Notes from Google Search Quality Evaluation

Guidelines November 2015Put together by @ivanpashov

www.google.com/insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqu

alityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

Good search engines give results that are helpful for users in their specific

language and locale

A webmaster is the person who designs, develops, and/or maintains a website

Most pages are created to be helpful for users. Some pages are created merely to make money, with little or no effort to

help users

The first step in understanding a page is figuring out its purpose

The purpose of a page is the reason or reasons why the page was created

Every page on the Internet is created for a purpose, or for multiple purposes

Websites and pages must be created to help users

Common helpful page purposes include (but are not limited to):

● To share information about a topic● To share personal or social information● To share pictures, videos, or other forms of media● To express an opinion or point of view● To entertain● To sell products or services● To allow users to post questions for other users to answer● To allow users to share files or to download software

All content on a webpage can be classified as one of the following: Main

Content, Supplementary Content or Advertisements/Monetization (Ads)

Main content is any part of the page that directly helps the page achieve its

purpose

Main content can be text, images, videos or page features

such as calculators, games, etc.

Webmasters directly create and/or control the main content of the page

Quality of the main content is determited by how much

1. time2. effort3. expertise; and4. talent/skill

have gone into the creation of the page

We will consider content to be low quality if it is created without adequate time,

effort, expertise, or talent/skill

Pages with low quality MC do not achieve their purpose well

Adjectives associated with colours:

Red: love and passionOrange: enthusiasm and happiness

Yellow: joy and hopeGreen: growth and stability

Blue: responsibility and strengthPurple: ambition and royaltyWhite: goodness and purityBlack: elegance and power

Use as few words as possible to communicate your idea

Don't use lots of words to communicate only basic ideas or facts

EAT = Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness

YMYL = your money or your life

PQ = page quality

We have very different standards for pages on large, professionally-produced

business websites than we have for small amateur, hobbyist, or personal

websites

All PQ (page quality) rating should be done in the context of the purpose of the

page and the type of website

Look carefully at the SC (secondary content). If it is unhelpful or distracting,

think about why it is included on the page

Unhelpful or distracting SC that benefits the website rather than helping the user

is a reason for a low rating

A lack of helpful SC (secondary content) on large websites with a lot of content

may be a reason for a low rating

To summarize, a lack of helpful SC may be a reason for a low quality rating,

depending on the purpose of the page and the type of website

Monetised links

If a website is not being maintained and updated enough for its purpose, that is a

reason for a low page quality rating

Websites and pages should be created to be helpful for users

Websites and pages which are created to harm users, deceive users, or only make money with no attempt to help

users should be rated lowest

Lack of purpose pages

All deceptive pages should be rated lowest. Use the lowest rating if a

webpage page is deliberately created to deceive and potentially harm users in

order to benefit the website

The quality of the MC (main content) is one of the most important considerations

in PQ (page quality) rating

We’ll judge the quality of the MC by thinking about how much time, effort,

expertise, and talent/skill was involved in content creation

Why would a page exist without MC (main content)?

Pages with MC which is completely unhelpful for the purpose of the page, should be considered to have no MC

Pages created with the intent of luring search engines and users, rather than

providing meaningful MC (main content) to help users, should be rated lowest

Gibberish pages with meaningless content are useless for users and should

be rated lowest quality

Manual curation

Value added for users

If all or most of the MC (main content) on the page is copied, think about the

purpose of the page. Why does the page exist? What value does the page have

for users? Why should users look at the page with copied content instead of the

original source?

Copied with minimal alteration

Lacking in purpose