Google continue to use human input for the evaluation of search results, Peter Norvig of Google says.

Technology Review has an interesting interview in its January/February 2008 issue. They have interviewed Peter Norvig, director of research at Google.

Norvig mentions following factors when asked about how they make Google’s accuracy better:

• They track what users are clicking on. If they click on number one and do not come back to Google, that is taken as a quality sign: the searchers have found what they are looking for.
• Google hires people to review the quality of search results for specific queries. The myth about Google’s search results being fully automatic is clearly not true.
• Google does user experience tests in laboratories and in peoples’ homes, observing searchers in order to pinpoint difficulties.

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