There’s a new project being offered by Appen for Facebook called Bristol and agents hired for the project will help identify duplicates that come up in search results. This helps improve the user experience for people searching for something on Facebook. 

You will also be providing the most relevant results to users along with improving product capabilities. 

The one thing Appen stresses is that agents should avoid any personal political or social bias when rating a search result. Facebook has separate teams that judge controversial topics and misinformation. Your job as an agent is to simply judge if something is a duplicate, and choose the one with the best or more up to date information. 

Rating process

The interface is fairly straightforward and easy to understand.

On the top left hand corner you will see the reference details of the Facebook entity, and then below this you will see candidate details. It may be that you see several candidates here. 

The process is to review each one of the candidates and see if they are duplicates of each other. The workflow can be executed as a one-to-one or one-to-many relationship structure. Basically…you just check each one to see if they are the same or not. 

It can be tricky to know if some places are the same or not because they might not have the same name. You need to be careful in this instance and do enough investigation to see if the places are indeed the same, or if the information in the ad is the same. 

You do this by opening each link and comparing the contents to the reference sources. Thankfully, to help sort through some steps, there is a decision tree to help you. 

If you do find other things in common between the ‘Reference Source’ and the candidate, then you would select ‘Match’ to indicate that the entities are duplicates of one another. If there aren’t enough commonalities then you would select ‘No Match’ and move on. 

The decision tree will help walk you through the steps if you’re not sure what to do. 

As you complete the job, you will notice that above the candidates link section there are some questions you will need to answer before moving on through the job. 

The first question is ‘Translation Tools’ and asks:

• I will need to use translation tools to complete this job

• The page link is broken and I can’t complete this job
• None of the above, I can complete this job

Notice that if you need translation tools or the page link is broken, you will be unable to complete the job and you should choose either one when it is applicable. However, in most cases you will use the last one ‘None of the above, I can complete this job.

If the candidate link is broken then you would also choose ‘Unable to investigate’ in Question 2

Question 2 is the search result pair review and at this point, if you chose the last option in question 1, you would review the Reference Source and each one of the candidates…which are supposed duplicates. 

Question 2 offers you 3 options:

• Match
• No Match 
• Unable to investigate

There are some attributes in the guide that need to be evaluated when deciding if two entities are the same or not. 

It’s really easy to decide if the names of both search results are the same if the names match and are exactly the same. We say EXACTLY because they must be word for word and not missing part of the name which would cause you to further investigate to see if they are indeed the same entity. 

There can be what is called a Soft Match such as FB, Inc. for Facebook Inc. where there is some naming connection between the Reference Source and the Candidate. 

There is something you will notice called an ‘Alias Handle’ which is preceded by an at sign @ and you’re probably familiar with this if you have an Instagram account. You can also check to see if these names match or not in order to make a determination. 

Another thing to mention is ‘Chain Locations’ like McDonalds who will sometimes put the location in the name itself. Pay extra attention to this because if those names differ, then they are not the same entity. 

So we are clear on when you should choose ‘No Match’ we will give you the most important information. No match means there is ZERO similarity between the names and the online aliases. Just be careful and check things like the name, alias handle, business name, biography, photos, and posts. 

Match

If you do need to check photos, then it is important to review the photos from both entities in search of matching or unique photos in posts made by the entity. Sometimes it takes a little research to see if you can match them, but you shouldn’t spend a lot of time looking to match photos. Checking the entities Instagram is a quick and surefire way to see if photos match the entity or not and should not take more than 30-45 seconds or so. 

Profile photos do not need to match, but they should resemble the same business or logo of the entity or person as the reference source. 

Unsure

If it’s not clear and you don’t see matching photos or it’s clear that the photos between the two entities are totally different and not related, or if you don’t have pictures to compare, then consider other signals on the page to check if they are the same. 

No Match

As we mentioned, if you see two different photos that show a different business and they are not related at all, then you don’t have a solid match. Watch for logos to be entirely different. Some companies out there can have the same name or a name that is similar. Check to see if the logos are the same…if not, then you have no match.  

Bio/Descriptions can be another place to look, but if description is the same it doesn’t mean that the two identities are the same. The text needs to contain some unique identifier such as the location information or other unique reference. 

Websites can sometimes be found in the reference and if the website is the same, it is a strong signal that it’s the same person or business. The one thing to remember here is to make sure it’s not a local chain business like McDonalds where you must identify the location addresses are the same. 

It’s important to note that even if some website URLs are not the same, they can take you to the same page, or the link can redirect you to the same website. This is why it is important to click on each link to see where they take you. 

Regardless of whether they match or not, you should click on all website links to check and see if they are working and are valid links to the website. 

Bio Descriptions can sometimes tell you a page’s intent or purpose, and if those same descriptors match with location or numbers, then you are usually looking at a match.

Business addresses and phone numbers are a crucial thing to check to make sure they are the same. It is important to check and see where the addresses appear, and if they are showing the same pin or address on a map, chances are you’ve found a duplicate. 

Check the phone numbers in each candidate to see if they match the reference.

An Exact Match will be if the address or the phone number EXACTLY match on both the search results and the reference. 

It’s quite obvious at this point that if the addresses or phone number are NOT the same then you’re looking at No Match. 

It is important to understand that there may be more than one business in a city…like say a coffee shop. Therefore, you must do more investigating to see which location is which. Many times these will be confused as the same business simply because they are in the same city. Verify exact locations and phone numbers along with addresses to see if you have a match or not. 

One of the important things to mention is Business Presence which is the representation of an entity on Facebook. It is important to understand the business presence of the entity because it can be a strong indicator of whether or not a location is a duplicate. Therefore, you can use the following ways to think of a business presence. 

• Check to see if it’s an actual place and if it has the same location and offers the same type of products and services?

• Do both accounts serve the same purpose?

• If you were to merge together these two accounts, would the content from one integrate well with the content from the other page?

• Is the content the same on both accounts

• Who is the intended audience?

There are also some other guidelines in identifying whether or not two accounts share the same business presence. For example

Brand pages that promote the same brand without a location specified. 

Businesses promoting the same brand with the same location. 

An artist or photographer promoting art or photos on the same account.

Sometimes a business owner can promote the same business on more than one account. 

We’d like to mention that if you do happen to get on this project, you will be given the guidelines, which you want to read over very carefully, and you will also be given supplemental guidelines which show some of the common mistakes that new raters run into.

And while we’re on the subject, you might find yourself wanting to apply for this position. It is important that before you do that you understand the job and the requirements and go over all the guidelines several times. That’s where we come in. We can help you prepare for any type of exam or job that we feature and review. Just send me an email or leave a comment and we’ll help you in any way possible. 

And as always, if you are working on this project, we’d like to hear from you about your experience so far. 

Wishing you luck in your work at home endeavors!