Google updates the search quality rating guidelines

Google updated their search quality raters guidelines document on March 28, reducing it from 160 to 146 pages.

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Google updated their search quality raters guidelines on March 28. Back in November 2015, Google released the full version of their quality raters document, and this is the first published update to the public version since its release four months ago.

The document released back in November was 160 pages, but the revised version is 146 pages — so it shrank. You can view the full version at the same URL at this PDF.

Jennifer Slegg did a wonderful job documenting what changed between the version published in November and the updated one that was published last week. She went through all the changes in detail, but here is her summary in bullet point form:

  • De-emphasis of supplementary content
  • An emphasis on local, which Google has renamed “Visit-in-Person”
  • More emphasis on the role of Your Money Your Life and E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)
  • Mobile is still very important with more mobile examples.

Again, you can download the full PDF and/or read Slegg’s summary.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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