Google's Leaked Quality Guidelines Unveiled and Simplified for Local Search Marketers
In the first installment of this article series we looked at Google's instructions for its human quality raters in order to better understand their algorithm. In this second installment of the series we will examine these same guidelines with more focus specifically on how they apply to Local Search.
Country and Language
Country and LanguageGoogle says:
Good search engines give results that are helpful for users in their specific language and location.
The example given is that searchers in the UK who search for football terms are looking for something entirely different from what US searchers expect to see. Important concepts:
- The results must be appropriate for the country and language of the searcher, but the same page in different languages can be rated Vital for multiple countries and languages.
- If multiple languages are prevalent within a country, the same page presented in different languages can all be Vital for that location.
So, in Google's eyes, pages with the same information in different languages can all be great pages and they aren't really competing with each other.
Types of Results
This local section of the Quality Rater's Guidelines gives a multitude of examples, prompting me to believe that most people are likely to be confused as to which types of local results are best for searchers and what constitutes local search intent. I looked carefully for clues that might help us to better understand Googl...
