What the Rater Guidelines Say About Reputation

What Google published on Friday

On Friday, Google published a new version of its Search Quality Rater Guidelines, the long manual given to the people it hires to assess search results.

The changes put more weight on reputation: not only the website's, but that of the people who create its content. Raters are asked to look for what others say about both.

The update also asks raters to judge whether each page has a beneficial purpose, and to mark down titles that promise more than the page delivers.

What raters do, and do not do

Raters are people working through contractors, who look at the results for sample searches and score the pages against the guidelines.

Their scores do not move any particular site up or down. A rater marking a page as low quality does not demote that page, or any other.

Google uses the ratings to test whether proposed changes to its search systems produce better results: a change that lifts highly rated pages and sinks poorly rated ones is working.

So the guidelines describe the target the systems are tuned towards. That is why they deserve a small business's attention, and why they are not a checklist of ranking factors.

What the update emphasises

• Reputation of the creators, not only of the website.
• Expertise, judged against the topic and what is at stake.
• Who is responsible for the site, stated clearly.
• Independent sources over what a site says about itself.
• A beneficial purpose for every page.
• Titles that match the page rather than exaggerate.

The fourth is the one a small business controls least directly and influences most over time. Raters are told to look beyond your own pages for reviews, articles and references from others, and to weigh those above your own claims.

Pages where the stakes are higher

The guidelines hold some pages to a higher standard: those that could affect a person's health, finances or safety. Google calls them Your Money or Your Life pages.

For a small business, that covers more than it sounds: a financial planner's articles, a contractor's advice on electrical or structural work, a clinic's treatment pages, an accountant's explanation of a tax rule.

On pages like these, raters are asked to look hard for expertise. Anonymous advice on a topic with real consequences tends to be rated low, however well it is written.

Say who you are

The simplest change is to make it obvious who runs the business and who wrote each page.

An about page with real names, photographs, roles and years in the trade. A contact page with a street address and a phone number, not only a form.

On articles and advice pages, a byline with the author's name and a line on why they know the subject: their trade, their licence, their years doing the work.

A page signed by admin, or by nobody, gives a rater nothing to research. It gives a customer nothing to trust either.

Credentials that can be checked

Raters are asked to find evidence of expertise, and the most useful evidence is the kind a stranger can verify.

A licence or registration number, with the body that issued it. A professional designation, spelled out in full. Membership of an association that keeps a public directory of its members.

Link each to its public record where one exists, such as a regulator's register. A credential that can be looked up is worth far more than one merely asserted.

And keep them current. A lapsed membership still claimed on the about page is exactly what reputation research turns up.

A worked example

A financial planner working with one other planner had a blog of about forty articles on retirement income, tax-free savings accounts and paying down a mortgage.

Every article was signed admin. The about page showed a stock photograph of a handshake and a line about a team of dedicated professionals, with no names.

Both planners held a recognised financial planning designation and had practised for years. None of it appeared anywhere on the site.

The practice added a profile for each planner, with a photograph, the designation spelled out, years in practice and a link to the designating body's public directory.

Each article now carries the name of the planner who wrote it and the date it was last reviewed. Three articles quoting old contribution limits were corrected.

Outside the site, the planners offered a free talk at the local library and a twice-yearly column answering readers' questions in a community newspaper.

Earning mentions elsewhere

Reputation, in the guidelines, is mostly what other people say. A site cannot write it for itself.

For a local business the sources are familiar: reviews on Google and elsewhere, local news, listings with associations and suppliers, articles for a trade publication, and talks or sponsorships that somebody else writes about.

None of these is quick, and none can honestly be bought. Each is a by-product of doing the work well and in public.

Reviews deserve a reply, good or bad. A calm answer to a complaint is part of the record a rater, or a customer, will read.

A beneficial purpose, and honest titles

The update asks raters to consider whether each page was made to help people or mainly to attract searches.

Pages written to hold a keyword, with nothing a reader needs, fall on the wrong side of that line.

Titles get similar scrutiny. A headline promising a secret, a shock or a guarantee the page cannot deliver is something raters are now told to mark down.

The counter-case

None of this is a quick fix, and the guidelines are not a promise.

A business with little competition for its searches may see no difference at all, and bylines on empty pages help nobody.

There is a limit, too, to what a small business should publish about its people. Names, roles and qualifications, yes; home addresses and personal details, no.

Inventing credentials, buying reviews or paying for mentions is deception, and it tends to be found out. Say who you are, show what can be checked, and let other people's words do the rest.

This month

1. Name the people on the about page.
2. Add a byline to every article.
3. List licences and designations in full.
4. Link each credential to its public record.
5. Review advice pages for accuracy and dates.
6. Rewrite titles that promise too much.
7. Plan one mention outside your own site.

Step four does more than it appears to. A credential linked to a public register or directory can be checked in one click, by a rater or a customer, which turns a claim into evidence.

The other Google change this month, about speed rather than reputation, is covered in the Speed Update is live.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.