Business, Featured - Written Monday, July 27, 2009 by Denis Hancock - 18 Comments

How do Yahoo! Answers get to the top of Google Search?

As we all know, Google has become rather synonymous with search on the web. What I find most perplexing about this achievement is that I often find that Google search results (as I’ve talked about before) aren’t that good – and it amazes me that someone hasn’t come up with something much better. And of all the things that bother me about Google Search results, the increasing pervalence of “Yahoo Answers” as the #1 hit has quickly risen to the top.

I started looking at Yahoo! Answers quite awhile ago because it’s a type of prosumer platform – people ask questions, and the community provides the answers. Sadly, most of the answers are terrible – and the only time people I know find value from it is when they’re looking for a laugh. Why this might be is a subject for another time. Today I want to focus on how terrible answers from the platform are bubbling up to the top of Google Search.

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