Appen has an interesting way of naming its projects after geographical features like rivers, landmarks and territories. This is a tradition that was a part of Leapforce and was carried on by Appen even after it acquired it in 2017 .One such project is Project Yukon, which is named after a territory in western Canada. While you may not know this factoid about this project, the name of this project on its own will certainly rings a bell for those who are interested in search media evaluation jobs.
Project Yukon is a search engine evaluation project of Google which is being executed by Appen.
Another popular knowledge in the online domain is that it is very difficult to clear the qualification exam to get into Project Yukon. While Appen does take its project and the quality of its independent contractors and raters very seriously, a careful strategy and ample amount of hard work is sure to get you through this exam.
This article will tell you everything you have to know about taking this exam and will give you pointers to plan a personalized strategy for yourself
The first step of course will be to register for the project. Once you are approved by Appen to take the qualification exam, they will mail you a 160 page guidelines document which you will be expected to read and be thorough with within 7 days. At this point, it is advisable that you read the guidelines at least twice before you even think of taking the test. And since this is a 160 page heavy document it is best that it is not left to the last minute.
These guidelines will help you to not only make a general sense of the exam but will be also useful during the exam. Since this examination is an open-book exam, you are allowed to refer back to your guidelines anytime you want to. The golden rule of any open-book exam is to highlight the important points and tricky parts beforehand so you do not waste time searching for them again during the examination.
The guidelines should be referred back to even when you have the slightest doubts. This is because Appen expects you to work not in your personal judgement but according to the rules provided in the guideline. By referring to the guidelines, you begun representing the average internet user of the area of your residence. As these guidelines are carefully updated time and again, it is best that you stick to the prescribed details in the guidelines document.
The guidelines are broadly divided into three parts.
Part 1 of the guideline is based on the Page quality rating guidelines that should be observed by the rater.
Before assigning the quality of page, the general purpose of the page has to be determined by the user. For example, it has to be determined whether the page was created to give certain information to the user, to sell a product, to express an opinion or to download files etc. Once the purpose is determined by the rater, it will be easier for him/her to decide whether the purpose has been fulfilled on that basis to rate the quality of the page.
The Page Quality Ratings are five in number from: lowest, low, medium to high and highest.
These Page Quality rating guidelines place special importance on E-A-T (Expertise-Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness) of the pages.
The EAT of a page is dependent on whether it can be accredited to a formal degree or credentials. For example a page giving a piece of medical advice should have the backing of a degree in medicine or allied branches. Similarly a page giving legal advice should have an accreditation of formal degree in law. Same is the case in case of technical skills like instructions to play a musical instrument or a painting methodology.
However Google does recognize that not all pages require EAT and certain pages like the search results on best restaurants to eat nearby does not need to be backed by formal accreditation.
Yet the importance of EAT is highest for the YMYL pages.
“Your Money-Your Life”or YMYL pages are the pages that can potentially affect the wellbeing of a person and hence have a moral importance too, as low quality of these pages can negatively affect the said person. These are the pages like those on financial transactions, medical information, legal information, government policies and current affairs and news etc. and may as well refer to the safety of the user.
Part 2 is Understanding the mobile user’s needs. Google in this day and age is very serious about search result relevance for its mobile users with on-the -go devices. Hence many of the tasks on the examination are to be performed on smart phones only and it is imperative to possess a smartphone to join Appen projects.
However if you have short term unavailability of a smartphone, you may use an android simulator for the time being (infact in certain tasks an android simulator may prove to be more convenient.)
While the search results for a Pc user are expected to be detailed and comprehensive, the same for a mobile user has to be rated with its limitations and hence Appen expects you to rate them as Result Blocks.
Result Blocks are snippets or pieces of information that can fit in the mobile screen. They can be simple know query (the day time temperature of a location), long answer seeking (the meaning of life),Taj Mahal(Single entity),the nearest Starbucks(chain)or beauty parlours in a neighbourhood(categorical).
There are two types of Result Blocks:
- Web Search Result Blocks which contain the snippet information, the name of the page and the URL.
- Special Content Result Blocks which display the relevant, non-textual information directly, for example, a calculator or a translator.
While using your Smartphone it is possible that while accessing the link, it may show that the Gmail is unauthorized. It happens when there are multiple Gmail accounts. This problem can be easily fixed by going to your android settings and from there to users and accounts and then adding your project related account. Then the Smartphone should be restarted.
The third part is formed by the Needs Met Guidelines. There are five levels of ratings: Fails to Meet,Slightly Meets, Moderatly meets,Highly Meets and Fully Meets.
Fails to meet is a rating assigned when there is little relevance between the intent of the search and the consequent search results. Fully Meets rating is to be assigned when the user will not have to search further and has got the answer to their query. Fully met rating has to be very cautiously assigned and given rarely.
An important point to be taken in consideration while rating web pages is that certain companies like Walmart ban foreign IPs to prevent hacker attacks and hence may be inaccessible from outside US. However rating these results as ‘fails to meet’ may not be accepted by Appen as they do not factor in this problem in their policy and hence this may lead to a wrong search analysis.
THE EXAMINATION
The examination for qualification is divided into three parts:
- A theoretical Multiple-Choice exam
- A Page Quality Rating Exam and
- A Needs Met Rating Test
To pass this exam, each part has to be passed separately after which you proceed to the next part. Hence you will first have to take the theoretical test, then the Page Quality Rating test and when you pass these two, only then you will be allowed to give the third part of the test which is the toughest.
The MCQ part 1 is the easiest part of the exam. You can find the answers by looking at the guidelines which you can refer to anytime as this is an open book exam.
There are 32 questions in this exam and each question consists of four parts, so in all you have to pass 132 questions .There of course is a time limit for each task which is 1.5 hours. If you do have to take a break in between, complete a task, click on the submit button and your work will be saved. However it is important to remember that partial work is not saved and hence only when you complete all the parts of the task should you submit it. For complete information on this it is best you study very carefully the guidelines in section 3 of the exam which is about ‘Accessing the Qualification exam’.
Also the tasks expire after 1.5 hours, so you have to complete it within the said time period. Otherwise they will be marked as wrong and you will fail the test. It is also important to be careful not to release any task as they will be marked wrong.
Another point to take notice is that the last page of the part 1 exam has only one question with its four parts and if you do not see this on the last page and instead see ‘No available task’, it is better that you inform the company right away as you may fail the test if you do not pass this part.
Once all the tasks are complete, a ‘No available task’ sign will be seen on the homepage. As a strategy, it is better if you complete this part on the first day of the seven day time period of this examination.
If you fail in this part, Appen may allow you to take the examination again unless you have done unexceptionally badly. Also this is the only part where you can search for exam answers before as it is theoretical, largely remains unchanged and can be rot learned.
Both part 2 and 3 after this are tougher and require practical application of the guidelines and hence there are no answers here that you can pre-search for as the tasks keep on changing.
Within 5 minutes of you clearing the first part of the exam, you will receive an email confirming it. Please note that the part 2 will not start immediately and it may take a while before you start seeing new tasks. It is best that you proactively keep an eye for the part 2 of the exam and mail the company in case it is not visible within 24 hours.
As you are given seven days to complete the test, it is advisable that you take a day’s break and read the guidelines thoroughly again as grasping the concepts is very important for this part and the next one.
After you decide to take the test for the second part, you will be asked to rate the page quality of 7 web pages.As a trend it has been seen that you may receive 2-3 low quality pages, 2-3 medium quality pages and 2-3 high quality pages.
However it is not compulsory and should not be taken as a rule. Hence all the parameters given in the guidelines to study the web page should be carefully analysed and the web pages should be rated keeping in mind especially EAT (Expertise-Authoritativeness-trustworthiness) and that too specifically in case of YMYL pages.
It also important to leave comments wherever required.
Also attention has to be paid to the fact the fact that a URL may not open in your smartphone, and in that case marking it as ‘did not load’ will make them mark your reason as wrong. Hence in that case you can either try to open the link by incognito mode on your browser. Even if that fails, you will have to act smart and give the ratings based on other sources of information, for example, the websites reputation and other web searches.
Once you have cleared the second part, you enter the third part of the exam which is supposed to be the toughest and most of the raters fail in this one. This is the Needs Met rating section of the exam.
It is best that you take a day off and study the guidelines again. There should be no hesitation on going through the guidelines again and again as, believe me, even if you get the job, there will be multiple occasions where you may have to refer back to the guidelines again and again.
The first step for a rater for this task is to understand the intent of the query. Only then will he/she will be able to assess whether it has been fulfilled or not. In case the intent is not clear it is best to search the internet again to gain clarity on this.
Also it is to be kept in mind that Fully Met rating has to be given very rarely and when there is not even a slight doubt in the rater’s mind.it can be assigned in case of a ‘simple know query’ only if the correct answer is decidedly present in the Result Block.
In the part, the quality of the page sliders is not important in giving the ratings but the focus should be placed on the Needs Met.
EAT of the pages, especially for YMYL pages are very important. The need of the mobile users have to be kept in mind all the time as they are the biggest target group according to the latest changes in the Google guidelines.
For the Special content result blocks, in case of business entity/chain enquiry, a list with multiple businesses is better than one business in a single category. Likewise in a query based on location, like the eating joints near me, it is important to focus on the location and even use an inbuilt map to research the location. The use of ‘Offensive-content’ flags should also be used wherever necessary.
When there is a case where a minor interpretation of a search query is displayed, it should be given low ratings.
To fully understand the requirements of the third part of test please watch very carefully the video given in the guidelines.
You are expected to pass this part of test with 80% and more.
Once you have completed the tasks, Appen will provide you with the result on the due date and then ask you sign certain electronic forms. You will then be asked to open a Payoneer account and then asked for certain taxation Ids like the PAN Card in Indian or your Social Security Number in US.
With two to four days hopefully, you will be sent live tasks. You can send a mail to the company if that does not happen.
If all this seems too much for you, you can also practise the practical aspects of the exam with exam simulation tools available on the net to practise your page ratings and Needs Met Ratings.
Hopefully these guidelines will help you pass this exam with flying colors.
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