Google to harvest the collective wisdom and competences of experts.

Google has launched Google Co-op, a service that lets users subscribe to the “favorites” or “bookmarks” of experts, thus improving the relevance of search results.

There may, for instance, be one expert labelling some favorite web pages as relevant to a specific topic. In the Google search results, a special link will lead the searcher to these and other web pages marked by experts.

As an example Google gives a doctor, who labels web pages related to arthritis. Users who subscribe to that doctor’s information will receive options at the top of the results for more specific information such as “treatment,” “symptoms,” or “for health professionals” when they enter a relevant query.

Google has already worked with partners to annotate web pages related to health and city guides and to offer dozens of subscribed links to specialized content such as restaurant and movie information. Later on a “broader online community” will begin building out new topic areas. Whether this means that regular users may contribute as experts is unclear.

According to Google users can subscribe to content and providers at www.google.com/coop/directory. (The link is not working at the time of writing)

Press release