Does democracy beat
the almighty algorithm?

Google has added functionality to its core search engine that lets people tag results as more or less relevant to their queries, according to the Google Blog.

The functionality comes out of Google's experimental "Labs" division.

When someone runs a search, a small icon will appear next to results. If something is exactly what they were looking for — or at least close — they can move it to the top of the page. A small marker will also appear next to that result.

When the same user runs the same search later, that result will appear at the top of the results.

Users must be logged in to their Google accounts to see the feature.

Results can also be "buried," meaning it will never show up for the same search again.Users will also be able to suggest websites they feel are relevant, which will be added to the mix. Results from that page will then appear at the top of the page.

Functions that allow users to vote on relevance are often compared to digg, the popular social news site that allows people to submit stories of note and then vote on how news-worthy they are.

Many blogs and other sites have buttons encouraging readers to submit a story to digg. Facebook recently added a similar feature its News Feed.