Google has updated its Quality Rater Guidelines this week with new insights regarding the assessment of “low quality” and “lowest quality” pages.
Among the changes made, the sections on page quality underwent the most significant updates.
The Quality Rater Guidelines are a set of instructions that Google’s quality raters follow when evaluating the performance of Google’s algorithms manually.
In other words, if a rater is assessing whether a piece of content is “low quality,” they refer to the Quality Rater Guidelines.
It’s crucial to understand that quality raters cannot directly alter how a page is ranked. Instead, they provide feedback to those who develop Google’s algorithms.
Based on this feedback, an algorithm update may be implemented, potentially affecting page rankings.
How Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines Define Low Quality Pages
According to Google’s updated Quality Rater Guidelines, low quality pages are those that fall short of achieving their intended goals.
This could occur for two reasons: insufficient main content (MC) to satisfy the reader, or a lack of expertise from the content creator on the topic.
“Low quality pages may have been intended to serve a beneficial purpose. However, they do not achieve their purpose well because they lack an essential dimension, such as having insufficient MC, or the creator of the MC lacks expertise for the page’s purpose.”
The key difference in this revised definition of low quality pages is that quality should still be considered “low” even if the page was intended to have a beneficial purpose.
Quality Raters are instructed to rate a page as “Low” if any of the following apply:
- An inadequate level of Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T).
- Low quality MC.
- Insufficient MC for the page’s purpose.
- The title of the MC is exaggerated or shocking.
- Ads or supplementary content (SC) distract from the MC.
- Insufficient website information or about the creator of the MC (no good reason for anonymity).
- A mildly negative reputation for a website or MC creator, based on extensive reputation research.
If a page exhibits multiple low quality attributes, a rating lower than Low may be appropriate.
The major change to this section, indicated in bold, means that articles with clickbait-style headlines should now be considered "low" quality, regardless of the actual quality of the main content.
Google elaborates that exaggerated or shocking titles can entice users to click on pages in search results, but if these pages do not align with the title or images, it leaves users feeling surprised and confused. Pages with such titles that do not accurately describe the MC should be rated Low.
Here is a roundup of other notable changes made to the “Low Quality Pages” and “Lowest Quality Pages” sections:
- Ads featuring grotesque images should now be viewed as distracting.
- Extensive research is required to evaluate a content creator’s reputation.
- Identifying a content creator using a longstanding Internet alias or username is now acceptable.
- A page is considered of “lowest” quality when the purpose cannot be determined.
- ‘Your Money, Your Life’ pages with no content creator information should be rated lowest.
- Unmaintained websites that fail to achieve their purpose due to lack of maintenance should be rated lowest quality.
- Pages promoting hate against groups based on socio-economic status, political beliefs, or victimization should be rated lowest.
- Pages encouraging harm to self or others, mentally, physically, or emotionally, should be rated lowest.
- Content should be rated lowest if the creator has a negative or malicious reputation.
- Pages with harmful links, such as those leading to malware downloads, should be rated lowest.
- Pages that misinform users with “demonstrably inaccurate content” should be rated lowest.
- Any page designed to deceive users into clicking on links should be rated lowest.
These points represent all new additions to Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines.
