Google Leaked Quality Rater Guidelines 2012
Yesterday another Google Quality Rater document was apparently 'leaked' onto the internet. A similar incident happened in 2011, when the blogger PotPieGirl released the document she had stumbled upon into the wild. While the 2011 document is likely to be more impactful than this one due to the fact that it allowed SEOs to piece together the factors that were analysed in the Panda algorithm update, this could still be incredibly useful.
While the leaked 2012 Google Quality Rater Handbook largely covers the same ground as the 2011 document, there are a few key changes that are probably worth covering. One of the most important updates covers the difference between 'main' and 'supplementary' content.
The 'main content' is any part of the page that directly helps the page achieve its purpose – and it can be images, videos, page features and more. So, for example, the purpose of a news article page is to display a news article, so the main content would be the news article on that page.
'Supplementary content' is content on the page that does not directly help the page achieve its main purpose. An example given of 'supplementary content' is navigation links. It is stated in the leaked Quality Rater Guidelines that a high quality webpage has supplementary content that contributes to good user experience on the page.
Google define advertisements as content and links on the page that are displayed with the purpose of monetizing the page.
There is also information about what Google consider to be spammy on-page SEO techniques. These are listed on page 155 and include things like:
- Hidden text
- Keyword Stuffing
- Sneaky redirects
- Copied text from other sources
- DMOZ content and ads
- News feed content and ads
- Templated Spam Pages
- Fake Blog
There are many others. Other information that might be useful includes 'thin affiliate' pages (page 155) and advice for ecommerce store owners on page 142.
For more information visit http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2203630/Googles-Rating-Guidelines-Adds-Page-Quality-to-Human-Reviews
