I’m seeing more big publisher sites in the search results too, so these human bias factors may only serve to push slick corporate content to the top. The bias of “branding” can affect rater perceptions and we know small business don’t do branding and image as well. It’s impossible for raters to not be affected by the marketing intent of professional corporate copywriters.

Sounds like the raters have to be lead around by the nose every month and I wonder if their minds aren’t scrambled, thus leading to errors and bias? It’s still confusing as to how this all consuming “one stop needs met” visitor experience is helping Google meet its revenue goals.

When I search, I want and enjoy the journey of learning my own way. They seem to be want AI to take that away from us. We’ll just sit in our chair and be spoon fed delicious pablum.
That’s a fundamental bias that ruins the user experience. While the needs met factors appear to be about quality, I think the algo can pluck that stuff out without human rater evaluations.