The big news from the weekend is that Google has terminated its contract with Appen, one of the largest sources of its third-party human search quality raters sources. Appen announced this in this PDF, saying it received notice of this on January 20th, and the contract ends on March 19, 2024.
It goes on to say they had no prior notice, adding that the reason was that Google did this “as part of a strategic review process it will be terminating its global inbound services contract with Appen, resulting in the cessation of all projects with Appen by 19 March 2024.”
“In FY23, Appen’s revenue from Google was $82.8m1 at a gross margin of 26%,” so that has to hurt Appen in a big way.
Cyrus Shepard first posted this news, as he works on the side for Appen as a Google Search Quality Rater and Appen emailed him the news. He posted on X saying, “BIG shakeup for Google Quality Raters. Google cancels contract with Appen/RaterLabs (the company that employs me as a Quality Rater). No idea what this means to the Quality Rater program.”
Google has used quality raters for almost ever. At least 15 years now, from what I know. This does not mean Google stopped using all quality raters. All we know now is that its contract with Appen, which may provide a large number of those quality raters is ending in March.
BIG shakeup for Google Quality Raters
Google cancels contract with Appen/RaterLabs (the company that employs me as a Quality Rater)
No idea what this means to the Quality Rater program pic.twitter.com/rzScBe4Dvn
— Cyrus SEO (@CyrusShepard) January 22, 2024
