Understanding Google Answers

Google Answers is an interesting service. Spend a little time here and you'll see that a vibrant little community has been created, utterly devoted to the task of helping and informing other users. In fact, most of the answers provided by Google Answer researchers are augmented by (unpaid) comments from other users who want to pitch in with what they know. It's kind of neat, actually.

What Kinds of Questions Can You Ask?

In essence, Google Answers lets you ask any question that has a concrete answer. You can ask numerical questions or word questions; historical questions or philosophical questions; easy questions and hard questions.

What you can'tor rather, shouldn'task are open-ended questions that don't have firm answers. Ask a question like "What color is prettiest, red or blue?", and you're likely not to get any answers. If the answer to a question exists and can be looked up, no matter how hard it might be to find, you're much more likely to get an acceptable response.

You also shouldn't try to ask questions that relate to illegal activities, request private information about individuals, refer to adult content, or are meant to advertise or sell products or services. Also, Google discourages students from using Google Answers to answer homework or exam questions; if you're a student, you shouldn't be paying someone else to do your work for you!

Finally, Google would like you to know that Google Answers "is not a substitute for professional advice or services." While it's okay to ask legal, medical, or business-related questions, you shouldn't overly rely on the answers you receive; you're better off paying a lawyer, doctor, or accountant for true professional advice.

Who Answers Your Questions?

The questions you ask via Google Answers are answered by a volunteer team of more than 500 researchers. By volunteer, I mean that they're not paid a salary by Google; they earn their money from the fees users pay to get their questions answered.

Google's researchers, by the way, are not always (if ever) experts in their field. What they are are expert researchers. A researcher is someone who can find specific information, which is exactly what Google's researchers do. You ask a question, and they research it; the result of their research is, ideally, the answer you were searching for.

Google says that the company has a stringent process for screening researchers. Each applicant must submit an essay, as well as answer a series of test questions. To maintain the quality level, Google periodically boots researchers whose ratings fall below acceptable levels. (This is why it's important for you to rate the answers you receive.)

In addition to these paid researchers, any Google Answers user can post comments to any question. Users don't get paid for these comments, and their comments aren't always on-base. Still, additional information and opinions can sometimes be helpful, as long as you realize that these aren't responses from the paid Google researchers.

How Much Should You Pay for Answers?

Using the Google Answers service comes at a price. You can set your price as low as $2.00, or as high as $200.

Obviously, the more you pay, the more likely you are to get a rapid and detailed answer. And it's certainly appropriate to pay more for more-detailed and hard-to-answer questions. The longer a researcher has to work to find the answer, the more he or she should be paid.

You're only charged, however, when your question is actually answered. If Google's researchers draw a blank, you don't have to pay.

In addition, when you rate the answer you receive, you can also opt to tip the researcher; just enter an amount between $1 to $100 in the tip box next to the rating. This is a good way to reward particularly good work on the part of an individual researcher.