Google’s Quality Guidelines, which run to a length of 167 pages, provide directions for Search Quality Raters on how to evaluate the standard of webpages, websites, or search engine outcomes.
The instructions intended for Search Quality Raters can be employed by SEOs and website administrators alike to better their website or page, conform to superior standards, and enhance their presence in search results.
Look through this article to cut down on the time you would have to spend reading the document. I have summarized all of the relevant data for you to evaluate the standard of your website or page. The details in this document illustrate the changes that have been made to the Google Quality Rater Guidelines for 2022.
The main emphasis of this article will be on how to optimize your SEO. Let’s get started.
What is a Search Quality Rater?
Google works with external Search Quality Raters. Raters analyze the Search Quality Rater Guidelines to decide how successfully a web page answers the requirements of Google searchers taking into account numerous elements.
A summary of the Quality Rater Guidelines indicates that there are 14,000 reviewers from all around the world. They all stand for the region they live in and the values associated with it. Regardless of the area, the standards of the local culture are kept intact, yet raters all abide by the same protocols when giving out grades to webpages.
What are Search Quality ratings?
It is stated in the guide that there are two classifications of reviews: a Needs Met rating and a Page Quality rating.
The assessments obtained by Search Quality Raters are employed to decide if Google furnishes dependable search outcomes. Google wants to verify that the alterations they have made to their ranking algorithm provide a benefit to users by looking at this information.
Although pages are given a score, there is no one rating that affects the specific page or website’s position in the rankings. Ratings are used to improve search results.
How can Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines help you?
The Quality Rater Guidelines are an advantageous tool for webmasters and website keepers.
Grasping the rules will give you an understanding of the conditions Google applies to decide which websites are of high quality. The criteria set out in the guidelines are utilized to determine which pages are the best or worst in terms of quality. Metrics are employed to figure out if the output on a search page is beneficial to the person using it.
By understanding what creates quality content, you can stick to Google’s standards and have a chance of increasing your ranking on the search engine results page. To have the best possibility of success in competition, it is essential to comprehend the Quality Guidelines.
Let’s analyze the composition of the Search Quality Guidelines and then proceed to explore it.
The structure of the Search Quality Guidelines
Information on Google’s Search Guidelines is open to the public and extremely helpful for anyone who has an online presence. The structure is as follows:
- The first section focuses on rating Page Quality. It is the most important section if you want to improve your website quality.
- The second section is a run-down on search user needs.
- The third section, Needs Met, is about whether a Google search result matches the user’s intent.
How Quality Raters determine quality web pages
Quality Raters consider six elements to judge the quality of a web page:
- The purpose of a web page
- Web page content
- Is the page Your Money or Your Life (YMYL)?
- Does the page have an E-A-T?
- What information about the website is included?
- Reputation research
The Page Quality rating is determined by analyzing these elements. Let’s look at these elements in more detail.
1. Purpose of the page
Examine why a page was created as a first step for Search Quality Raters. Once the motivation for the page is ascertained, evaluators contemplate if the page serves a useful purpose. A page is advantageous if it is constructed to be useful to individuals.
It can be advantageous for you to have a page, regardless of whether it is dedicated to advertising fashion products or providing humorous cartoons. It isn’t about the type of page. A page will be regarded as top-notch when it meets its intended goal. For instance, it is consistent that if you operate a news website, it should provide information regarding recent occurrences.
Raters evaluate what a page is intended for and decide if it is useful, allowing them to consider other important aspects when rating the website afterward. For example, if a webpage is intended to provide monetary advice, it would be considered a page that impacts Your Money or Your Life and it will be assessed with that element taken into consideration.
Here are some common helpful page purposes:
- Sharing information, media, or software
- Expressing or allowing others to express opinions and points of view
- Selling products or services
- Entertainment
2. Web page content
Different content on a page serves distinct purposes. Prior to evaluating the entirety of the page, the reviewer should classify the page’s data into three distinct sections: Main Content (MC), Auxiliary Content (SC), and Advertisements (Ads).
3. Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) pages
Content on a page having the potential to impact someone’s well-being in terms of physical or mental health, financial security, safety, or the well-being of a society is recognized as a matter of “Your Money or Your Life.”
Close attention is given to webpages containing YMYL data since these can have a deleterious effect on people’s lives. The more risk there is of a page having a detrimental effect related to one of the mentioned topics, the more closely it will be inspected.
If you want to learn more about the subject of Your Money, Your Life, please have a look at this article which covers paginated material surrounding YMYL issues and how to adjust your YMYL material in order to be of a quality suitable for Google.
4. The E-A-T rating
One of the major criteria used to assess the quality of a website is its Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. E-A-T or EAT stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. You need to factor this concept into your pages. E-A-T is crucial for websites such as Your Money or Your Life.
5. Important website information
Google Quality Raters will search for the source of the content that is presented on the web page. Try to answer the following questions on your website:
- Who is responsible for the website?
- Who created the content on the page?
- Who provides the quotes?
- Does the website have any contact information (if applicable), e.g., About, Contact, and Customer Service pages?
It is essential that people can identify the operator and manager of the website. Even if one person creates and looks after the content on a business’s or organization’s website, the company or organization is still held accountable for the content and for keeping the website up to date.
This information is crucial for websites containing YMYL content. If you have a site with YMYL content, include as much information as required. If you possess a website that is for selling goods, make sure to include a Customer Service part and supply all additional necessary information.
6. Reputation research
Quality Raters look at both the website and how it is perceived by outsiders to determine its standing. If the author of the primary material is not the same person as the web developer, raters will also look into the standing of the website builder. When raters examine a business website, the entire organization will be taken into account.
QRGs demystified: What do SEOs need to know?
Not all parts of the 172-page document are beneficial to search engine optimizers. And the sections that are helpful aren’t obvious. However, if you investigate further into the information Google provides on each subject, you will uncover invaluable data.
So here are the main takeaways:
Pay attention to what other sites say about you
Google conveys to its quality raters that a lot of websites are enthusiastic to flaunt to customers how great they are. Subsequently, Google instructs its evaluators to appraise the status not just on the individual website, but also to observe external information.
The guidelines ask evaluators to examine external sources such as “news articles, Wikipedia articles, blog posts, magazine articles, forum conversations, and reviews from separate entities,” so you should also do the same.
A fast Google search of your domain will give you an idea of what people are saying about your organization.
Address positive and negative reviews
It is essential to monitor websites with reviews, such as Yelp, Better Business Bureau, Amazon, and Google Shopping, as part of managing your web-based reputation. Google instructs quality raters to take into consideration certain websites when determining the reputation of a given entity.
Rather than disregarding bad comments and criticisms, take them on directly.
Critical evaluations can be very helpful in providing insight into how to boost customer satisfaction, knowledge on your website, or the goods and services being supplied as a whole. This should boost search engine optimization (SEO) and improve your chances of maintaining and gaining new customers in the future.
Show off your expertise
It should be expected by many SEOs, but Google often mentions E-A-T in its guidelines. This acronym, E-A-T, refers to experience, authority, and dependability, which are hallmarks of good quality material.
In terms of demonstrating that expertise, here are a few actionable tips Google alludes to in this great post about E-A-T:
- Provide clear sourcing for information
- Provide background information for the author or website with links to an “author” page or “about” page (more on this below)
- Demonstrate your expertise or enthusiasm in your content
Be mindful that not all sectors of business are alike. If you are not certain what specialized knowledge or skills appear like in your field, examine what the most prestigious webpages show to discern the manner in which they highlight their expertise.
Ensure your site features work after a few clicks
Google warns quality raters that a good page is not merely one that has good visuals. There are some websites that have visually pleasing elements or function properly at face value, yet have flaws when you try to navigate further on the page. Google promotes the use of quality evaluators to spend their time exploring the components available on every website.
You should take the same steps to guarantee that your website works properly on multiple devices. Here are a few ways to do that:
- Test your interactive content. Use any tools or calculators on your site and make sure they work.
- Watch embedded videos. Videos are a common source of UX issues. Make sure any video embeds play as expected and don’t negatively impact the user experience in other ways.
- Go through your checkout. Add products to your cart and go through the checkout process to ensure everything works as expected.
Ensure your ads don’t distract from your content
Without ads, Google would have no business model. Google recognizes that advertisements placed on a website are appropriate and are essential for gaining money from certain types of websites.
Nonetheless, webpages are expected to be held accountable for the kind of ads being featured on the page and how they influence the way the material is experienced.
So spend time browsing your site. Comprehend the kinds of advertisements that show up and how they change the complete experience for your customers.
Do ads cover the text on the page? Are they overly graphic or violent? These are all signals of low quality for raters.
It is essential to make clear when and where your content is exhibiting advertisement even if the advertisements are less conspicuous on certain websites.
Make your 404 pages informative
Google does not provide any instructions on how to handle 404 pages. It stresses the significance of making sure that products look and perform well in the criteria for evaluating their quality. The instructions mention this particular Amazon 404 page in particular, awarding it a moderate score.
A 404 page that merely lets the viewer know the page was not located is not particularly helpful. So spend some time customizing your 404 page. At the minimum, you ought to provide a search bar or relevant links to help users locate what they were seeking or something analogous on your website.
Final thoughts
Google isn’t hiding much in these quality rater guidelines. Ultimately, the majority of my conversation covers the same principles that Google outlines for website owners.
But, after reading 172 pages, a few things were abundantly clear to me:
- Google wants its algorithm to reward high-quality content and avoid malicious or thin content.
- High-quality content isn’t content that just “looks good”; it also needs to be helpful.
- Site reputation doesn’t stop at the site level—off-page factors likely play a bigger role in Google’s algorithm than we thought.
Finally, and most significantly, Google appreciates the significance of including a human component in its content workflow, so it employs human beings to act as inspectors of quality. It’s not hard to become trapped in trying to increase content with inexpensive labor or synthetic intelligence-created content. In the end, Google desires its algorithm to reward content generated by people for people.
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