Google Quality Rater E-E-A-T Update

[malkhaldi]

another one
Our latest update to the quality rater guidelines: E-A-T gets an extra E for Experience
[developers.google.com...]

[edited by: not2easy at 12:51 pm (utc) on Dec 16, 2022]
[edit reason] split thread cleanup [/edit]

[BigKat]

I remember the days when Google would never release any updates during the holiday shopping season. Back in those days, Google had higher ethical standards and workers (Matt Cutts comes to mind) who believed search could serve a greater good. Those days are long gone, and it appears Google has lost sight of serving others than themselves.

I'm in agreeance with others in the ecommerce industry who have voiced their concerns regarding the changes in Google's new ad spammed SERP layout and all these updates occurring during the busiest shopping season of the year. With the recent addition of so many ads in product queries, these updates and public notices from Google appear to be an attempt to get us discussing anything besides the organic results being diluted (more like hidden) by so many ads. It's the ad spam by Google that has resulted in our traffic being cut by nearly 1/3. Shoppers using Google will likely never see us and will instead be bombarded with white label Chinese goods being sold on Amazon, Walmart, etc. It's ridiculous seeing the same Chinese made products, appearing in the same product blocks, simply with different brand names. How does this serve shoppers when their choices are limited to the same products that just carry a different brand name? It's hard to come to any other conclusion that Google is serving anyone other than themselves.

[not2easy]

This is a Raters Guidelines update, not a search algorithm update. It may or may not be noticeable in the serps.

[christianz]

So in order to have our e-stores appear in Google search we will need to accumulate 20+ years of online retail experience to compete with Amazon in EEAT.

[BigKat]

So in order to have our e-stores appear in Google search we will need to accumulate 20+ years of online retail experience to compete with Amazon in EEAT

Amazon is ranking number one for most buyer intent queries in our industry. Amazon's experience in retail, as a super affiliate selling other's goods, gives them zero experience as far as I'm concerned. A legitimate product review site, which purchases and reviews products, has more experience then Amazon. Surely the expertise of my company, which designs, produces and supports the products we sell, should have great authority and rank appropriately for product searches - but we don't.

What my company manufactures and sells complies with current safety standards. The products sold on the Amazon product pages Google is ranking fail to meet these standards. Will a quality rater even know about these standards, which are designed to keep consumers safe? Doubtful. Would a quality rater giving these Amazon pages a bad rating due to safety concerns even result in these Amazon product pages being demoted? Doubtful yet again. From my past experience, Amazon appears to be either exempt from the guidelines Google applies to us and/or Google's guidelines are designed using Amazon as the standard only a deep pocketed multinational company can compete with.

As it pertains to all the product ads now appearing in product searches for our industry, none of the products meet current safety standards. Not one out of dozens of Google's product ads. Even if a quality rater were to cite an Amazon page for not being safe for consumers, ads are not subject to review by these raters. It's all about the money, and Google has no problem prioritizing ad revenue above the safety of consumers.

[EditorialGuy]

Even if a quality rater were to cite an Amazon page for not being safe for consumers, ads are not subject to review by these raters.

Of course. Organic search and advertising are separate entities. (In journalism, the analogy is "church and state.")

As for Google's instructing search raters to give extra weight to reviews, etc. based on author experience, what's not to like about that? If it hurts site owners and hirelings who crank out pages on places, things, or topics that they know nothing about, that's good for users and the Web as a whole.

[BigKat]

As for Google's instructing search raters to give extra weight to reviews, etc. based on author experience, what's not to like about that?

As it pertains to Amazon, many of the reviews are made by those who have no experience with the products they buy. In one of our old reviews, I pleaded with Amazon to remove it because the review contained instructions on how to use our product for an application it was not intended for and posed a safety hazard. Amazon wouldn't remove the review. Thankfully we no longer sell on Amazon so the review, and the unsafe information it contained, is not out there in the wild endangering people.

In addition to the above, I've received emails from Amazon's customers who demand something for free or they will leave a bad review. For years Amazon hid the product review link, from customer's order history and emails, for those sellers who shipped their goods. If there are any product reviews that should not be trusted, they're on Amazon. I'm SO THANKFUL we no longer sell our products on Amazon. Talk about more headaches then it's worth...

[christianz]

As for Google's instructing search raters to give extra weight to reviews, etc. based on author experience, what's not to like about that?

Literally everything. The whole EAT concept is deadly. Content should be ranked based on how good it is. Not what your expensive diplomas are, what country you are from, how much money you make, how many employees you have, how much ads you have bought, how many boosters you took etc.

EAT leads to "Cable-newsification" of the WWW.

[EditorialGuy]

The whole EAT concept is deadly. Content should be ranked based on how good it is. Not what your expensive diplomas are, what country you are from, how much money you make, how many employees you have, how much ads you have bought, how many boosters you took etc.

It's really no different from the carbon-based world. If you write a book on heart disease, you'll have a much better chance of getting published (and of having your books carried by bookstores or public libraries) if you're a cardiologist, or at least an experienced medical writer, than if you're Joe Schmoe.

As it pertains to Amazon, many of the reviews are made by those who have no experience with the products they buy.

I don't get the impression that E-EAT is focused on Amazon, but in any case, user reviews by people who have actually bought a product, stayed at a hotel, used a service, etc. are likely to be more useful than fake reviews by affiliate marketers.

[christianz]

It's really no different from the carbon-based world. If you write a book on heart disease, you'll have a much better chance of getting published (and of having your books carried by bookstores or public libraries) if you're a cardiologist, or at least an experienced medical writer, than if you're Joe Schmoe.

I understand your argument and in many cases this is true - having "credentials" or "big brand" can be useful signal for trustworthiness and quality.

But problem is that this EAT concept can be easily misused as excuse for excluding smaller competitors. One of the reasons why YouTube exploded and become so big is that anyone, without any credentials could reach audience based purely on content quality. Same happened in the early days of the WWW.

Now you see smaller creators and webmasters (they don't even recognize us by this name anymore) pushed down and displaced by large corporations. Not just for commercial queries but also for informational.

[BigKat]

But problem is that this EAT concept can be easily misused as excuse for excluding smaller competitors.

Hammer meets nail. EAT, along with Google's entire algorithm, morphed from ranking webpages to a current censorship based algo IMO. As it relates to the unsafe use of our products, neither Amazon or Google would be responsible if someone got hurt. We, as the manufacturer and with the most skin in the game, would be responsible despite having no control of removing unsafe instructions in Amazon's product reviews and/or which webpage Google sends consumers to.

Big tech seems to want to control what we buy, see and think. Thus far, big tech is doing a pretty good job of it.

[EditorialGuy]

Now you see smaller creators and webmasters (they don't even recognize us by this name anymore) pushed down and displaced by large corporations. Not just for commercial queries but also for informational.

I haven't seen that at all--certainly not in comparison to the days when Wikipedia, TripAdvisor, CNET, etc. dominated the SERPs for informational queries. (I can remember when TripAdvisor, for example, would rank high with template pages that had no actual content but merely invited users to submit a review. IMO, TripAdvisor never would have gotten off the ground if Google hadn't let it get away with "template spamming" on a massive scale.)

Obviously, different queries will give different results, and for some things (medical topics, for example) big names carry a lot of weight--which shouldn't be terribly surprising, since quality evaluators are likely to look favorably on sites like the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic when providing feedback to Google on search results.

[tangor]

Have to wonder how the g AI is going to know if the "experience indicated" is real or not? Anyone can say: "I tested this", "I use this", etc. Paid spokespersons do it all the time (and have done so since the 1800s!)

Not sure if this will stick for g. Too easy to game. Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness, on the other hand, can be fairly qualified on a semi-legitimate basis.

I'll wait and see.

[robzilla]

Have to wonder how the g AI is going to know if the "experience indicated" is real or not? Anyone can say: "I tested this", "I use this", etc. Paid spokespersons do it all the time (and have done so since the 1800s!)

Depends on the type of content. In a blog post or review, it's easy to think of things that can "prove" your experience*. With shorter UGC like message boards and user reviews it's trickier, the experience level there may, I imagine, have to be strenghtened by sheer quantity of experiences (282 reviews beats 4 reviews). And there'll be some textual analysis in play, of course.

As with the original E, A and T, the extent to which Experience will affect rankings very much depends on the query. See, for example, "3.4.1 YMYL Topics: Experience or Expertise?".

* I see some people reading "experience" way too broadly. This doesn't make any sense:

So in order to have our e-stores appear in Google search we will need to accumulate 20+ years of online retail experience to compete with Amazon in EEAT.

Nor this:

I remember the days when Google would never release any updates during the holiday shopping season.

But we have that discussion every year and I'm tired of it.

[Atomic]

But we have that discussion every year and I'm tired of it.

You're not alone.

There are a lot of ways to add expertise and experience to a site that do not include waiting until you have 20 years of experience. It takes time and effort, though. Maybe not 20 years. But it takes time to build a business. And while you're doing that you will accumulate experience and expertise. Until then, you can borrow some from others.

[Kendo]

Anyone can say: "I tested this"

So true and that is why rating systems are totally useless. It is extremely naive to consider what can be so easily spoofed as relevant for search ranking. But perhaps they do realise that and include it as another part of the smokescreen that disguises why search results are what they are.

I can spoof no problem. I can get 5 star reviews for $1 each and less. The guy that I can hire will get them for much less and onsell.

But what is the point when all it needs is one competitor to post a bad review and that review sits on the top of the review list. Nice one Google!

[BigKat]

But we have that discussion every year and I'm tired of it.

@robzilla

I don't remember a time when we've seen so many algo updates during the holiday shopping season along with Google doubling the ads for commercial searches. Maybe these events aren't a big deal to you, but it's huge and impactful news for us who sell B2C and I suspect shoppers as well.

During these updates Google tends to rank us well in countries we don't ship to and poorly for shoppers down the street who could walk right in and pickup their online orders. But I hear ya, I'm tired too. Tired of being bombarded with inquiries, like the one below, because Google's geo-filters always flop during their algo updates.

I have a requirement for below items and was wondering if you'd be able to help me with delivery to the UK?

[christianz]

There are a lot of ways to add expertise and experience to a site that do not include waiting until you have 20 years of experience.

EAT is not about adding expertise and experience to your content. That would be general content quality, relevance, value etc. The problem with EAT is that it's NOT about the site but about "who is behind the site".

A random anonymous guy from Bangladesh should be able to outrank billion dollar corporation from USA if he has better content. But Google seems to be unable to correctly gauge content quality, meaning, value and relevance with all this AI generated spam that's happening so they lean on off-site factors such as EAT.

[Atomic]

EAT is not about adding expertise and experience to your content. That would be general content quality, relevance, value etc. The problem with EAT is that it's NOT about the site but about "who is behind the site".

I think it's more than that. A look around the SERPs tells me that what you say isn't possible, is. If you're right, then half the web might as well shut down.

[robzilla]

The problem with EAT is that it's NOT about the site but about "who is behind the site".

If you'd have read the Quality Rater Guidelines, you'd probably not come to that conclusion. It's certainly part of it, but the "MC", as they call it, is just as (if not more) important.

off-site factors such as EAT

Same as above. EEAT is mostly on-site, and by itself not a ranking factor, of course, but a collection of important characteristics of high-quality content, centered mostly around trust and with varying weight depending on the query, that (a multitude of) actual ranking systems need to be able to detect the way a search quality rater can. The goal is to edge the system towards a quality rating on par with (ideally surpassing) that of human raters.

Every major update is likely "signed off on" by the raters. Indirectly, of course.

it's huge and impactful news for us who sell B2C and I suspect shoppers as well

It's also off-topic here. The thread's not even about an algorithm update. You can search the forums for earlier discussions. It came up in the thread on the recent Helpful Content Update, for example: [webmasterworld.com...] (can't link directly to specific posts unfortunately)

[BigKat]

It's also off-topic here. The thread's not even about an algorithm update.

Indeed, I chose my words improperly by adding the word "algo" as that failed to give credit to EEAT's contribution to all the changes that have been dumped on us in such a brief period of time. With that in mind, I'll be more EAT/EEAT specific in my comments.

I think it's more than that. A look around the SERPs tells me that what you say isn't possible, is. If you're right, then half the web might as well shut down.

Raters are likely limited in what their work accomplishes as I believe their role serves a dual purpose - to narrowly rate for ranking purposes and to shield Google from potential future legal actions. The percentage of queries that are impacted by raters is likely very small and confined to those industries which may directly and are known to severely harm consumers if they are provided with inaccurate information. Raters sent to most ecommerce sites is likely nothing more than busy work. I never saw an impact from EAT on our own ecommerce website despite checking all the boxes beginning with an EV cert. Displaying our licensing and other credentials never propelled our products above Amazon and the UGC product descriptions/reviews that appear on Amazon product pages. Will an extra E change this? Doubtful. It just doesn't work on scale and Google has shown no recent efforts in my industry to ensure their users are purchasing safe products and to provide them with the choice diverse search results offer. But I'm sure we will see a lot of websites add slogans to their sites saying "Established, 1920, etc." to give some superficial clues to raters they are somehow experienced and should be trusted.

[Atomic]

Raters are likely limited in what their work accomplishes as I believe their role serves a dual purpose - to narrowly rate for ranking purposes and to shield Google from potential future legal actions. The percentage of queries that are impacted by raters is likely very small and confined to those industries which may directly and are known to severely harm consumers if they are provided with inaccurate information. Raters sent to most ecommerce sites is likely nothing more than busy work. I never saw an impact from EAT on our own ecommerce website despite checking all the boxes beginning with an EV cert. Displaying our licensing and other credentials never propelled our products above Amazon and the UGC product descriptions/reviews that appear on Amazon product pages. Will an extra E change this? Doubtful. It just doesn't work on scale and Google has shown no recent efforts in my industry to ensure their users are purchasing safe products and to provide them with the choice diverse search results offer. But I'm sure we will see a lot of websites add slogans to their sites saying "Established, 1920, etc." to give some superficial clues to raters they are somehow experienced and should be trusted.

You seem to know more about the rater program than anyone. Would you care to reveal any more secrets?

[christianz]

But I'm sure we will see a lot of websites add slogans to their sites saying "Established, 1920, etc." to give some superficial clues to raters they are somehow experienced and should be trusted.

My understanding is that what rater thinks about your page has no consequence, because all they do is collect randomized/anonymized data for training AI algos.

At the same time, there may be special tasks where raters are employed to identify candidates for manual penalties. Who knows...

I see them in my site from time to time (referrers from Raterhub etc) and nothing dramatic happens afterwards. I haven't really studied the data, there may be some correlation between rater visiting my site and losing rankings few weeks later, or they may not be. It's hard to tell. I am losing rankings all the time anyway.

[robzilla]

While it's certainly possible that rater output helps train the AI (finding patterns in content raters consider high or low quality), the primary purpose of raters is to test the quality of the SERPs. Based in part on that feedback, Google can tell whether or not an update to the algorithm increases or decreases quality. A bit like an A/B test.

[BigKat]

You seem to know more about the rater program than anyone.

I'm no different than anyone else here. My opinion is speculative just as everyone else.

My understanding is that what rater thinks about your page has no consequence, because all they do is collect randomized/anonymized data for training AI algos.

I believe no direct or immediate consequence, but as both you and robzilla noted their efforts can be applied to future algo changes and be consequential then. But I question why a rater would even be used for the product queries I'm looking at today in my industry (broad desktop search):

4 text ads
1 organic (Amazon)
People also ask box
4 organic
Refine by brand box
1 organic
Popular box containing 4 products

A similar, ad heavy layout, appears for all product queries I've looked at in our industry with Amazon nearly always being the first organic. There's not enough organic listings above the fold worthy of being rated anyway, which may be part of the reason why Google defaults to brand recognition (Amazon) for the #1 organic.