While I and the SEO world obsess over the topic of “ranking factors” and whether they’re good or bad for our industry, I’ve been refreshing my memory on Google’s “Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines“. Part of the arguement right now against ranking factor studies, most eloquently said by Jenny Halasz at JLH Marketing, is that they’re misleading because Google almost never comes out and actually confirms anything is a “factor”. Jenny is mostly arguing about the semantics and that these studies shouldn’t be called “factors” but perhaps “correlations”. Fair enough.
Google has come out a few times, either on Twitter or on their Webmaster blog, to discuss a new product release or algorithm update and they might actually confirm a specific ranking factor. Most recently it was page load speed.
This has me thinking that, okay, fine, if we don’t actually have any black and white guidance from Google on what are the specific 200+ factors of their algorithm, what do we have? Besides these awesome studies put out by Moz, Searchmetrics, SEMrush and others, what else do we have to guide us? While it’s still not black and white, and it’s mostly qualitative, the official Search Quality Evaluator Guildelines that came out in 2014 and have been updated a few times since are perhaps the next best piece to the puzzle.
I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve been in this industry for 9 years and I’ve never read this document. Granted, it’s 160 pages long and quite dense. But still, not only have I not read it, I’ve never truly researched it. So here we are. I’m pleased to find out that I’m nowhere near the first person to be curious about this and others have already provided summaries and highlights.
Really interesting interview with a Google Quality Rater: https://searchengineland.com/interview-google-search-quality-rater-108702
Quotes that stuck out to me:
- “decide if it fits the query and then assign a rating”
- “which one would I click”
- “what a user was looking at before they typed in a query, and we are then to rate the results of that query”
- “rated news based on how current it was, how relevant it was to the query, and if it came from a trustworthy source” – current, relevant, trustworthy
- “As for videos, we had to watch the video to determine if it was a match for the query and rate it Useful, Relevant, Slightly Relevant, or Off-topic”
- “Almost all of the tasks given have to do with user experience”
- “It’s not about if a page fits a query, it’s about if a user would find the page useful”
- “we are supposed to keep in mind what a user is expecting to see from that query”
- “I always check for spam signals first — keyword stuffing, hidden text, sneaky redirects, and the like”
- “whether or not the content on the page would help me fulfill my needs”
- “we look for hidden keywords and other spammy tactics discussed in the guidelines”
- Relating to Design: “Design tasks ask if the page has a good ratio of main content, supplemental content, and ads. It also asks about the overall design, is it easy to read, clear communication of information, and the like. It’s not about whether the page is beautiful or amazing, but whether or not the normal user could find what they need on the page without getting lost.”
- “as long as the information is clear and presented in a way that is easy to understand”
Moz’s 30+ Takeaways from Google’s Search Quality Rater’s Guidelines: https://moz.com/blog/google-search-quality-raters-guidelines
April 4, 2016 update, mostly focused on removing supplementary content and an emphasis on E-A-T: http://www.thesempost.com/updated-google-quality-rater-guidelines-eat/
March 14, 2017 update, mostly focused on upsetting and offensive content: https://searchengineland.com/google-flag-upsetting-offensive-content-271119
July 27, 2017 update, mostly focused on non-English results: https://searchengineland.com/google-updates-quality-raters-guidelines-details-around-non-english-language-web-pages-280163
December 21, 2017 update, guidelines specifically for voice search: https://research.googleblog.com/2017/12/evaluation-of-speech-for-google.html
Google also offers “Webmaster Guidelines” which are a great reference, especially for what not to do but also as a reminder for what to focus on. Sometimes it’s important to strip it down to the basics (directly quoted from this article linked above):
- Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.
- Don’t deceive your users.
- Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you, or to a Google employee. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
- Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your website stand out from others in your field.