On January 11, 2007 at 7:24 am | 
By Paul Walsh | 
In A non-commercial Firefox extension that reads Content Labels is now available – the working name is Search Thresher.
In case you’re wondering, a thresher is a machine that sorts the wheat from the chaff 
How it works
When conducting a search using an engine such as Google, Search Thresher highlights Web sites that make claims about conformance to a standard, best practice or code of conduct. It does this by annotating each search result with a colour coded icon. Clicking on an icon provides more information about the claims being made. This means you can learn more about the trust that site owners wish to claim *before* entering their Web site.
In the example below we conducted a search for information about blogger and podcaster Tom Raftery. Tom’s own Web sites have been independently audited and certified for Web accessibility compliance and therefore annotated with a green tick.
Sites that don’t make any claims are annotated with a red X and sites which make claims about themselves receive an amber tick. More detailed information can be found on the Search Thresher site.
The extension also allows you to filter the search results if you wish to only view Web sites that make claims about such conformance. In the example below, you can see that only Tom’s Web sites remain whilst everything else has disappeared. What a great way to filter out all those bogus blogs…
It’s early days but the roadmap for the extension is pretty good.
The extension will be updated every month. Microsoft has agreed to pay for an IE plugin to be built, so it’s catching on quickly. When demonstrating the potential of Content Labels through the extension, folk at Google, Netscape, AOL, Microsoft and VeriSign thought it was hot!
Time to start updating this site – in the meantime you can learn more about how Content Labels work from the Search Thresher Web site (which is also an early draft!)
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ygdiqfixyrj says 
ibfuwisew says 
Alex
This maybe is off-topic but…
Why not a content label for files distributed on the web?
Paul Walsh
What kind of files did you have in mind Alex? Perhaps you could expand a little.
Gary Reid
Great post makes a really compelling case for content labels - how can I help?
Combtail HQ » Blog Archive » Content Labels Explained
[…] Like Microformats, Content labels have suffered from a degree of ‘the great unkown’ but Paul Walsh over at ContentLabel.org has written a really great post explaining just what the benefits are and if you aren’t on this train in the future you could miss out big time. […]
Paul Walsh
Hey Gary,
Thanks for your offer. I need help in the following areas:
- Brand identity - this includes iconography and logo
- Blog - need to pick a decent theme that can be modified easily
- Blog optimisation – ensure good/easy subscription and high visibility on Technorati etc.
- Wiki - need one that looks decent - Dennis Howlett has registered his interest in helping with this but I’m not sure if he still wants to do it.
- Ideas for news codes of conduct
- Help with the codes of conduct we’ve come up with already – will publish soon
- Promotion – blog it, blog it and get others to blog
- I’m sure there’s more
Best thing to do is subscribe to the feed and let me know if you want to help with any of the above.
I need to knock more copy together to give a better insight. I’ll do this today for sure!
Gary Reid
Paul. I think we can help with a few of those, certainly the wiki if you need it, we tend to use mediawiki (same as http://microformats.org/wiki/ ) so if you want us to install/setup that just let me know.
Also would be glad to be an extra voice for the codes of conduct and can help with the blog optimisation as well.
Drop me an email if you want.
Paul Walsh
Cheers Gary, I’ll be in touch.
Nathalie Vu-Van-Toan
Hi Paul,
The real beauty of the Trustmark would be if when using Search Thresher and clicking on “Verified Sites Only”, Google would display those sites immediately at the “front of the queue”. At present, say your sites is on page 6 of the search results and there are no other competitive “verifed” sites before yours, you have to click on “next” until you reach page 6″.
Is it a bug and if so, when do you think it will be fixed? If it is a bug, this Search Thresher is a fantastic tool.
Paul Walsh
That’s an ‘unexpected feature’ Nathalie
It’ll be fixed soon. I’m currently working on a long list of functionality requirements for the extension so it’ll start to move again shortly. This sites needs to be given a little nudge too.
Nathalie Vu-Van-Toan
Content labels could also be applied to high-quality content websites. “The best designed and most technologically advanced website will be a failure if the content isn’t any good to begin with” (Gerry McGovern, 2002). Sorry Paul if I’m of the “web accessibility” topic but after all isn’t content about accessibility too.
Nathalie Vu-Van-Toan
Paul,
At present, does Search Thresher work only for websites that conform to WAI Guidelines only? I’m trying to build a case as to why people would want to install Search Thresher and why? (For me it’s people with disabilities so they don’t have to waste considerable amounts of time finding accessible sites in Google).
I’d like to invite people to install ST on my site and I’m looking for the right phrase.
Paul Walsh
Nathalie, at present the extension reads Content Labels. Segala is the only company that we are aware of that provides a Content Label for accessibility compliance. These are based on WCAG and Section 508.
That said, there’s a W3C initiative responsible for creating user profiles using metadata. This will be an ISO standard. Segala intends to use the output - i.e. the profiles to build more meaningful user preferences in the extension.
So, it will be possible to select preferences that represent your disability - if you’re blind, you only care about the guidelines that apply to you…
We have just created the vocabulary for PEGI. We’re getting the ball rolling so keep your eye out for new stuff to be published. Wiki will be up and running soon so anyone can create a code of conduct, or tailor current ones to suit them.
Feel free to stick the installer on your site. Although it might be best to include the download icon and have it lead to the Search Thresher download page. We’ll be updating this so it’s more user friendly.
Brendan Lally
Any Opera extension? as thats where I live.
Lal
Paul Walsh
Brendan - Well, they’re on the W3C Semantic Web Education and Outreach special interest group which is formally endorsing the extension - at least the concept, irrespective of technology. So, they’re supporting it with their vote. We just need some external funds to start building a Opera and IE plugin.
Kjetil Kjernsmo
Hey Brendan! As Paul noted, we’re both on the W3C Semantic Web Education and Outreach IG and the POWDER WG, so we’re deeply involved. Now, the decision to support it has not yet been made, we’re in technology exploration mode still, but you can certainly help by talking about it!
Paul Walsh
Thanks for stopping by Kjetil - I need to open my w3c emails - over 1,000 now!
Basically we need to label more sites so it becomes more compelling for Opera to read the extra data. That said, I’m talking to some Microsoft people so that if Segala builds the plugin for IE that their staff use it… I’ll give you a shout when we build something for Opera