Google Updates Search Quality Rater Guidelines, May 2019

[engine]

Google has updated its search quality evaluator guidelines for May 2019 with its 166 page PDF

[static.googleusercontent.com...]

There are several places that have already reviewed the full document.

[searchengineland.com...]
[thesempost.com...]
[seroundtable.com...]

Some things to look into detail include the use of interstitials, especially if you're using them.

As usual, E.A.T. (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) features, along with Y.M.Y.L. (Your Money or Your Life) pages.

Earlier stories
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

[mcneely]

It's still being said that the exact long-term effects of interstitials are unclear -- like all of the baked in blocking features in latest browser releases aren't any indication at all of the disdain shown by the end user --

Nobody clicks on this stuff any more, so CPM rules the day. People get tired of having to look at stuff they're never going to click on anyway, so it only stands to reason that the internet has to be as rude as possible by throwing that stuff out there any way.

Hope Google has a field day with their demotion of all of the modals, pop-ups, autoplays and other relatively script-kiddie minded garbage we see on the net every day.

Having to pay for impressions is a lot like having to pay your neighbours electric bill because you just happened to notice that he had his lights on the other day -- The sad part of it all is that you may be charged 10x for only looking in his direction only once --

[StupidIntelligent]

Google isn't going to touch large brands because G's content farming is dependent on them. These rules are for 15 year old school kids trying to make buck or two during summer vacations.

[System]

The following 2 messages were cut out to new thread by robert_charlton.

New thread at:

Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines and the real world
https://www.webmasterworld.com/goog/4946479.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:34 am (utc) on May 21, 2019]
[edit reason] Split off two posts to new thread in Goog business [/edit]

[Robert Charlton]

I spent part of this afternoon looking over jenstar's SEMpost article, and will definitely read it again.

Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines Targeting E-A-T, Page Quality & Interstitials
May 17, 2019 - Jennifer Slegg
[thesempost.com...]

Jenn has done so many articles on these Guidelines that I've come to feel she inevitably gives them an extremely close reading... She compares this year's guidelines with those of previous years, eg, and notes a big change this year in where the E-A-T guidelines are applied... in what types of material.

One major take away is that Google is moving a lot of the documentation in these guidelines away from using the term E-A-T, and instead changing many of the instances where it was used to the term “page quality” instead.

...and she cites, among other new content in the Guidelines on the topic, eg, this addition....

Remember that we are not just talking about formal expertise. High quality pages involve time, effort, expertise, and talent/skill. Sharing personal experience is a form of everyday expertise.

This, she comments (my emphasis added),

"definitely brings in line with the idea that some types of sites outside the realm of YMYL do not need to go through hoops to show off expertise, if it is obvious to the reader that the author has expertise from the content presented...."

I'd say that Google is also digging deeper for good content. I see this, on first reading, anyway, not as a downgrading of E-A-T, but rather as a more precise focus on how Google sees YMYL (your money or your life sites) vs sites (eg, hobby sites) requiring expertise but not, say, formal medical training. Comments I'm seeing around the blogosphere suggest that if you've got E-A-T creditionals, though, by all means still include them on your site. I would be looking for clear ways of referring to them in different types of content.

[Dimitri]

Nobody clicks on this stuff any more, so CPM rules the day.

I remember the early age of Internet advertising, where advertisers were paying on a CPM basis, following the TV / Radio / New Papers model. Then Advertisers realized it was resulting in poor ROI, and so appeared pay-per-action (clicks, leads, sales, etc...) :)

[Robert Charlton]

Nobody clicks on this stuff any more, so CPM rules the day.

Just to clarify for those who are picking up this thread in the middle, the above refers back to mcneely's excellent assessment of interstitial ads and why we're still plagued with them... and it's one of the big areas in the guidelines, as Google would like to clean them up.

The other is the broadening of the E-A-T guidelines for expertise, shifting some of them more into quality. I can see that this thread is likely to jump back and forth between content guidelines and advertising guidelines... so I'm noting it explicitly, just in case the casual reader here might be confused.

[JS_Harris]

I would never pay anything but CPM for my ads anymore, the divide has grown between the cost of cpm vs cpc. It really depends on the ad CTR achieved by the site. Some sites generate so few clicks due to placement that you can still offer cpc value and not overpay for branding purposes.

[MrSavage]

Talk about living in the past. How are these guidelines relevant in mid-2019? I mean, the keys are here to get that #1 organic result on page 2 of SERPS? I get that the pursuit of organic is worth the investment or time, or is it? Go look at the new mobile SERPS and then consider whether the time spent analyzing and making changing based on this document is actually worth it. Maybe a walk in the park is a better use of time. I'm a realist.

[jmccormac]

So has the emphasis shifted away from the simplistic "Wikipedia with a shopping cart and SSL cert" stuff that Amit Singhal was pushing as the Google idea of a "high quality" site a few years ago or is this whole E-A-T thing an attempt to get more geniune content than the production line spinning and "articles"?

Are there any indications that people are shifting away from Adsense to other means of monetisation due to adblockers and the like (YMYL sites) or do the highly concentrated content sites like the Clickfunnel sites qualify as these YMYL sites?

Regards...jmcc

[fearlessrick]

Remember PageRank? How everybody wanted to be an 8 or above? I had (and still have) an authority site that was demoted from an 8 to a 2 for some unknown reason (somebody paid G to move up the ladder maybe), and, after earnings suffered for about six months, I never stopped working as I usually did. Eventually made more than ever.

My point is that G continues to move the goalposts as the internet and society evolves. A decade ago, all I could hear and read about was the death of the desktop. Sorry, never happened. Same with G and the 'net.

Macbeth Quote (Act II, Scene I): "Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

[zguoqi]

I'll devote an hour of my time to a review.

[not2easy]

This old version was replaced last month. See Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines Updated Thurs, Dec 5, 2019 here: [webmasterworld.com...]

[nomis5]

I can't believe anyone on this forum is giving a second of their time to these guidelines.

They are totally not relevant any web publisher. A complete side issue probably designed simply to divert the attention of the uninitiated to a pointless waste of effort.

Don't give them a second of your time.

[goodroi]

While Google's search quality guidelines are not going to reveal secrets to ranking, they do a good job giving an insight into Google's mindset. For an SEO, it would be wise to understand the general areas where Google is putting their focus. Being uninformed is rarely advantageous. This document is a good starting point but not much more.

[Kendo]

searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

What a lot of gibberish. A full turn around on itself. Is this the produce from that AI that they were bragging about? Or is it a collection of ramblings that their AI has to decipher and convert into something intelligible?

It doesn't reveal anything. But it does read like the diary of an asylum inmate made while studying its own scribblings on a cell wall.

[Robert Charlton]

Note that there have been two (2) updated Quality Rater Guidelines since this one. The most recent update was on Dec 5, 2019, and the thread discussing that December update is where new discussion regarding Rater Guidelines should go.

See....

Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines Updated Thurs, Dec 5, 2019
Dec 6, 2019
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4975255.htm [webmasterworld.com]