I spotted an unusual thread at the Google Webmaster Help forums. The thread had an individual ask how he can a job as a "top contributor" in the Google Forums.
Top contributors are those who spend a nice amount of time helping others in the Google support forums. It can range from the webmaster forum, web search forum, AdSense forum, Chrome forum and so on. Anyone who spends a lot of time helping webmasters and Google deems they worthy are labeled "top contributors."
I believe top contributors have special privileges, such as being able to flag certain posts for a real Google employee to review. I suspect they also have their own private discussion forum to chat with Google employees. Plus they get the label, "top contributor" added to their names. I also believe they may receive a t-shirt or something, as a thank you.
Outside of that, they get zero compensation. Google doesn't pay them in any way.
So the guy looking to get paid to be a top contributor is out of luck. At first this guy didn't believe they didn't get paid. He said:
Why people spend so much of valuable time on browsing scrap sites and write hundreds of pages. That too for 24x7x365. All this just for a title "Top Contributor"? It's not convincing...
Yes, it is true. As Sasch, a top contributor said:
We're here to help webmasters... that's it.
It is true, most are there to help - like it or not.
But that doesn't mean Google doesn't pay people to help their users. For example, if you want to help webmasters with their Google problems, you can and you can get paid. You have to apply to be a Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, which is a job based in Zurich, Switzerland. I believe they may make exceptions for certain people to work from other Google offices. I suspect many do already.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
