In a recent Google Webmaster Hangout, someone inquired about whether the presence of poor-quality pages on a website could negatively impact the rankings of the entire site. John Mueller from Google provided insights into how Google evaluates and ranks both individual web pages and entire websites.
Do a Few Pages Drag Down the Entire Site?
The question raised was whether a particular section of a website could affect the ranking of the entire site.
The question:
"I’m curious if content is judged on a page level per the keyword or the site as a whole. Only a sub-section of the site comprises buying guides, and they’re all under their specific structure. Would Google penalize everything under that URL holistically? Do a few bad apples drag down the average?"
Difference Between Not Ranking and Penalization
John Mueller began by clarifying a misunderstanding about being penalized, which was implied in the question. Web publishers often talk about penalties when their pages are simply not ranking.
There is a distinction between Google assessing your page and deciding not to rank it. When a page doesn’t rank, it’s typically because the content is not of sufficient quality or is irrelevant to the search query. This is a failure to rank, not a penalization.
A common misconception is the so-called Duplicate Content Penalty. Such a penalty doesn’t exist; instead, it’s an issue with content quality. Another is the Content Cannibalization Penalty, which is also not an actual penalty.
Both scenarios are related to an inability to rank due to specific content concerns, but they are not penalties. The solutions involve identifying and fixing the root cause, similar to any failure to rank issue.
A penalty results from a blatant violation of Google’s guidelines.
John Mueller Defines a Penalty
John Mueller of Google began his answer by defining a penalty:
"Usually, the word penalty is associated with manual actions. If there were a manual action, where someone manually reviewed your website and deemed it not good, you would receive a notification in Search Console. I suspect that’s not the case…"
How Google Defines Page-Level Quality
Mueller suggested that Google tries to evaluate page quality over entire site quality when determining rankings. However, this isn’t always possible for every website.
John explained:
"In general, when it comes to a website’s quality, we try to be as precise as possible to ascertain which specific pages or parts of the site are viewed as good and which parts might not be. Depending on the website, this is sometimes possible, but sometimes we have to consider everything as a whole."
Why Do Some Sites Get Away with Low-Quality Pages?
John’s answer is intriguing and raises another question—why do some sites get away with having low-quality sections while others do not?
This might be due to the concentration of low-quality content on the site. For instance, a site could predominantly consist of high-quality pages but have a section filled with thin content. In this case, the thin content might not affect the ranking of the rest of the site. Conversely, if most of a site contains low-quality pages, the few high-quality pages might struggle to gain visibility due to poor internal linking and PageRank flow.
John described a scenario where Google might have difficulty ranking good-quality pages because of prevalent low-quality signals:
"It might be that we found a part of your website where we’re uncertain about the quality. There are some excellent parts but also some questionable areas, and we’re unsure how to treat everything overall. That might be the case."
Effect of Low Quality Signals Sitewide
John Mueller provided insights on how low-quality on-page signals could affect the ranking potential of high-quality pages. He also noted that, in some cases, negative signals might not impede the ranking ability of good-quality pages.
Therefore, one takeaway is that a site filled mostly with low-quality content will struggle to rank a high-quality page. Conversely, a site with predominantly high-quality content may overcome some low-quality content if it is isolated in a specific section. Nevertheless, minimizing low-quality signals remains a best practice.
Watch the full Webmaster Hangout for more insights.
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