Google Releases Search Quality Rater's Handbook


The Search Quality Rater's Handbook from Google has been released in its entirety for the first time in years by no other than Google itself. The handbook is a guide that Google gives to their team of human site quality raters with instructions on how to rank the search results based on the quality of sites that are returned for a query from both a desktop and mobile perspective.

The major changes to the guidelines included an extensive section focused on mobile and specifics on local business websites being added to the guide for the first time. In regards to mobile, raters were given instructions to pay particular attention to how easily users are able to access the information they're seeking via mobile devices and their instructions are in line with Google's mobile guidelines so hopefully you've been following them.

The specific features that quality raters are to look for on the websites of local businesses are things like what type of contact information should be displayed on which types of sites and distinguishes between its expectations for the sites of small vs. large businesses. Raters are also now charged with looking for user sentiment around the website and the company it represents. You should take this as a solid clue that a business’ online reputation is important to Google and that if sentiment isn’t already entering into the algorithm, we are moving towards that goal.

With both mobile & local search as the focus of the major updates to this document, it's a direct reflection of where search is going, which should come as no surprise as an active SEN member. To be clear, this document is the best information available to us regarding what Google is looking for in a website. It gives us much more insight as to why Google thinks those things are important than we ever had in the past. So, if you’re serious about providing valuable Internet marketing services, there is no excuse for failing to scour these guidelines and updating your efforts to better satisfy them.

Download the guidelines yourself

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