What you can learn from the Google Quality Rater Guidelines

Google updates the search engine's core algorithm several times a year in order to create a better user experience for its users by displaying the most relevant results "particularly high up".

According to SISTRIX(https://www.sistrix.de/news/core-algorithmus-update-gesundheit-finanzen-betroffen/), there was a core update to the Google algorithm (the so-called Medic Update) at the beginning of August 2018, which was also confirmed by Google. However, the search engine provider did not provide any details. However, Johannes Beus has noticed that visibility changes are particularly noticeable for YMYL websites. YMYL stands for "Your Money Your Life" and focuses on everything to do with life, health, finance, law and other issues that have a profound impact on people. Examples include stores, insurance guides and sites with information relating to major investments.

The Google search engine works with various algorithms to categorize and evaluate websites. To help the search engine feed the algorithms with data, Google hires employees to act as quality raters. Keyword: machine learning.

These employees are tasked with checking websites against certain criteria. The search engine giant provides quality rater guidelines for the most objective evaluations possible, which it has even made available to the general public. You can find the current version at https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/de//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf.

Google made changes to the guidelines a few weeks ago, which primarily relate to YMYL pages. As a result of the change, the quality standards of these pages have risen further.

This example shows how the website zentrum-der-gesundheit.de has lost visibility as a result of the update:

As this is an update that has triggered significant changes in visibility, we would like to summarize what you can learn from the Google Quality Rater Guidelines to optimize your website.

1. every page of your website must fulfill a purpose

Among other things, Quality Raters check the page quality (PQ). This is made up of various factors. The first question a rater should ask himself: What is the purpose of a page and how well does it fulfill it? Websites should be created to help users. If websites are created to harm people or make money for nothing in return, raters should only award the lowest PQ ("Lowest PQ"). However, if websites have a benefit for visitors, they should be considered equal in the first instance - whether they are encyclopaedias or joke sites.

After all, there are various reasons for creating websites. Store pages are intended to sell products, forums are intended to connect like-minded people and image websites are intended to provide information about companies. As long as the websites fulfill a purpose, one cannot speak of a better or worse type of website. The evaluation must take place on the individual pages.

Of course, a website consists of different types of pages: blog or news articles, information pages such as the imprint or privacy policy, "About us" pages, service pages, the homepage, etc.. Raters should look at the benefits for visitors when evaluating at page level. Example homepage: It should link to the most important content of the website. Google: "The homepage of a website usually contains or has links to important information about the website. Webmasters usually make it easy to get to the homepage of the website from any page on the site." As a result, it may have little content (i.e. a low word count), but it fulfills its purpose. And that's what counts.

Ask yourself the following questions for each page: What is the purpose of this page? Is this purpose clear in the title? Does the page fulfill this purpose and how well does it do so?

2. the main content must deliver what the title promises

The main content is therefore of the utmost importance when evaluating the usefulness of a website.

Search engine users reach websites via search results. During a search, they see the title of a page as a particularly prominent part of the SERP snippet, i.e. the search engine result. In most cases, this entices users to click on the result and leads them to the website.

The title "promises" that this page contains specific information or content. However, if the main content does not match the title, this result will not be relevant to the searcher and they will go back to the search results. This is a negative user signal and you should make sure that the titles of the individual pages of your website match the content. Google:

"Helpful titles summarize the MC on the page."

Search for individual pages of your website on Google yourself and ask yourself the following questions: Does the title promise something? Will I really find what I'm looking for on the page? Does the MC contain enough information to deliver what the title promises?

3. advertising and secondary content must not interfere with the main content

Advertising in the form of banners, pop-ups or similar should not be a negative criterion for raters, as they are necessary for the operation of many websites. Google:

"Many pages have advertisements/monetization (Ads). Without advertising and monetization, some webpages could not exist because it costs money to maintain a website and create high quality content. The presence or absence of Ads is not by itself a reason for a High or Low quality rating."

However, the main content or its use should not be influenced by supplementary content or advertising. Advertising pop-ups should disappear by simply closing them and must not be constantly hanging over the main content. This is classified as negative by raters. Google:

"We expect Ads and SC to be visible. However, some Ads, SC, [...] make it difficult to use the MC. Pages with Ads, SC, or other features that distract from or interrupt the use of the MC should be given a Low rating. A single pop-over Ad with a clear and easy-to-use close button is not terribly distracting, though may not be a great user experience. However, difficult-to-close Ads that follow page scrolls can be truly distracting and make the MC difficult to use."

The same applies to ads that do not differ from the main content. This resembles a user deception and is also rated negatively. In one example, a question & answer page (Q&A page) is rated negatively because it is difficult to distinguish the main content from the ads. Google:

"In addition to a very unhelpful "answer," the page design makes it difficult to distinguish the MC from Ads. For example, below the answer, we see a "sponsored answer," which has the same format as the real answer, but is actually an Ad and not an answer to the question-this is misleading to users."

Deactivate ad blockers, cookie blockers and other tools that would ensure that ads etc. are not displayed and then visit your website. Is the advertising annoying? Is SC content such as call-to-actions more prominent than the main content? Can you use the main content or is it covered by pop-ups?

4 E-A-T for YMYL pages: Your website must be trustworthy.

Let's come back to the YMYL pages already mentioned. Today's internet users use the web to find out about health-related topics such as the effects of medication or treatments for illnesses. They obtain information on legal topics, read product reviews, follow civic information, form a political opinion, find out about scientific topics - in short: YMYL pages can influence a person's future and must therefore be particularly trustworthy.

Google uses the terms "Expertise, Authorativeness and Trustworthiness", or "E-A-T" for short (expert knowledge, authority and trustworthiness of the source). Quality raters are required to check how trustworthy the information is for every website, every article and every opinion. To do this, they check the reputation in terms of the consensus of the statements with general opinion, check reviews from customers or other experts and thus get a feeling for whether the content creator or person responsible for the website is an expert in their field and the content is trustworthy. This is the case, for example, if the content itself is frequently c ited or the author is well-known in their specialist field. Google:

"Use reputation research to find out what real users, as well as experts, think about a website. Look for reviews, references, recommendations by experts, news articles, and other credible information created/written by individuals about the website."

However, there are different types of websites. For example, forums or Q&A pages.User-generated contentis created on such sites; many individuals are responsible for the content. Raters should check how trustworthy the individual authors are and whether questions in forums or Q&A pages are actually answered. After all, a forum discussion can also be listed as a search result. Google:

"Ratings for forum and Q&A pages can be challenging. The most important aspect is the E-A-T of the participants in the discussion, which can be difficult to judge. Keep in mind the following:

• The Main Content on forum and Q&A pages includes both the question as well as the answers/responses and resulting discussions.

• Rate forum and Q&A pages from the point of view of a user who visits the page, rather than a participant involved in the discussion."

In the case of a store, there are other trust-building factors such as reviews, testimonials or tests: many good reviews are a positive sign. Google:

"Stores frequently have user ratings, which can help you understand a store's reputation based on the reports of people who actually store there. We consider a large number of positive user reviews as evidence of positive reputation."

Check your website for trust-building or trust-inhibiting elements. Your website or company should be listed in relevant business directories. Pages such as XING, LinkedIn, WLW etc. should be part of your basic equipment. Is your website already on Wikipedia? Is all the information there correct, or should it be updated? Are there any testimonials about your website, your offers or your company?

Special pages

In the guidelines, Google mentions special pages such as 404 pages or others that deliver error messages. This is also the case for search pages, for example, if there is no suitable search result on the website. These pages should also have a purpose, namely 1. to inform the visitor that this page / search does not exist and 2. to show them how they can navigate further from here.

Google:

"Some pages are temporarily broken pages on otherwise functioning websites, while some pages have an explicit error (or custom 404) message. In some cases, pages are missing MC as well. Please think about whether the page offers help for users-did the webmaster spend time, effort, and care on the page?"

An example of a good 404 page: It contains the information that this page does not exist or no longer exists. A search function is prominently displayed. Links are also displayed that lead to the most important areas of the website.

Check your website with a non-existent URL and take a look at your 404 page. Are there enough options to navigate from this page in a meaningful way? Could it be argued that this page took time and effort to create?

Conclusion

In addition to the Google Webmaster Guidelines, which have been publicly available for years at https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials?hl=de&visit_id=637555142392842684-499141138&rd=1, the Quality Raters Guidelines offer a fairly accurate insight into how Google understands website visitors. If you are serious about optimizing your website, you should take the evaluation criteria mentioned in the guidelines to heart.

In this article, we will focus on mobile friendliness and meeting search intentions in relation to these guidelines: https://www.arocom.de/blog/warum-ihre-mobile-website-scheitern-koennte.

If you need support in optimizing your website, we would be happy to hear from you:

info@arocom.de or by phone on 0711 633 779 60