Google Answers

Google Answers was a Question and Answer service operated by Google Inc. Customers could post a question and select a price. If a Google Answers Researcher could provide the answer, the researcher was paid 75% of the question price.

History

During August 2001, Google briefly provided a service called Google Questions and Answers where a Google employee would research any question and email the answer^[1]. The price ranged from $1 to $6 according to the depth of research required.

In April 2002 Google launched Google Answers, a more comprehensive service. Google Answers generated much interest when it was launched, and was generally popular with those who used it. At the end of 2006, with the service suffering from a lack of development and maintenance, it was closed.

Operation of the service

Google recruited over 500 people to work under contract as researchers for Google Answers.

The customer selected a price (initially from $4 to $50, then later from $2 to $100, then from $2 to $200), specified a category, and posted their question. A posting fee of 50 cents was added. A researcher was able to lock the question so that others could not post an answer while the researcher with the lock was conducting the research.

If the question was answered, the researcher received 75% of the question price and Google retained the rest. The customer was able to request a refund for an unsatisfactory answer, however the 50 cent listing fee was non-refundable. The customer was able to rate the answer (from one to five stars) and could also leave a tip.

A clarification process was available for use before and after the answer was posted. Comments could be posted by anyone who had registered at the site, whether or not they were a customer or a researcher.

Google Answers Researchers

The Google Answers FAQ has this to say: "Google Answers Researchers were experts at locating hard-to-find information on the web, and through offline resources as well. Researchers were required to go through an application process that tested their research skills and the quality of their answers. Google Answers Researchers were screened and approved independent contractors who were paid for posting "answers" to the site. We are no longer accepting applications for Researchers."

Closure

Google stopped accepting new questions on 30 November 2006, and by the end of December 2006 customers and researchers were no longer able to post new material to questions. In an announcement of the closure^[4], Andrew Fikes and Lexi Baugher (Google software engineers) wrote:

"Google is a company fueled by innovation, which to us means trying lots of new things all the time -- and sometimes it means reconsidering our goals for a product. Later this week, we will stop accepting new questions in Google Answers ... Google Answers was a great experiment which provided us with a lot of material for developing future products to serve our users. We'll continue to look for new ways to improve the search experience and to connect people to the information they want"

Google Answers was the first major service to be closed by Google. By the end, the site held 57096 answered questions^[2], out of more than a hundred thousand questions asked^[3]. The questions and answers are still accessible at the Google Answers site.