Google Quality Rating - Part 3 - Page quality rating considerations

In the last two episodes we covered the start of the Google Quality Rater Process that raters go through when they evaluate a webpage how they determine the purpose of the webpage whether it's beneficial for use as a harmful , whether it's for your money , your life , why and why and topic .

And then how they identify the parts of the page that are main content , supplemental content and advertisement content . Then we covered how raters evaluate the wider website that the pages are part of and how to identify the website owners and content creators .

So if you've not already listened to those episodes , then I strongly suggest you go back and listen to them before coming back to this one . Now let's look at the next steps in the Rater Process , which is understanding what

the raters are instructed to consider when evaluating page quality ratings . The first thing the raters introduce to here is the actual sliding scale that they'll use to assign overall page quality ratings . It shows there's nine different settings . The main core settings are lowest , low , medium , high and highest .

But within that there is graduations where they can say if it's between lowest and low , then they can set it as lowest plus . If it's between low and medium , they can set it as low plus . If it's between medium and high , they can set it as medium plus and between high and highest , high plus .

So there's a little bit of leeway there where they can say something like a better medium than just a medium but not quite high . Or you know , it's not quite the lowest but it's not a low either . So they do have some leeway . But the main key ones are lowest , low , medium , high and highest .

And they also set an expectation that most common pages , the most commonly found pages online , will be medium . So generally most things should be set as medium . Really , there's got to be very good reasons to set them anywhere different from that .

Pretty much , and further on in the guide there is much more detailed explanations of what different types of topics should be , especially those that are lowest and highest , because Google only really wants to rate it to set them at those points in very specific circumstances .

So there's a lot of detail on what to do with them and we'll cover those in later episodes . Okay , so there are now 10 different considerations that Google gives in the guidelines . Some of them are a little similar to what we've already discussed before , but we'll go over each 10 in detail . So number one is going back to the purpose of the page .

So if the page has a harmful purpose and that's designed to deceive people of what the true purpose of the page is or who's responsible for the content , then they say straight off it should be rated lowest . Otherwise you should go to the rest of the process to determine how well the page achieves its purpose .

So again , this is going back to the deceitful or hidden purpose that's not there to actually help the user . This is where it's lowest , straight off . The second point is the potential for the page or website to cause harm , as described in the guidelines .

So again , these are , like we discussed before websites which are harmful to people's society or untrustworthy or spammy . These should all be described straight off , graded as lowest . The third point is is the topic of the page a YMYL , the your money , your life topic ?

If it is , then this is going to determine what kind of standard you have to judge the page against . So I will say it's YMYL has a much higher standard that you've got to mark it to than if it's non YMYL . So this is like sort of setting the bar , really , of how you grade the page compared to others . Fourth point is the type of website .

So different websites will have different expectations of what kind of page quality that should be there .

For example , like a small hobby website is going to have a very different expectation to that of a large corporate website , you'd really expect the corporate website to be much more polished and professional than a site that's just being maintained by one person as a hobby .

Anything that involves financial transactions requiring payment or collecting personal information is going to need a higher standard of quality than a website which has nothing to do with taking money . Again going up to small hobby-style websites .

And also then , finally , whether a website is created by normal people on a voluntary basis , compared to those where the content is created by paid professionals . Again , I think you can expect that a professional website with paid , professional people should have a higher standard of content necessarily than people who are doing it on a voluntary basis .

Point five to take into consideration is information provided by the website and the content creator .

So this is stuff that's directly provided by the website and the content creator , and it does put a warning on that this isn't necessarily always trustworthy in itself , but it can provide a starting point because if someone's stating a level of expertise , it's unlikely that they're going to have a higher level of expertise than that that they're stating .

So it can give you a starting point when you're going to try and find out where their expertise level lies and if you can provide any kind of reference and credibility to what their claims are .

So these kind of points these first five points really are the reiteration of stuff that we've been talked about before is putting the site and the page in context and just doing that first pass on whether it's actually dangerous or harmful in the first place .

The next few now are the ones that are going to go into a bit more detail on here , because there's more detail in the guidelines . So consideration six is the quality of the main content , and this is where they're asked to consider how the main content satisfies and helps the page achieve its purpose .

Now the guideline state that the quality of the main content is actually one of the most important considerations for the rating . The main content plays a major role in determining how well a page achieves its purpose .

If the main content is rubbish or low quality then and doesn't serve the purpose of the page's intent , then you know that's not going to get a great rating . Now there's a number of things that they say to the rate . You should look at Now .

They are effort , originality and talent or skill that went into creation of the content and if it's a Y and YL topic , the accuracy of that information , that main content , and how consistent it is with established consensus . So effort this is actually . Was there a lot of human effort in creating this content ?

Now , the effort might not just be in the amount of text written , but it's also , if it's a game that's on the page , how much effort went into that game or piece of content , piece of interactive content that was produced that helps the main content serve its purpose .

They specifically state that the automatic creation of thousands of pages by using sort of existing freely available content and running it through translation software or doing something without any kind of oversight or manual creation . They don't consider that to have human effort , even though arguably there is a lot of effort in creating a system , it does that .

They see that as sort of low quality . When it comes to things like social media or forum discussions , they're looking to find how much sort of depth in the conversation there is and how many different authors there are .

So if you've got a huge forum posts with lots of people discussing a topic in depth , then they'll consider that adds up to a significant amount of total effort , even if , like individuals , effort is small . If there's a whole lot of individuals going in to create their content on that page , then they'll consider that a high effort .

So efforts are really really key . Point Next is originality , and that's whether the content is actually original and unique compared to what's available on other websites . And if other websites do have similar content , is this website the one with the original source of information . So yeah , originality is really key .

If you're just sort of recurgitating out very similar content to what other people are , with no real differentiation , then that's not going to rate highly . Third is talent or skill . So this is how much talent score is needed to produce this content . So some subjects .

Obviously it's clear that doctors if you think a doctor right to the YMWale slightly , you've got a lot of experience needed to write that page . And if you're writing from a low experience background , then the quality is not going to be score as highly .

If it's a building project , is this person a qualified or experienced builder or is it just an incompetent DIY person ? So yeah , how much talent and skill went into creating content . And then , for YMWL topics , accuracy is key . So you know , is the content factually accurate ? Does it meet with established consensus ?

It's really important for those YMWL ones that accuracy is a really key key . Now , obviously , with these points that they're asked to consider , they are asked to put it in the context of the website they're on .

So they're not gonna expect certain websites to have so much detail depending on what type of website it is and what kind of expertise they're expecting . Rateds are also expected to properly evaluate the page . They're properly meant to engage with the articles , watch videos , examine pictures , use codecale , just play games , whatever's on the page .

They've actually got to use the features and the functionality . So it's really important that they test the page out so they're not just giving a quick look . They've actually got , you know , like , if it's an e-commerce store , they've got to put products in the cart to make sure that the cart actually functions , things like that .

It's a case of you know you can't just try and fool them by pretending to put a cart up , that kind of thing . Things actually have to work and if they don't work then obviously you're not gonna get great quality scores for that .

And finally , rateds are reminded that high and low quality main content can come in all formats , all lengths , so it can be text , can be audio , can be video , can be images , et cetera . And you know you can have short form content and long form content can all be high or low quality .

So there's no specific definition of how long something has to be or what kind of format something has to be in . Obviously it has to be appropriate for the purpose of the page to meet the need of the page , and the quality will vary on that . The key question really is does the page achieve its purpose and does it satisfy users ?

Will it satisfy the users that are gonna be looking or wanting to see this content ? Consideration point seven is the title of the page . It's quite a quick point to consider but it is , they say , one of the most , is one of the most important , along with the main content . It's part of the main content really , but it's . They do separate it out .

They want descriptive main content titles that accurately summarise the page and let people make an informed decision straight off the bat whether they are gonna wanna read this content or not . Low quality ones they want to read and want are ones that are exaggerated or misleading . Sort of click baity , I think will probably be the best description type titles .

They want them really to be summative , descriptive and , you know , and help people decide whether to read on further is probably a good one to aim . Consideration point eight is the role of ads and the supplementary content on the page and they're instructed to consider the ways those ads and supplementary content sort of contribute to how people experience the page .

They again remind the rate that you know websites do need to monetise , otherwise who's gonna pay for them ? So that the presence or absence of ads in itself is not a consideration . But any ads that are there , you know , are they intrusive ?

Are they done in patterns where they're trying to get people to click on the ads , for example , making them look like it's the next page when it's actually clicking advert ? There's too many interstitials , all those kind of things . Again , if it's affiliate ads they see links to which are monetised as ads as well ? Are they deceptive , those kind of things ?

So again , you know how do ads sort of contribute to the page ? Do they make that ? They have a really detrimental effect . So , done well , ads are fine . Done badly , obviously not fine . So point nine now is the reputation of the website and the content creator .

And at this point the raters are actually asked to go and do third party reputation , checking on the website itself and any content creators so they can get a view of how others view the website .

So here , yeah , they're trying to understand the reputation of the website and if the page is looking at the content that's not written by the website itself , then they need to go and look at the reputation of that content creator . That also that content , if it's not just primarily owned by the website .

Now the level of sort of research and sort of how much reputation is required will depend upon , again , the type of the topic of the page . So it's medical information , then you've got to go into a lot more research detail than if it's just like a funny video .

But it's important that they are looking at the type of content that's on the page , because you could get a site that in itself , like a human website , wouldn't necessarily have a lot of you know it's not a massive thing on what the rotation of the site is , but if that human site publishes some medical information on the page for some reason , then you've got

to Hold that page and therefore the site to a much higher standard for that , for that rating task . I mean the whole point that they want the rate to do this is to Try and detect untrustworthy websites and content creators , because if it looks great it might be brilliant , but also they actually might be a really good clever fraud .

So to actually go and research and third-party reputation information can help uncover frauds that might not be immediately obvious . So , in terms of where to find reputation information on websites , rateds are told to look for independent reviews , references , recommendations by experts , news articles and all the credible sources of information .

They specifically say look for information written by a person or organization . So looking for , you know , opinion rather than just factual information . So things like news articles , wikipedia articles , blog posts , that kind of thing , forum discussions , ratings from independent organizations , all things like that .

When it comes to your money , your life , topics , then you know they need to be looking for what experts say about those pages ,

expert sources like professional societies . Strong evidence of a positive reputation is what they're looking for , and so that's a much higher level than if you go back to sort of a hobby site .

Now they specifically cover customer reviews as a source of reputation information and they say , yeah , these can be a really great way of Assessing reputation of stores and businesses , and especially one who's , you know , any website that offers a service to people , especially those that pay .

Well , they do give some guidelines and they say you know , be skeptical of both positive and negative reviews , because at the end of the day , anyone can write these reviews . It could be the store owners themselves writing it , it could be a disgruntled Competitor , you know , writing a negative review .

So they say you've got to find as many reviews as possible so you can Sort of filter out those sort of extremes on either side . Because you know it's it's normal for a store , any store that's been in trading long enough , any website , to get some negative reviews . And they say actually read the reviews and get the content of the reviews because that matters .

So because you know one person can have a you know what one bad experience or one bad email that upsets them . So it wasn't . It's not a fundamental problem with that website , but it could lead to a really negative review and but it's pretty inconsequential really in the terms of things .

But if it's someone's been defrauded and can leave a one star review , it could be a much more serious issue and you must look for issues that repeat over and over again so you can see how important it is to keep your online reputation as special , especially if you're selling something to people in good order .

Now , when coming to looking at the reputation of content creators , there's some slightly different guidelines and they are basically saying go and search these people out and look for biographical information , articles , discussions , the more scientific or journalistic or professional the author , they expect to find more formal information about them because these people need

online credibility . So you should expect to find things about what kind of levels of education , what things of authors , citations from other people , employment , history , that kind of thing you know . Basically , you know LinkedIn here really is probably a good example of where you're expecting to find information about people .

Coming down to other types of things for non-professional creators , you're obviously not going to get so much information about them necessarily , but if there are , say , a social media or a forum , then you can see how other people are interacting with them , whether they kind of get good feedback from other people on all the forums on social media or whether they're

getting negative feedback from people . If someone's just going in and stirring up the horn in its nest and not really providing good responses and people who respond to them negatively , then obviously that's a negative point on people .

But they do say obviously in many cases you're not going to find any reputation , information about people at all , especially for very localised websites . You know you're not necessarily going to find lots of custom reviews . It might be not at all . They might be the absolute expert in their field locally , but they're just not generating those levels of reviews .

So you've got to again put it all in context . It's not necessarily negative if you don't find any information about somebody or someone or some website . It all depends upon the context .

Ok , so now we're on to the tenth and final , and possibly the most famous of the things that need to be considered , and that's the experience , expertise , authoritiveness and trust or EEAT rating . This is definitely the one that's .

I hope the past few years has got the most airtime , the most discussion , but we'll go through what Google actually says about it itself in these guidelines . So , eeat , they're all important considerations , but the most important and the one that they put the most emphasis on is trust .

So , basically , if you don't have good trust and by trust they mean what is how , to what extent is the page accurate , honest , safe and reliable ? And they specify that the trust level depends on the type of page . So , again , this is all going back to putting it all in context .

So an online store will need secure payment systems and reliable customer service . Product reviews should be honest and written to help people making informed decisions rather than just to sell a product . Informational pages on clear your money your life topics must be accurate to prevent harm to people in society .

Social media posts on non your media your money your life topics may not need such a high level of trust , especially if the purpose of the post is just to entertain and the contact of the post doesn't contain risk .

They really hammer home trust and they say that if you don't have trust , then no matter how good your experience , no matter how good your authority to this number , how good your expertise , then that counts for nothing if you don't have trust .

So again , this goes back to what the page and the website owners say about themselves , what others say about the site and what's visible on the site . So it's really , really important that you always think first of all of trust , and they're very clear about conflict of interest when it comes to trust .

So a review of a product by somebody owns a product and shares their real experiences can be very valuable and trustworthy Wherever have a review by the actual product manufacturer , or review from the influencer who is paid to promote the product and not as trustworthy due to the conflict of interest .

So someone who's reviewing it with no reason to be rewarded for that review is going to be a lot more trustworthy than people who've got a vested interest in it . Now , once the raters determined what level of trust they've got in this page , they then have to look at the experience , expertise and authoritativeness and see how they support that level of trust .

So it should briefly go through what those three are . Experience this is where they're asked to consider has the content correct , got real life experience of the topic they're talking about ?

So someone who's personally used a product again , for example , who's got real experience with product , has got a much better experience score than somebody who's never actually touched the product and is just sort of working from other people's reviews or from blurb provided by the manufacturer Expertise .

So that's like what level of knowledge or skill on a topic does somebody need to have to be trustworthy ? So an example they give is advice on home electrical requiring from a skilled electrician , as compared to an antiques enthusiast who has no knowledge of electrical wiring .

So yeah , gotta consider does this person have the necessary level of expertise to really be authoritative on this subject ? And then authoritiveness itself what extent is the creator of the website known as a go-to source for the topic ? So lots of topics might not have one official source , but there are some topics where there's definitely an authoritative website .

So examples that are given are an official government page for getting a passport is gonna be the authoritative source of passport information , compared to a website that's about the process of getting a passport but isn't the actual passport office that will have less authoritiveness on that subject .

Then I'd say a local business page on social media is probably authoritative source for what products and deals a local business might have on sale right now as compared to anyone else .

And the key takeaways with EEAT are that obviously , the level required depends on the topic whether it's your money or your life topic , or whether it's something more frivolous and that trust really is the big number one thing that you've gotta get across to people . Trust is your most important of these pillars , because without trust , the others count for nothing .

So that was quite a lot to cover today to get through that section , but we've now at the point where we've got all the information . If you're a writer , you've got all the information that you need on how to actually rate a page , how to find information about a page it's a website , the content creators and how to sort of put it all in context together .

And obviously , as website creators and content creators ourselves , we can start to see .

Now we should have a much clearer idea on the kind of sort of practices that Google does and doesn't like and what to watch out for when creating content , when creating a website , when to sort of manage and how to manage your online reputation and the things that are important with that .

So we're now at the point where we'll soon be able to start looking at exactly what Google determines is a lowest , low , medium , high quality and highest quality pages are . So we get some sort of direct examples of these and the things that raters have to look out for and when they're determining which actual rating to give things .

So we'll start to cover those in the next episode . Thanks for listening . I really appreciate it . Please subscribe and share . It really helps . Seo is not that hard . It's brought to you by keywordspeopleusecom . These solutions find the questions people ask online . See where thousands of people use them every day . Try it today . We're free at keywordspeopleusecom .

If you want to get in touch , have any questions , I'd love to hear from you . I'm at channel five on Twitter where you can email me at podcastqueywordspeopleusecom . Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SEO . It's not that hard .