Topics FAQ

1. What are topics?
2. What topics are currently being developed?
3. What are labels?
4. What is an annotation?
5. What labels should I use?
6. What should I label?
7. Who will see my labels?
8. Why do I need a profile page?
9. Can I label a whole website or just individual pages?
10. Can I apply multiple labels to the same webpage?
11. Should I label pages that require a login?
12. How long do I have to wait to see the effect of my labels? What about the people that subscribe to me?
13. How many pages/sites can I annotate?
14. How does Google Co-op determine what appears in the directory?
15. I still have questions. Where can I go for more information?

Topics are specific search areas that Google is developing with the help of expert contributors. Contributors to topics annotate websites that they think are especially useful, relevant, or authoritative to a topic with pre-defined category labels. These labels appear as links at the top of search results pages when users search for something related to the topic. Users can click these labels to refine their search results, giving priority to sites that have been labeled by topic contributors.

Health, Destination Guides, Computer & Video Games, Autos are currently being developed with the help of the Co-op community.

Labels are categories of search results within a specific topic, that enable users to refine their searches. The best labels correspond to refinements that are difficult to achieve by simply tacking additional words onto a query. For more on what makes a good label, see the Pick Your Labels section of the Developer Guide.

Annotation is attaching a label to a webpage, website or set of webpages (specified by a URL pattern). This will indicate that the associated webpages should be preferred in the search results for queries with that label. You can annotate pages by using the Google Marker.

Please use only the labels listed on the topic page, such as those listed for the destination guides topic, you are contributing to.

We recommend you label any webpage(s) in your area of expertise. We strongly encourage you to label all high-quality content, irrespective of whose site it's on. Please don't restrict yourself to labeling pages on any one site. Such labels will likely be ignored. Please note, Google Co-op is not a tool for promoting your own site. If you simply want to make sure your content is included in the Google index, your best bet is to use Google Sitemaps.

Users who subscribe to you will see your labels for relevant searches. As your labels become higher quality and more comprehensive, and as more users subscribe to you, your labels may start surfacing to more Google users than just those who explicitly subscribed. A number of factors help determine how broadly your labels appear -- such as the number of subscribers you have, how many different websites you've labeled, and, most importantly, how often your labels make it easier for users to find what they're looking for.

Your profile page is where users can learn about you and get information about your contributions. Users can then decide whether they want to add your labels to their search results. Your profile page includes both info you provide and info generated by the community, such as:

• What kind of labels you've added
• How long you've been involved with Google Co-op
• Your subscribers
• Your recent contributions

You can promote your contributions by linking to your public profile. Find that link on your profile page. If you link to that from your website or blog, users can quickly add your work to their search results.

You can do both, and more. For each label, you'll specify a URL pattern. Each pattern will include a URL prefix, plus optional keywords. A few examples:

• The wildcard pattern www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents*k-4*.html would specify all the URLs beginning with www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents that also contained k-4 and .html.
• The prefix pattern www.nasa.gov/* would specify all the URLs that begin with www.nasa.gov/, i.e. all the URLs at NASA's main site.
• And finally, the exact-match pattern www.nasa.gov/ would specify only the URLs http://www.nasa.gov/ and https://www.nasa.gov/.

The Developer Guide has detailed information about how to label webpages.

Yes, a page can have multiple labels. Webpages tend to be about more than one thing, so you can always apply multiple labels to a single page. Please apply any and all labels that are relevant.

Preferably not. Please try to label only pages that are freely accessible. In most cases, pages that require a login won't be in the Google index anyway so they wouldn't show up in our search results.

After labeling pages, you'll see the effects on your search results immediately. Those who subscribe to you may have to wait a few hours before they see the full effect.

We currently permit you to provide up to 5000 annotations.

Google Co-op uses a variety of algorithms to determine which contributors appear in the directory. These factors include, but are not limited to, how many subscribers and labels a contributor has-- as well as how successful a contributor's labels are at connecting users with the information they are looking for.

Please note that subscribing to a large number of contributors does not increase your own visibility or potential inclusion in the directory.

Google Co-op is still in its early stages. We'd love to hear what you think. You can ask questions, find answers, and share your expertise on the Google Co-op discussion group, or just email us. Thanks for bearing with us as we continue to improve Google Co-op.