Google’s Quality Raters Guidelines provide a set of instructions for human evaluators to assess the quality of search results. While the guidelines themselves are not public, Google has shared some high-level principles and criteria that raters use to evaluate search results. Here’s a general methodology that Quality Raters might follow:
- Understanding the Guidelines:Quality Raters start by thoroughly understanding the Google Quality Raters Guidelines. These guidelines typically cover various aspects of page quality, content relevance, and user satisfaction.
- Impersonal Evaluation:Raters are instructed to evaluate content without personal biases. They should focus on the content’s relevance to the query and its usefulness to the user.
- Relevance to Query:Raters assess how well the search results match the user’s query. The relevance of the content to the search intent is a crucial factor in determining the quality of a page.
- Page Content:Raters evaluate the content of the page to ensure it is high-quality, accurate, and provides valuable information. They look for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) in the content.
- Page Design and Usability:User experience is an essential aspect of the evaluation process. Raters consider factors such as page layout, ease of navigation, and overall design to determine if the page is user-friendly.
- Trustworthiness:Raters assess the trustworthiness of the information on the page. They look for signs of misinformation, unsupported claims, or content that may be considered harmful.
- Reputation of the Website: Raters consider the overall reputation of the website. Websites with a strong reputation for providing accurate and reliable information are given higher ratings.
- Page Purpose: Raters evaluate whether the page serves its intended purpose. They consider whether the page is designed to inform, entertain, sell products, or perform other functions relevant to the user’s query.
- Evaluating YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) Pages: For pages that deal with health, finance, safety, or other critical topics, raters follow additional guidelines to ensure that the information provided is trustworthy and accurate.
- Mobile Friendliness: Given the prevalence of mobile users, raters may consider the mobile-friendliness of a page. A responsive design that works well on various devices is a positive factor.
It’s important to note that the specifics of the methodology are proprietary and may change over time. Google continually updates its algorithms and guidelines, and the evaluation process may evolve accordingly. This general methodology is based on the principles and information available up to my last training cut-off in January 2022.