A hot topic among webmasters and SEO professionals over the past week has been the leaked copy of Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines.
Not to be confused with
Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, the Quality Rater Guidelines offer guidance to Google’s internal team of human search quality raters who measure the quality of search results and test algorithm changes.
Google updates this document periodically, and whenever they do, a leaked copy tends to emerge…much to the excitement of SEO professionals and marketers hoping to glean new insights from Google with regard to what actions they can take to help their website rank higher in search results. To read the document yourself (at least until it gets removed), you can access it
here.
While there are no major surprises contained in the manual, it does provide us with more detailed information and examples than we get from Google’s public-facing Webmaster Guidelines.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the changes to the most recent version of this document, as well as what these changes mean to business owners and marketers.
While these guidelines probably aren’t used for directly ranking websites (they’re used only to test search results for quality), they are helpful in order to gain a better understanding of how Google defines a “high quality” website.
A Re-Emphasis on ‘Your Money Your Life’ Pages
Although the concept of ‘Your Money Your Life’ (YMYL) pages was included in the previous manual, the newly leaked document emphasizes the importance of these types of pages. YMYL are pages or sites that could potentially impact the “future happiness, health or wealth of users.” These types of pages, because of their potential life-changing ramifications, are held to particularly high standards.
The manual lists some examples of these types of pages:
- Shopping or financial transaction pages: webpages which allow users to make purchases, transfer money, pay bills, etc. online (such as online stores and online banking pages).
- Financial information pages: webpages which provide advice or information about investments, taxes, retirement planning, home purchase, paying for college, buying insurance, etc.
- Medical information pages: webpages which provide advice or information about health, drugs, specific diseases or conditions, mental health, nutrition, etc.
- Legal information pages: webpages which provide legal advice or information on topics such as divorce, child custody, creating a will, becoming a citizen, etc.
- Other: there are many other topics which you may consider YMYL, such as child adoption, car safety information, etc. Please use your judgment.
Takeaway: Webmasters and marketers should be keenly aware of what sites and pages qualify as YMYL content: if the content of your site could have an impact on the wealth, health or happiness of your readers, consider (at the least) having your content vetted by an industry expert. If you do have expertise or authority in a particular area, be sure to clearly display this on your site, not only for the benefit of human rates, but for the benefit of your readers as well.
E-A-T: Expertise/Authoritativeness/Trustworthiness
In this latest edition of the guidelines, a major emphasis has been put on the concept of E-A-T. While these factors have always been part of the evaluation of a site, this manual has defined the concept more explicitly. When evaluating sites and pages, raters will be looking for indications that the content meets these three criteria.
The guidelines indicate that raters should be looking for official indications of expertise when evaluating a site or page. For instance, if a site is offering medical advice, it should be written or vetted by a person or organization with the appropriate level of medical expertise. Likewise, information on money should come from someone with a high degree of experience or expertise in finance.
Raters are also told, however, that formal expertise isn’t always necessary. For instance, the owner of a hobby site will be unlikely to have any official degree of expertise on the topic; however, the “everyday” knowledge and expertise they possess may be enough to qualify them as an expert.
The guidelines state:
High quality pages and websites need enough expertise to be authoritative and trustworthy on their topic. Keep in mind that there are “expert” websites of all types, even gossip websites, fashion websites, humor websites, forum and Q&A pages, etc. In fact, some types of information are found almost exclusively on forums and discussions, where community of experts can provide valuable perspectives on specific topics….Some topics require less formal expertise. Many people write extremely detailed, helpful reviews of products or restaurants. Many people share tips and life experiences on forums, blogs, etc. These ordinary people may be considered experts in topics where they have life experience.
Raters are reminded that the standard for expertise will vary depending on the topic of the page. The question raters are told to ask themselves is, “What kind of expertise is required for the page to achieve its purpose well?”
Takeaway: Assess your website’s content and try to determine whether someone else would consider it authoritative and trustworthy. Is it written by an expert in your industry?
Positive Reputation Important for Determining Quality
A brief clarification on the topic of positive reputation has been added to version 5.0 of the handbook. The guidelines state:
Reputation is an important consideration when using the High rating. While a page can merit the High rating with no reputation, the High rating cannot be used for any website that has a convincing negative reputation. A very positive reputation can be a reason for using the High rating for an otherwise Medium page.
This means that excellent content alone isn’t enough: If your site consistently (and “convincingly”) receives negative reviews via blogs or forums, it won’t receive a high rating.
Raters are told to investigate the reputation of a site by running Google searches for site reviews, news articles, forum posts, BBB ratings, etc. which could give insight into the trustworthiness of a site. It’s noted that small websites will not be held to the same standards as larger sites; the guidelines state:
Many small, local businesses or community organizations have a small “web presence” and rely on word of mouth, not online reviews. For these smaller businesses and organizations, lack of reputation should not be considered an indication of low page quality.
Takeaway: A lack of online reviews isn’t a problem; it’s negative reviews that site owners should be concerned about. This seems to imply that search engine reputation management is more important than previously thought; it not only affects potential customers researching your brand, but also potentially your organic search rankings.
A Focus on Supplementary Content
Supplementary content (SC) is defined as any content that isn’t a page’s main content or ads. Some examples of supplementary content include footer info, links to related content, site navigation, features that help shoppers find similar products, etc. The manual points out that some of these features are more likely to be found on large websites. It states
Smaller websites such as websites for local businesses and community organizations, or personal websites and blogs, may need less SC for their purpose. A page can still receive aHigh or even Highest rating with no SC at all.
Takeaway: Webmasters should be asking themselves what types of supplementary content they can include to add value or to improve the users’ experience of the page. What tools, resources or articles would be helpful to the reader? How can you incorporate that into the page?
Other Tips for Webmasters
A few other important tips for webmasters are found scattered throughout the guide. Some of the most significant include:
- Displaying your contact info and customer service info is more important than ever, particularly for shopping sites. If you run an e-commerce site, be sure to keep your ‘About’ and contact info prominent in order to convey the credibility of your site.
- Page design matters: Ads should not distract users from finding the main content of a page, but should be easily “ignorable”. A page’s attractiveness is irrelevant, but users should be able to easily determine where the main content of a page is. Pages with many ads — particularly those at the top of page — may be given lower ratings.
- Proper maintenance of a website is important: In order for a site to be deemed high quality, it must contain updated information; this is particularly important for news sites and other sites where current information is critical (like those containing medical info). Local or smaller sites are not expected to be updated as frequently.
What Makes a High Quality Page?
While this isn’t necessarily anything we didn’t know already, section 4.1 of the manual succinctly summarizes the main elements of a high quality page. The section is a nice checklist for site owners to follow to ensure their site is of the highest quality.
“A High quality rating requires at least one of the following high quality characteristics:
- A satisfying amount of high quality MC [main content, as opposed to supplementary content].
- The page and website are expert, authoritative, and trustworthy for the topic of the page.
- The website has a good reputation for the topic of the page.
In addition, the page and website should have most of the following:
- A satisfying amount of website information, for example, About Us information, Contact or Customer Service information, etc.
- SC which contributes to a satisfying user experience on the page and website.
- Functional page design which allows users to easily focus on MC and use SC as desired.
- A website which is well cared for and maintained “
While it’s always useful to read and understand the Quality Rater Guidelines, they echo what we already knew: the way to have a website that ranks highly in Google search is to create high-quality, user-friendly content. These guidelines are helpful, however, in providing detailed examples of content and websites that both Google and your visitors will love.
What do you think of the new guidelines? Anything surprise you? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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