Vital Pages for People Queries
This section describes the use of the Vital rating for queries which are names of people, such as [oprah], [barack obama], and [lady gaga]. This section does not apply to queries which include both a name and other words, such as [lady gaga twitter].
For a query which is the name of a real (non-fictional) living person, the V rating should be used when:
• The query has a clear dominant interpretation, i.e., most people are looking for information about one particular person. For example [madonna], [barack obama], [shaquille o'neal].
• The result is the homepage of the person's official website, if such a website exists.
Many or most people queries do not have a dominant interpretation. Queries like [ben smith], [mary jones], [elizabeth tucker], [susan greene], [paul richards], and [chad hancock] can have no V result because different users may be looking for different people.
Even unusual sounding name queries may not have a dominant interpretation. For example, the queries [sam wen], [tran nguyen], and [david mease] can have no V result because there are multiple people with each of these names and it is not clear that most users are looking for any one particular individual.
We will consider a person's website official if it is created by the person or an authorized agent of that person. The website must be maintained and have information or content which establishes that the website officially represents the person. This is a very high standard. When in doubt, do not use the V rating.
Important: Websites that are under construction or obviously unmaintained should not be rated V, even if they were at one point created by or authorized by the person in the query. Please consider a personal website to be unmaintained if there is old or stale information displayed prominently. For personal websites which are generally very frequently updated, please look for updates within the last 4 months. If the personal website feels unmaintained, do not use the V rating.
|
Query and User Intent |
LP of the Result Block, Result Block, Utility Rating |
Description of the LP |
[tiger woods], English (US) |
Landing page link: LP
|
Homepage of Tiger Woods' official website. |
|
Landing page link: LP
This result is not Vital. |
This is Tiger Woods' Twitter page. It is not his official website. | |
[oprah], English (US) |
Landing page link: LP
|
Homepage of Oprah's official website. |
|
Landing page link: LP
This result is not Vital. |
This is not Oprah's official website, even though the URL (oprah- winfrey.com) matches her name. | |
[emma watson], English (US) |
Landing page link: LP
|
Homepage of Emma Watson's official website. |
|
Landing page link: LP
This result is not Vital. |
This is a well maintained Facebook page but it is not Emma Watson's official website. |
|
Query and User Intent |
LP of the Result Block, Result Block, Utility Rating |
Description of the LP |
|
[sam wen], English (US) |
Landing page link: LP
This result is not Vital. |
There are multiple people with this name. It is not clear which Sam Wen users may be looking for. There is no dominant interpretation, and therefore no V result is possible for this query. |
|
[amanda bynes], English (US) |
Landing page link: LP
This result is not Vital. |
Amanda Bynes is an actress. The LP displays an "Under Construction" message. The copyright date shown is 2000. There is no content on the page that establishes this as her official website. |
Vital pages for URL queries
Some queries look like URLs. We will call these queries URL Queries. Here are some types of URL queries:
• Exact, perfectly-formed, working URLs, such as [http://www.ibm.com] or [ www.ibm.com] or [ibm.com].
• Imperfect URL queries: Queries that look like URL queries, but are not "working URL" queries. These URLs do not load if you type or paste them into your browser address bar. Even so, we believe users have a specific page in mind.
Some queries, such as [yahoo] or [yahoo mail] are website names. These queries do not contain ".com" or "www" or other standard components of a URL. These are Go queries, but we will not consider them URL queries.
Assign a V rating to results for URL queries based on user intent. Assign a V rating only if there is little or no doubt that the page matches user intent.
|
Query and User Intent |
LP of the Result Block, Result Block, Utility Rating |
Description of the LP |
|
, English (US) This is a perfect working URL query. The user intent is clear: go to the MySpace website. |
Landing page link: LP
|
Homepage of the MySpace website. |
|
[www.yahoo.c0m], English (US) [yahoo.xcom], English (US) Even though these queries are imperfect URL queries, it is clear the user wants to go to the Yahoo! website. |
Landing page link: LP
|
Homepage of the Yahoo! website. |
|
Query and User Intent |
LP of the Result Block, Result Block, Utility Rating |
Description of the LP |
|
[huffintonpost.com], English (US) This query is a working URL, but it is clearly mistyped. The clear user intent is to navigate to huffingtonpost.com. |
Landing page link: LP
This result is not Vital. It is not the result the user is looking for. |
Homepage of the huffintonpost.com website. This is spam. It is a fake search page. See Section 12.4.3 for more information about this result and about fake search pages. |
|
Landing page link: LP
The clear user intent is to navigate to huffingtonpost.com. This result is Vital. |
Homepage of the Huffington Post website. | |
|
[wwww.ibm.com], English (US) Even though the URL doesn't load, it is clear that the user wants to go to the IBM homepage. |
Landing page link: LP
|
Homepage of the IBM website. |
|
[tax form 1040 irs.gov], English (US) Even though the query contains spaces, it is clear that the user wants to go to the page on the official IRS government website for the current 1040 tax form. |
Landing page link: LP
|
Page with the 1040 tax form on the official IRS website. |
|
[i hire chemists.com], English (US) Even though the query contains spaces, it is clear that the user wants to go to the iHireChemists website. |
Landing page link: LP
|
Homepage of the iHireChemists website. |
Vital Pages and Geographic Location
Some international entities have multiple versions of their homepages for different languages or countries. A homepage should be rated Vital when:
• There is clear user intent to navigate to a specific website or webpage, and the landing page is exactly what the user is looking for.
• There are multiple versions of the official page, and the page seems right for users in the locale. Otherwise, please assign a rating based on utility for the user.
|
Query and User Intent |
LP of the Result Block, Result Block, Utility Rating |
Description of the LP |
|
[United Nations], French (FR) Go to the United Nations website. French users expect to go to the version of the website that is appropriate for French speaking users. |
Landing page link: LP
|
Homepage of the French version of the United Nations website. The French version of the website is V for all French task locations. It is the right official page for French speaking users. |
|
[United Nations], Russian (RU) Go to the United Nations website. Russian users expect to go to the version of the website that is appropriate for Russian-speaking users. |
Landing page link: LP
This result is not Vital. |
The United Nations website has six versions of its website: Arabic, Japanese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. This page is a "choose your language" page. The
|
|
[un.org], Russian (RU) Go to un.org. |
|
"Choose your language" page on the United Nations website. Since the LP is the page "asked for" in the query, it is V, even though a Russian version of the United Nations website exists. |
