QC V2 AUTHORITY GUIDELINES

Who is this task for?

• Have you ever used a search engine like Google or Bing in your life?
• Do you consider yourself smart, thorough, and attentive?
• Are you a good judge of authority when viewing a webpage?
• Are you curious about different topics and would like to learn more
about things while you earn money?

If the answer to the above questions is Yes, then this task is for You! Read the guidelines to become a
master of QC V2 Authority.

Task Overview
When a search engine returns results to a user, they have an expectation that
the results will be of high credibility.
Your task will be to evaluate websites to determine the authority of the source
of the information, be it a single person or company. You will base your
determination on the knowledge the source has of the content being shared.

Terms to Understand
Term Definition
Label the answer selected for each question within the Hitapp
Result Page the webpage given in the hitapp to be evaluated
SPAM site a website with irrelevant content intended to attract users, aka clickbait
Content How well content achieves its goal(s), includes formatting, readability, and
Quality grammatical correctness, and can also include how well content ranks in search,
drives traffic, engages an audience, and converts users
Authority a site trusted by its users, industry experts, other websites, and search engines
 HitApp Layout 7 8
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1 Unable to Judge options for when you are unable to judge the hit
2 Learn More additional details about the options available
3 Question A question used to determine specific information about the result
page
4 Q1 Labels all possible responses for the hitapp question
5 Comments a free text area for judges to provide additional feedback
6 Submit Button used to submit your judgment
7 Result Page Tab a tab to display the web page to be evaluated
8 Guidelines a link to view the hitapp guidelines while working the hitapp
9 Report empty page use to report a hit with no URL in the address bar
10 Result Page iframe showing the web page to be evaluated
11 Open in new Tab can be used to open the URL in a new browser tab if the page does
not load in the iFrame

Workflow
Steps for Judging
Understanding the Result Page
Determine the main content of the page. The main content means any part of the page that directly helps the page
achieve its purpose. The main content can be text, images, video, page features (calculators, games), or user
generated content (UGC).

The main content of this

page is the information
about Bill Lee. Any other
information on this page is
supplementary to that
Main Content information.

Understanding Authority
Best Source
Best Source means that the page is the best place to get the information given. It is published by the person or
organization who created the product/report/policy. Best Source will typically be established organizations such as
governments, scientific agencies, and official company websites.

Sites providing original information.

Official site of a brand. When the information is about a specific brand, that brand’s website can be considered
Best Source.

www.nike.com

Best Source for

information about
Nike products.
High Authority
High Authority sites are created by reputable organizations or individuals. Retailers that sell products they do not
manufacture, reputable news organizations, certain independent journalists/commentators are High Authority.

Pages of Wikipedia or Amazon (or other retailers) are High Authority unless they are providing information about
their own original content or product.

www.cnn.com

As a trusted news
source, CNN would
be High Authority.

Poor
Poor pages contain Harmful content such as racist language or hate speech, Adult content, or promotes conspiracy
theories or violence.

This would also include sites that host illegal/unauthorized content such as torrent sites. These sites should be
labeled as Poor regardless of the site’s reputation as this type of content would outweigh any positive traits.

www.eztv.tv

As a torrent site
that hosts
unauthorized
copyrighted
materials for
download, this
would be Poor.
Unknown Authority
Unknown Authority should be used when the authority of the person or organization posting the content cannot
be determined.

Most content on websites that host User Generated Content will be of Unknown Authority.

(Exceptions detailed in the User Generated Content sections below)

www.reddit.com

Because the user’s

authority cannot be
determined, most
reddit posts are
Unknown Authority.

User Generated Content (UGC)

User Generated Content (UGC) sites have the content created by the user. UGC sites would include YouTube,
Facebook, Reddit, and Wikipedia.

If a site is reputable and it reviews and/or moderates the content of the page, the authority of the page is High.

In a forum page, users will discuss a topic. If the accepted answer is from a user who is verified by the site as an
expert on the topic of the forum, the page is High Authority.

The judging of any YouTube video should be based on who is posting the video and the reputation they have on
the subject which the video is on.

If the video was created by YouTube (YouTube Original Content) then we can consider it Best Source.

www.youtube.com

UGC pages like

YouTube allow
users to post
content without
moderation.
Because the user
cannot be verified,
most UGC pages will
be Unknown
Authority.
Tips for Judging

• If the Result Page does not open in the hitapp, use the ‘Open in new tab’ button to view the
Result Page in a new tab in your browser.
o If the Result Page still does not load, or you receive a 404 or similar error, use the
Unable to Judge option ‘Page did not Load’.
• If the page requires you to be logged in to view the content, use the Unable to Judge option
‘Login Required’.
• If the Result Page is in a different language from the hitapp, use the Unable to Judge option
‘In wrong language’.
• Keyboard shortcuts can be used to select labels and submit the hit. These will appear next to
the label in brackets [] to indicate which key to press.

Examples
How authoritative is the webpage source?
The webpage's source is the organization that has published the page. The sites providing auto-generated content, aiming
for attracting clicks, or collecting private data including personal profile across intent without permission should NOT be
labeled as best source or high authority. The authority of pages whose content is posted by a user (typically social media or
forums) should be determined by the user and not by the website.

Result Page Label Explanation

https://www.disney.com/ Best This site is for the Disney company
Source and presents child friendly
material.
https://qanon.pub/ Poor A far-right forum site promoting
belief in conspiracy theories and
fringe beliefs.
Article from NASA Best The article about how astronauts
Source write in space is written by NASA
based on work done there. They
have firsthand knowledge of the
information and are the Best
Source for this information.
Nike.com Best Nike’s official website is the best
Source source for their own products.
Article from Huffington Post High
Authority The Huffington Post is a
well-respected news source with a
good reputation. The writer is a
staff reporter for the news outlet.
This should be considered High
Authority as other news outlets
would be considered an equal
source for the information.
https://youthduo.com/home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZnHysAmYaY Unknown The user uploading this video is
https://cheesecurdinparadise.com/
Post on Reddit.com
Poor This website makes questionable
claims about anti-aging products
and should be considered to be a
poor authority.
Authority not officially affiliated with the
company. This is a product review.
Unknown With no real information on the
Authority writer of the blog it would be
difficult to say High Authority. As
she has written a book about
food, we cannot say Poor
Authority. Unknown is the best
option.
Unknown While Reddit is a well-known
Authority forum, the responses to this
medical question are from users
that cannot be verified as having
any real medical or first aid
knowledge. As there is no way to
clearly say this is High or Poor,
Unknown is the best option.