Google Quality Rating - Part 8 - Summary and Key Takeaways.

So in the previous seven episodes , we've been covering the Google Quality Rater Guidelines and what the key considerations needed to be taken into account by raters when rating a page in quite some depth . Today , I just wanted to do a brief summary of what we've learned from this deep dive and what the key takeaways are from the guidelines .

While we've been looking at these guidelines , what we've been concentrating on . What I've been concentrating on is the parts of the guidelines that cover on how page raters should rate the quality of individual pages and websites . I've not looked into further sections which cover search intent

and how Google's results match certain intents , because that's really where Google's testing whether its results and the sites it brings up match each other , and that's not really what we're trying to cover . When we're looking at quality rating , we've really been trying to look at what determines whether your page is high quality or not .

Intent from search results is a slightly different thing . We might look at it at another time , but it's not what we've covered in this deep dive . So if you download the guidelines and read them yourself which are really strongly suggested that you do you will find these other sections , but if you look at them , you'll see why .

In terms of determining page quality , it's not something we've covered and I'm not going to cover it , at least for a while . Anyway , let's do a high level overview of what Google Quality Raters do , the things they are told to look at and then how they're told to grade the content .

So the first thing is they have to look at a web page and they need to understand what the clear , beneficial purpose of that web page and the website is and that that page should not be misleading or , at worse , harmful . So that's the first thing they've got to do . They have to work out the intent of the page and check it's not harmful .

They also then have to consider whether a page is in the your money or your life the YMYL topic . If it is , that's one like banks , health , shopping sites , all ones where there's transactional . These are held to a much higher standard than other sites . So you need to identify what your site , the topic of your site , is and whether it's a YMYL one .

If it is , then you're going to have to work to a higher standard than otherwise . The Raters then are told to identify on the page what is main content , supplemental content and what's ads . Main content is the most important part . That's where the actual , where the bulk of the page is .

That's what , where you should be sort of serving the purpose of the page . That's your main content . So supplemental content is the stuff like extra navigation and stuff around the side , so those kind of things that isn't might be duplicated across a number of pages . It's not there to serve the main purpose of the page .

And then you've got ads which can fine Google on against ads . You can't understand . People have to monetize , but it's key thing is it shouldn't interfere or distract from the main content on the page . They're also specifically told to look at the title of the page . Now , that's not the HTML page title , that's the actual title of the H1 .

You're kind of the main header on the page . That should describe accurately and summarize accurately what the content of the page is about . They're then told to find the home page of the website so they can understand the whole page , the whole website in context and where the page sits within it . So it's obviously clear .

You need to make it easy for people to find your home page and you follow the standard design patterns like clicking in the top corner , that kind of thing . Once you've done that , then you need to find out who's responsible for the website and who created the content on the page .

So this is information On the website itself in the first instance they're trying to find . So this is where you need to find things they're expecting to find , things like about was pages , contact pages , customer service pages which is Especially important if you are a transactional site like an e-commerce site .

A key point , remember when they're trying to find out who the content creator is . It doesn't have to be an individual author . It's perfectly fine for the website to be the content creator . So you don't have to put author buyers on all your content on every page .

If it doesn't make sense to you , go to a government website which is , you know , hugely authoritative sites . They don't have authors Define for all their content . The . The website itself is the content and run the content creator . So that's perfectly fine , but you've got to have information on . You know who the website is .

You did that about , was page , the contact page , terms of services pages , pages that sort of give trust . After they've determined these things , the rate is then told to think about what the type of website is and the type of topic that's being talked about .

So Small hobby websites , for example , they're going to have different expectations of them than compared to big corporate sites , and Transactional versus non transactional sites are going to have very different Expectations met .

So at this point the rate is still trying to Determine you know what the page is , what the site is , who the content creators are and where it all sits in terms of what they should be expecting for the type of site that it is .

The next step it's then for the writer to consider the quality of the main content and how well it achieves the purpose that they've determined the page is trying to meet , and the key points to total account is effort , originality , talent or skill and accuracy . So this is how much effort has been put into create this content .

Was a lot of effort or a little effort ? Is the quality of ? Is the content itself , is it original or is it clearly copied from elsewhere . Was a lot of talent or skill required to Create this content and is the content accurate ? They don't have to meet all of them because it depends on what kind of page it is .

So if you're just , like I say , a dancer demonstrating dance moves and you've got a huge amount of talent , then obviously you know that it's hard to say there's no accuracy in that level .

That's because it's someone demonstrating their talent , whereas something that say clearly say about talking about historical events and Context and accuracy is going to be really key in that one .

The next step is then for the Rater to look for external reputation , information about the website and the owners , the website and the content creators and see how third parties see them .

This could be review sites , it could be other sites talking about that this site linking them and seeing the things they're saying about , trying to find out Whether they have a positive , a neutral or a negative Sort of third-party view of them . Because that kind of like that third-party reputation , it's hard for the the site to Create itself .

Obviously , because if you read the things all sites says about itself on its own site , you have to take that with a bit of pinch of salt . You have to sort of go and verify that these things are true , very for what the people say , see what the reputation is like .

And finally , I'm going to take all this information in about the page , the site , the content creators , the website owners , the third party , the main content , all these things . I then have to determine what level of expertise , experience , authority and trust EEAT , the site , has based on all the information that's been gathered .

So with EEAT , the core topics of that are experience what extent does the content creator have the necessary first-hand or life experience for the topic ? Expertise , consider the extent to which the content creator has a necessary knowledge or skill for the topic .

Consider the extent to which the content creator or the website is known as a go-to source for the topic . And finally , trust how trustworthy is the website and the content creator on this topic ? Because without trust , all the others are basically worth nothing .

So now , with all these things that they've been told to look at all the sort of page components and off-page components and the criteria they're told to look at they now have to rate the page as either lowest quality , low quality , medium quality , high quality or highest quality , and then , briefly , I'll just go through what each one of them is defined as .

So you can sort of , if you're listening to this think , does my page meet any of these criteria ? It's quite interesting to go through , so we'll look at lowest first . And with this , the content is hacked , spammy , gibberish content . It has a misleading or a shocking title .

Ads are getting in the way of the user's experience of the main content , such that it is there's a complete lack of info on the site about who the owner of the site is or who the content creator is . There's a negative reputation from third parties . We're including reports of harmful or malicious behavior and there's a complete lack of EEAT .

I mean , these really are the worst pages . Now we move on to low . What low quality content is defined as , and that's where there is actually a beneficial or non-harmful purpose , but there's little to no potential to cause harm and any topic can be graded as low quality . So you know it's not the specific types of content

or exempt from being low quality . Obviously anything could be low quality . The main content has been created without adequate effort , originality , talent or skill necessary to achieve the purpose of the page in a satisfactory way .

The page title might be slightly misleading or show over-exaggeration , and ads or the supplementary content might have a significant distraction from the main content , so ads are getting in the way there .

There's an unsatisfactory amount of info on the content creator or the owner of the website , there's a mildly negative reputation about the website or the content creator from third-party sites and there's inadequate levels of EEAT for the purpose of the page .

So that's the basic definition of a low-quality page , and if you've got anything that meets those definitions on your site , then there's definitely things there that you could look to improve on .

Okay , so now we're at medium quality content and this is what Google says in this guidance is what most content on the online is , so let's cover what they say about it . So this is where there's a beneficial or non-harmful purpose of the page . The page isn't expected to cause harm .

Any page on any topic on any site could be qualified as medium , so there's no particular topics that can't raise as high as medium or can't fall below medium . A medium quality page title will summarise the page . There's nothing misleading on it . The ads don't block or significantly interfere with the main content .

If there are any ads , there's adequate info on the site about itself and on the content creator . There's adequate effort , originality , talent or skill has been demonstrated in the main content just adequate . And then its external reputation info is neutral . It's neither overly positive or overly negative and it has adequate EEAT . So , yeah , that's basically .

You're really nothing special , you're just middle of the road . You need the bad nor good , you're literally just doing the bare minimum to be seen as , yeah , a standard medium page . Now we're getting more to where we want to be and that's the high quality content . So it's defined as it's beneficial or non-harmful and will not cause harm .

Any page on any site could be considered high quality content . There's no , there's no types of content that can't reach a high quality threshold . The title summarises the content . The ads and the supplementary content don't interfere with the main content .

There's adequate info on the site about the site itself and the content creator and this high level of effort , originality or talent and skill put into the main content .

So a few examples they give are a news article with accuracy , depth and clarity , a QA page or forum post with meaningful discussion by multiple participants , or a well-organised crafting tutorial page with clear , helpful instructions so that those can make the craft successfully . That would demonstrate high level of effort . High originality would be .

The main content is unique or original to the website . Original photos of video footage produced by the website are content creator . The content in the page is unique to the content creators , such as a personal perspective based on first-hand life experience .

And then , for high level of talent or skill , the main content showcases the talent of the creator , for example , a video of a talented content creator dancing , and the main content allows the page to achieve its purpose . Well , because the content creator has talent or skill , such as a how-to article on plumbing by skill plumber .

So you can see we're sort of getting to a level beyond here now and then , when it comes to third party reputation , it's positive . You know the the rate has gone to other sites to look for information about this website and they're getting overwhelmingly positive information back . And on top of that there's a high level of EEAT .

You know , something like you see is backed up in that main content where you say if you're a qualified plumber , skill plumber , obviously you've got a lot of experience , expertise and authority on that , on that subject . So it's things like that they're looking for in high quality content .

Now , finally , we get to the highest quality content as they define it , and there really is a much higher bar here , but I'll run through what they expect . So some of this is going to be common from others . So example like it has a beneficial purpose . It's not expected to cause harm .

Posts on any site or any topic can qualify as the highest quality content . The title must summarise the page accurately . Ads and supplementary content don't block or interfere with the main content . There's adequate info on the site about itself and the content creator .

There's very high levels of effort , originality , talent or trust and the page achieves its purpose very well , and by this they mean that you really are doing outstanding content on the topic and it's probably some of the best that's available online . It will be very unique .

So , for example , if it's a news report , it's going to be the sort where there is an in-depth search and they're going to be surfacing information that wouldn't have otherwise been known if some of this report hadn't delved into the subject and done the research that they'd done .

For artistic content , for example , it must be unique and original content into a very high standard , and for informational content , it's original , accurate , comprehensive , clearly communicated and it should reflect expert consensus .

This is like the most very satisfying content that you can possibly produce on a subject and you are likely to be an absolute authority on the subject , possibly a well-known name or well-known website on this subject . You're really kind of at the pinnacle of your topic .

To get this kind of level , you'll have a very positive reputation about the website and the content creator on other third-party sites and there will be very high levels of EAT for the purpose of the page . So , like I said , you're going to be very well known in this subject . It's kind of like to be a subject expert that's known .

So , yeah , it's definitely a much higher barrier than the other types to get to , but it's not to say it's impossible and it depends very much on your niche .

You don't have to have a PhD in whatever the subject is to get there , but it's really about being known and demonstrating your well-known and demonstrating content that really can't be found elsewhere and producing that kind of level of content to get that incredibly high level .

And hopefully , with that summary , you can see the types of things and the types of levels Google is wanting websites to get to to meet the different quality ratings , and you might have been thinking there and running it through your own sites and some of your own content scene where you think you might actually meet or not meet some of those and where you might

land your pages if you were to really honestly rate them based on those guidelines . There are several tips and takeaways that we can take from this , and these are the ones that I've drawn through the process of going through all these . So here we go . So , first of all , don't be malicious or deceitful .

If you get caught up doing that , you're going to be in trouble . Make sure your pages have great titles . The title of the page is mentioned multiple times , so you need a descriptive and accurate title that summarizes the page . Nothing sensational , nothing misleading .

Make sure your main content is accurate accuracy comes up a lot and that you've put in the appropriate level of effort , originality , talent or skill that you need to meet the purpose of your page . You can't half-ass it , but it has to be at the right level to meet the purpose that you're after . Aim to be original if you can .

You want to be the original source . So whenever you're trying to get across in your content , try not to just be another site saying the same thing on the same topic as everybody else . It's don't be another just me too site . You've really got to try and stand out from the crowd Wherever possible .

Use unique , original content , such as photo and video that you've created yourself , if you can , rather than using stock imagery . Especially , the higher up the levels you get in , the more and more they want an original source stuff rather than stuff that can be found easily elsewhere .

When it comes to EEAT , trust is the biggest part of that signal , so you need to work on providing as much trust information as you can . When it comes to pages that you really must have on your site and that come up again and again in these guidelines , there's some common ones like having an about

us page , having a contact us page . If you're in the YNYL arenas , you really need customer service pages , refund pages , returns pages , all those kind of extra levels that you need so that people can get a quickly and easily get a grasp of who owns this site , who's created the content , how do I get into it ?

If I need to , if there's problems , what do I do ? What processes do I have to follow ? Those things are really , really important . You've got to have them on your site Wherever possible . You've got to demonstrate your real life experience where you can and any kind of real sort of qualifications and why you're an expert in something .

What you know , that getting classifying those two EEs in the EEAT is really important . You show them and , where possible , on third party sites , so there's ways of it being authenticated .

Essentially Things like if you've got awards , if the awards get mentioned , like in these guidelines , that the third party awards can be a trust signal that a site is an authority in its area . So things like that really really important . Accuracy is really important . Gotta make sure your content is accurate .

Nothing destroys EEAT faster than inaccurate or misleading information . That destroys trust . So again , if you're using any kind of AI , make sure you fact check it . If you're using other writers , make sure you fact check them . It's really important that you're accurate . Now ads . It's not a bad thing to have ads .

They say multiple times that having ads in itself is not a bad thing and they understand people have to monetize . But don't let ads get in the way of your content and don't try to trick people in clicking ads .

I thought if they determine you're trying to get people to click on an ad and thinking that next means go to the next bit of content , then that is bad . Any kind of interstitial pages that make it hard for people to not carry on to the main content also bad . So , yeah , be very careful with your ads .

Pay attention to other pages , such as your 404 pages . Make sure they help people realize there's a problem and guide them back to where they want to be . So it's not a problem to have error pages , but they've got to be useful and they've got to help people and they've got to be clear what's going on .

The worst thing is handling errors in a way where it's not clear something bad's happened . That's really a sign of low quality . Make sure to test your site regularly . Check your content works . Do videos load ? Do images load ? Does any interactive content work ? Does your shopping basket work ?

Just make sure that things aren't broken and that they work , because any part broken and not fixed quickly is not a good signal . Remember that the website itself can be the content creator . This is a key thing . I've seen so many people looking at EEAT and thinking I'll put an author bio in and that'll sort it all out , and that doesn't .

It is quite normal for the website itself to be the content creator and not have a named author . You know I think there's loads of authoritative sites I've mentioned before . Like government websites , they don't have named authors in most cases on their content , but it is the most authoritative content because of the site it's on .

So if it makes sense to have an author put it in , if not , you don't need to do it . Pay attention to what other sites say about you . You know it's clear that the raters are going out there and assessing you based on what others say about you . Google's algorithms will be doing the same thing .

So pay attention to what other people are saying on sites about you . Address it where you can . Any customer reviews , good or bad , it's worth addressing them . And look for negative reviews in particular because they can actually help you improve .

Because if you're getting consistent negative reviews for about a certain aspect of your site or your content , you know that's something where you're deficient and it's showing you where to improve your site in the first instance and then go and address that those negative issues on those sites afterwards .

So that's my high level overview of the quality rate of process and key takeaways from it . But , as I say , it's high level . There's a lot more to listen to in the previous seven episodes where I really dived in deep and even better .

Download and read the guidelines yourself and look at the many examples Google actually gives you with the type of pages for all the different scenarios lowest to highest quality content . They give different examples of each one and it's really iteming to look at the kind of things they're looking for . I mean this document itself .

It's as close as you are gonna get to Google explaining to you exactly what they do and don't want to rank and why they think these things are important . It's not necessarily they get it right all the time , but this is really .

It shows you what they're aiming for and what you should be aiming for , and having a good understanding of the guidelines will really help you question your own content and decide whether it's at the level that you should be aiming for to get your content ranking well in a certain sense . Thanks for listening . I really appreciate it . Please subscribe and share .

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