluate the quality of a web site. Henk van Ess has reported Google’s use of human raters in his new blog SearchBistro.com (which was Slashdotted). The page, Google’s Human Quality Evaluation makes an interesting read. You can even see a quick flash movie showing the Google’s Raters Hub in action.

Although human raters have been hinted to exist a while ago (since April 2003 on a Webmastworld thread), this is the first time we’ve seen evidence of Google using human testers as part of their quality control. This new revelation is no doubt this is likely to cause controversy among the webmaster community.

So how would the results from the human testers be used? It’s unlikely that Google will actively modify their search results based on the human testers, but rather passively evaluate the quality of their results and possibly tweak them by modifying their ranking algorithm.

Further reading on this topic:

• Hen van Ess Drops Google Bomb
• Google’s Human Touch - Rater Hub - The Secret Google Lab?
• “Rater Hub Google” Rumours?

And of course, keep your eye on SearchBistro.com.