6.4
Negative Reputation
Reputation research is required
for all PQ rating tasks unless you have previously researched the reputation of
the website. Extremely negative, malicious, or financially fraudulent
reputation information should result in a Lowest
rating. Credible negative (though not malicious or financially fraudulent)
reputation is a reason for a Low rating,
especially for a YMYL page.
Please
exercise care when researching the reputation of businesses. Most businesses
have some negative reviews, especially for customer service. Try to find as
many reviews and ratings as possible and read the details of negative reviews
and low ratings before inferring that the business has a negative reputation.
Important: Negative reputation is sufficient reason to give a page
a Low quality rating. Evidence of
truly malicious or fraudulent behavior warrants the Lowest rating.
6.5
Lacking Expertise,
Authoritativeness, or Trustworthiness (E-A-T)
Some topics demand expertise for
the content to be considered trustworthy. YMYL topics such as medical advice,
legal advice, financial advice, etc. should come from authoritative sources in
those fields. Even everyday topics, such as recipes and housecleaning, should
come from those with experience and everyday expertise in order for the page to
be trustworthy.
You should consider who is
responsible for the content of the website or content of the page you are
evaluating. Does the person or organization have sufficient expertise for the
topic? If expertise, authoritativeness, or trustworthiness is lacking, use the Low rating.
User-generated websites span the
Page Quality rating spectrum. Note that in some cases, contributors choose
their own topics with no oversight and may have very poor writing skills or no
expertise in the topic of the page.
Contributors may be paid per
article or word, and may even be eligible for bonuses based on the traffic to
their pages. Depending on the topic, pages on these websites may not be
trustworthy.
Important: Lacking appropriate E-A-T is sufficient reason to give a
page a Low quality rating.
6.5.1 Unsatisfying
Amount of Information about the Website
We expect some form of website
information for many or most websites. However, the amount of website
information needed depends on the purpose of the website. For personal
websites, an email address alone may be sufficient.
Stores and websites which
process financial transactions require a high level of user trust. If a store
or financial transaction website has just an email address and physical
address, it may be difficult to get help if there are issues with the transaction.
Likewise, many other types of YMYL websites also require a high degree of user
trust.
Important: For YMYL pages and other pages which require a high
level of user trust, an unsatisfying amount of any of the following is a reason
to give a page a Low quality rating:
customer service information, contact information, or information about who is
responsible for the website. For other types of websites, use your judgment.
6.6 Examples of
Low Quality Pages
|
Type of Webpage/Content
|
Low Quality
Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
40th birthday party food ideas
|
·
Low quality MC
·
Disruptive Ads
|
This page and website have many of characteristics
of Low quality pages. Close
observation shows MC which contains mostly commonly known information and
poor quality writing. The MC is broken up by large Ads which disrupt the user
experience.
|
|
Type of Webpage/Content
|
Low Quality
Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
Q&A unanswered question
|
· Unsatisfying amount of MC
for the purpose of the page
|
Some websites rely on users
to create virtually all of their MC.
In this case, the MC is the user’s question. If there are no answers, the amount of MC
on the page is unsatisfying.
|
|
Article with tips for dressing for the office
|
·
Low or Lowest quality MC
·
Lacking E-A-T
|
This content has many
problems: inaccurate/meaningless information and complete lack of editing
with poor spelling and grammar—both of these characteristics in combination
justify the Lowest+ to Low rating.
|
|
Using ginger for your health
|
·
Low or Lowest quality MC
·
Lacking E-A-T
|
This content has many problems: garbled
information and a lack of editing. Both of these characteristics in
combination justify the Lowest+ to
Low rating. In addition, lacking E-A-T on this topic is
concerning.
|
|
|
· Low quality and
unsatisfying amount of MC
|
This page and website have many of characteristics
of Low quality pages. The MC is
low quality and lacks important information.
For example, it gives no indication of how to make a crust and doesn’t
list a pre-made crust as an ingredient. It would be very difficult to actually
make an apple pie using this recipe.
This page is lacking the kind of helpful content
we expect in recipe pages, such as user reviews or comments. Without such
information, it’s hard to tell if the recipe is any good. The small pink text
at the top is not helpful for users.
|
|
Gluten-free New York cheesecake recipe
|
· Very distracting SC or Ads
(not clear) in the right column
·
Disruptive Ads in the middle column
|
This is an example of
distracting and disruptive Ads/SC: there are large Ads in the main column
pushing down the MC as well as highly distracting content on the right that
are labeled “Top Posts & Pages.”
It is unclear whether these are SC or Ads.
|
|
Type of Webpage/Content
|
Low Quality
Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
Page about Native American customs
|
· Lacking E-A-T
|
There are 94 answers to
this question with a few results that seem helpful. Many of the posts are
deliberately incorrect or misleading, including the top answer, which is
labeled the “best answer.”
|
|
Page about a 2002 Volvo
part
|
·
Misleading Ads
· Unsatisfying amount of MC
for the purpose of the page
|
Please read the MC (areas
with red boxes around it), including the completely unhelpful
"answer." This answer is so unhelpful, we can consider this
question to be unanswered. This page has an unsatisfying amount of MC.
In addition to a very unhelpful “answer,” the page
design makes it difficult to distinguish the MC from Ads. For example, below
the answer, we see a "sponsored answer," which has the same format
as the real answer, but is actually an Ad and not an answer to the
question—this is misleading to users.
|
|
Page about water and soil
|
· Misleading Ads/SC
· Unsatisfying amount of MC
for the purpose of the page
|
This is a page from a Q&A site with an
unanswered question. Q&A pages exist to answer user questions. Pages with
unanswered questions should generally be rated Low because they have little MC (just a question and no answer)
and don’t achieve their purpose well.
In addition to having no answer, this page has Ads
and links to other questions (misleadingly labeled as “Relevant answers”)
displayed prominently, which users may mistake for answers to the question.
It takes a moment to notice that this page actually has no answer.
|
|
Page with advice on picking a quality stock for
investment (YMYL)
|
· Lacking E-A-T on a YMYL topic
|
There is no evidence that the author has financial
expertise. Because this is a YMYL financial article, lacking expertise is a
reason for a Low rating.
|
|
Page with information about how long the flu lasts
(YMYL)
|
· Lacking E-A-T on a YMYL topic
|
There is no evidence that the author has medical
expertise. Because this is a YMYL medical article, lacking expertise is a
reason for a Low rating.
|
|
Type of Webpage/Content
|
Low Quality
Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
How to adopt children from Iraq (YMYL)
|
· Low quality MC (commonly known information only)
·
Lacking E-A-T on a YMYL topic
|
This is a YMYL topic. However, the steps listed here are merely
commonly-known information which
would be of little benefit to someone interested in adopting a child from Iraq.
For example, step 1 says
“Choose an adoption agency” and suggests looking in a phone book. There is
almost no information specific to Iraq. There is no evidence of expertise on
adoption from the description about the author.
Note that some Ads have the same format as links
to other articles on this website, potentially making a a bit harder for
users to visually distinguish some of the Ads from the MC and SC.
|
This
section describes Lowest quality
pages. The examples at the end in Section 7.9 are
critical for understanding these concepts, so please review those carefully.
Remember that websites and pages
should be created to be helpful for users.
Important: Websites and pages which are created to harm users,
deceive users, or only make money with no attempt to help users should be rated
Lowest.
Here
are some types of pages or websites that are highly untrustworthy, unreliable,
unauthoritative, inaccurate or misleading—these pages should always receive the
Lowest rating:
·
Harmful or malicious pages or websites.
·
True lack of purpose pages or websites.
·
Deceptive pages or websites.
·
Pages or websites which are created to make money with little to no
attempt to help users.
·
Pages with extremely low or lowest quality MC.
·
Pages on YMYL websites that are so lacking in website information that
it feels untrustworthy.
·
Hacked, defaced, or spammed pages.
·
Pages or websites created with no expertise or pages which are highly untrustworthy,
unreliable, unauthoritative, inaccurate, or misleading.
·
Websites which have extremely negative or malicious reputations.
Finally, Lowest+ may be used both for pages with many/all low quality
characteristics. Lowest+ may also be
used for pages whose lack of a single Page Quality characteristic makes you
question the true purpose of the page.
7.2
Harmful or Malicious Pages
Some pages are harmful or
malicious. For example, pages designed to "phish" for the user’s
government-issued identification number (such as a Social Security Number in
the United States; other examples here), bank account information,
or credit card information are harmful because the purpose is to steal private
information. Malicious download pages are another type of harmful page.
Harmful or malicious pages should
be rated Lowest.
7.3
Lack of Purpose Pages
Sometimes it is impossible to
figure out the purpose of the page. Such pages serve no real purpose for users.
For example, some pages are deliberately created with gibberish or meaningless
(nonsense) text.
No matter how they are created,
true lack of purpose pages should be rated Lowest
quality.
7.4
Deceptive Pages
We will consider a page to be
“deceptive” if it is designed to deceive users or trick search engines, rather
than to help users. The following sections in 7.3 describe several types of
deceptive pages. Note that some pages may use a variety of these techniques. All deceptive pages should be rated Lowest.
For more information on
deceptive pages, see the Google Webmaster Quality Guidelines.
7.3.1
Deceptive Page Purpose
Deceptive webpages appear to have
a helpful purpose (the stated purpose), but are actually created for some other
reason. Use the Lowest rating if a webpage page is deliberately created to
deceive and potentially harm users in order to benefit the website.
Here are some examples of Lowest
websites or webpages with deceptive page purpose:
·
A website pretends to be or mimics the look of a well-known store,
bank, online service, or social network, but instead exists to “phish” or steal
passwords or personal information (for example, government ID number, bank account
information, personal medical data, etc.). We also consider this type of
website to have a malicious purpose.
·
A webpage claims to be a survey, perhaps offering money or a prize, but
instead exists to steal passwords or personal information (for example,
government ID number, bank account information, personal medical data,
etc.). We also consider this type of
website to have a malicious purpose.
·
A webpage claims to offer an independent review or share other
information about a product, but is in fact created to make money for the owner
of the website without attempting to help users. For example, the MC may
contain intentionally misleading or inaccurate information created with the
sole purpose of getting users to click on monetized links or buy the product.
·
A website claims to be the personal website of a celebrity, but the
website is actually created to make money for the owner of the website without
the permission of the celebrity. For example, the page may have false
testimonials for a product and is created for the sole purpose of getting users
to click on monetized links or buy the product.
Sometimes it is
difficult to determine the real purpose of a page. Look carefully and use your
judgment. If you believe the webpage or website was created deliberately to
deceive users for the benefit of the website, and with the potential to cause
harm to the user, use the Lowest rating.
7.3.2
Deceptive Webpages
Some pages are deliberately
designed to manipulate users to take an action which will benefit the owner of
the website rather than help the user.
We consider the following kinds of
pages to be deceptive webpages because users did not get what they expected.
Use the Lowest rating if the page is
deliberately designed to manipulate users with little or no effort to provide
helpful MC. Here are some common types
of deceptive pages:
·
Pages which disguise Ads as
MC. Actual
MC may be minimal or created to encourage users to click on the Ads. For example, fake search pages (example) that have a list of links
that look like a page of search results. If you click on a few of the links,
you will see that the page is just a collection of Ads disguised as search
engine results. A “search box” is present, but submitting a new query just
gives you a different page of Ads disguised as search results.
·
Pages which disguise Ads as website navigation links.
For example, fake directory pages (example) that look like a
personally curated set of helpful links, possibly with unique descriptions. In
reality, the links are Ads or links to other similar pages on the site.
Sometimes the descriptions of the links are unrelated to the landing page.
·
Pages where the MC is not
usable or visible. For example, a page that has such a large amount of Ads at the top of
the page (before the MC), so that most users will not see the MC, or a page
where the MC is invisible text.
Take a good look at the page
and use your judgment. If you believe the page was deliberately created to
manipulate users to click on Ads, monetized links, questionable download links,
etc., rather than help users, the page should be rated Lowest.
7.4
Lowest Quality Main Content
In this guideline, we’ll judge the
quality of the MC by thinking about how much time, effort, expertise, and
talent/skill was involved in content creation.
If very little
or no time, effort, expertise, or talent/skill has gone into creating the MC,
use the Lowest quality rating. All
of the following should be considered either lowest quality MC or no MC:
·
No helpful MC at all or so little MC that the page effectively has no MC.
·
MC which consists almost entirely of “keyword stuffing.”
·
Gibberish or meaningless MC.
·
“Auto-generated” MC, created
with little to no time,
effort, expertise, manual
curation, or added value for users.
·
MC which consists almost entirely of content copied from another source
with little time, effort, expertise, manual curation, or added value for users.
Finally, the
distinction between low and lowest quality MC is often human effort and manual
curation. If you are struggling between “low quality MC” and “lowest quality
MC,” please consider how much human effort and attention the page has received.
Pages with lowest quality MC
should be rated Lowest.
7.4.1
No Main Content
If a page is
deliberately created with no MC, use the Lowest
rating. Why would a page exist without MC? Pages with no MC are usually
lack of purpose pages or deceptive pages.
Webpages that are
deliberately created with a bare minimum of MC, or with MC which is completely
unhelpful for the purpose of the page, should be considered to have no MC.
Pages deliberately created with
no MC should be rated Lowest.
7.4.2
“Keyword Stuffed”
Main Content
Pages may be created to lure
search engines and users by repeating keywords over and over again, sometimes
in unnatural and unhelpful ways. Such pages are created using words likely to
be contained in queries issued by users. Keyword stuffing can range from mildly
annoying to users, to complete gibberish.
Pages created with the intent of
luring search engines and users, rather than providing meaningful MC to help
users, should be rated Lowest.
7.4.3
Automatically-Generated
Main Content
Entire websites may be created by
designing a basic template from which hundreds or thousands of pages are
created, sometimes using content from freely available sources (such as an RSS
feed or API). These pages are created with no or very little time, effort, or
expertise, and also have no editing or manual curation.
Pages and websites made up of
auto-generated content with no editing or manual curation, and no original
content or value added for users, should be rated Lowest.
7.4.4
Copied Main Content
Every page needs MC. One way to
create MC with no time, effort, or expertise is to copy it from another source.
Important: We do not consider
legitimately licensed or syndicated content to be “copied” (see here
for more on web syndication).
Examples of syndicated content in the U.S. include news articles by AP
or Reuters.
The word “copied” refers to the
practice of “scraping” content, or copying content from other non-affiliated
websites without adding any original content or value to users (see here for more information on copied or scraped
content).
If all or most of the MC on the
page is copied, think about the purpose of the page. Why does the page exist?
What value does the page have for users? Why should users look at the page with
copied content instead of the original source?
Important: The Lowest rating
is appropriate if all or almost all of the MC on the page is copied with little
or no time, effort, expertise, manual curation, or added value for users. Such
pages should be rated Lowest, even
if the page assigns credit for the content to another source.
7.4.5
More About Copied Content
All of the following are
considered copied content:
·
Content copied exactly from
an identifiable source. Sometimes an entire page is copied, and sometimes just parts of the
page are copied. Sometimes multiple pages are copied and then pasted together
into a single page. Text that has been
copied exactly is usually the easiest type of copied content to identify.
·
Content which is copied, but
changed slightly from the original. This type of copying makes it difficult to find the
exact matching original source. Sometimes just a few words are changed, or
whole sentences are changed, or a “find and replace” modification is made, where
one word is replaced with another throughout the text. These types of changes are deliberately done to make
it difficult to find the original source of the content. We call this kind of
content “copied with minimal alteration.”
·
Content copied from a
changing source, such as a search results page or news feed. You often will not be able
to find an exact matching original source if it is a copy of “dynamic” content
(content which changes frequently).
However, we will still consider this to be copied content.
Important: The Lowest rating
is appropriate if all or almost all of the MC on the page is copied with little
or no time, effort, expertise, manual curation, or added value for users. Such
pages should be rated Lowest, even
if the page assigns credit for the content to another source.
7.4.6
How to Determine if
Content is Copied
How do you determine whether all
or most of the MC is copied? How do you identify the original source of the
content? These things can be difficult
to determine, but the following steps may help.
1. Copy a sentence or a series
of several words in the text. It may be necessary to try a few sentences or
phrases from the page just to be sure. When deciding what sentence or phrase to
copy, try to find a sentence or series of several words without punctuation,
unusual characters, or suspicious words that may have replaced the original text.
2.
Search on Google by pasting the sentence or phrase (surrounded by
quotation marks) inside the Google search box.
Try a few sentences from the page.
 |
Here are some
sentences and phrases from this page about “The Wizard of Oz” film and
how to search for them.
|
Sentence or Phrase From a
Sentence
|
Query to Find the Sentence
or Phrase
|
|
A sentence on the page:
All
are convinced by Dorothy that the Wizard can help them too
|
Try the query both with and
without quotation marks around the sentence:
[ “All are
convinced by Dorothy that the Wizard can help them too” ] [ All are convinced by Dorothy that the Wizard can help
them too ]
|
|
A phrase on the page:
Dorothy uses the Golden Cap to summon the Winged
Monkeys
|
Try the
query both with and without quotation marks around the sentence: [ “Dorothy uses the Golden Cap to summon the Winged
Monkeys” ] [ Dorothy uses the Golden Cap to summon the Winged Monkeys ]
|
|
A different phrase on the page:
revealing an old man who had journeyed to Oz from Omaha
long ago in a hot air balloon
|
Try the query both with and
without quotation marks around the sentence: [ “revealing an old man who had journeyed
to Oz from Omaha long ago in a hot air balloon” ]
[revealing an old man who had journeyed
to Oz from Omaha long ago in a hot air balloon ]
|
3.
Compare the pages you find that match the sentence or phrase. Is most of their MC the same? If so, does one clearly come from a highly
authoritative source which is known for original content creation (newspaper,
magazine, medical foundation, etc.)? Does one source seem to reasonably be the
original? Does one source appear to have the earliest publication date,
verified by sources like the Wayback Machine?
Use your best judgment. Sometimes
it is clear that the content is copied from somewhere, but you cannot tell what
the original source is. Other times the content found on the original source
has changed enough that searches for sentences or phrases may no longer match
the original source. For example, Wikipedia articles can change dramatically
over time. Text copied from old copies
may not match the current content. If
you strongly suspect the page you are evaluating is not the original source,
consider it likely to be copied.
We have confirmed that the above
text (the text in the sentence and phrases in the table) comes from an older version of a Wikipedia article about “The Wizard of Oz,”
which can be found using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Please note that searching for the
above sentence and phrases will not lead you to a current Wikipedia article
about “The Wizard of Oz,” which demonstrates how confirming that the MC of a
page contains copied content can sometimes be difficult.
Important: The Lowest rating
is appropriate if all or almost all of the MC on the page is copied with little
or no time, effort, expertise, manual curation, or added value for users. Such
pages should be rated Lowest, even
if the page assigns credit for the content to another source.
7.5
No Website Information
As discussed in Section 2.5.3,
we expect most websites to have some information about who is responsible for
the website, as well as some contact information. For websites with YMYL pages,
such as online banks, we expect to find a lot of information about the site,
including extensive customer service information.
Think about the purpose of the
website and the type of website information users would expect or demand.
YMYL pages with absolutely no
website information, or other pages where the available information is
completely inadequate for the purpose of the website (for example, an online
bank with only an email address), should be rated Lowest.
7.6
Highly
Untrustworthy, Unreliable, Unauthoritative, Inaccurate, or Misleading
Sometimes, pages just don’t
“feel” trustworthy. Use the Lowest rating for any of the following:
·
Pages or websites which you strongly suspect are scams (see these links
for more information about Internet scams: Avoid Scams 1, Avoid Scams 2, Internet Fraud).
·
Pages which ask for personal information without a legitimate reason
(for example, pages which ask for name, birthdate, address, bank account,
government ID number, etc.).
·
Websites which “phish” for passwords to Facebook, Gmail, or other
popular online services. See here for information about
“phishing” fraud.
·
Pages with suspicious download links, which may be malware.
If you suspect a link is
malicious, please do not click on it. You do not need to personally experience
a malicious download in order to confirm that a website is harmful. Likewise,
if you feel strongly a website is a scam, you do not need to engage with it to
get proof.
Pages which appear highly
untrustworthy should be rated Lowest,
even if you’re not able to completely confirm their lack of
trustworthiness. Please exercise caution
and practice good Internet safety skills.
7.7
Hacked, Defaced, or
Spammed Pages on a Website
Some websites are not maintained
or cared for at all by their webmaster. These “abandoned” websites, especially
websites which have become hacked, defaced, or spammed with a large amount of
distracting and unhelpful content, should be rated Lowest.
A hacked or defaced website is a site which has been modified
without permission from the website owner(s). Responsible webmasters should regularly
check their websites for suspicious behavior and take steps to protect their
users.
We’ll consider a comment or forum
discussion to be “spammed” if someone posts unrelated comments which are not
intended to help other users, but rather to advertise a product or create a
link to a website. Frequently these comments are posted by a “bot” rather than
a real person. Spammed comments are easy to recognize and may include Ads,
download, or other links. Webmasters should find and remove this content because
it is a bad user experience.
While a specific page on a
website may have a large amount of spammed forum discussions or spammed user
comments, it does not mean that the entire website contains only spam.
7.8
Extremely Negative
or Malicious Reputation
Use the Lowest rating for websites with extremely negative reputations.
Here are some examples originally shown in Section 2.7.4. All pages on these
websites should be rated Lowest because
of the extremely negative or malicious reputation of these websites.|
Website
|
Description
|
|
|
Extremely
negative reputation information: This business has a BBB rating of F. There is a
news article about financial fraud. There are many reviews on websites
describing how users sent money and did not receive anything in return.
|
|
Extremely negative/malicious reputation information: This website engaged in
criminal behavior such as physically threatening users.
|
|
|
Extremely negative reputation information: There are many detailed
negative articles on news sites and charity watchdog sites describing fraud
and financial mishandling about this organization.
|
7.9
Examples of Lowest
Quality Pages
|
Type of Webpage/Content
|
Lowest
Quality Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
|
·
Lowest quality MC: large amount of “Keyword Stuffed” MC
|
This is an example of a spammed forum page, where
the goal is to try and get users to watch a movie online, which has nothing
to do with the purpose of the site. For a forum page, the user comments are
the MC, and much of the content is not helpful for users. Here is an example of some of
the “keyword stuffing” on this page that is not meant to be read by a human,
found near the bottom of the page.
|
|
|
· Lowest quality MC: copied
content with little or no time, effort, expertise, manual curation, or added value for users
· No evidence of E-A-T
|
All MC is a
copy of an old Wikipedia article, which you can see here by
researching it on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
The current
Wikipedia page offers much more content, links, references, etc. This page
doesn’t add much value for users.
|
|
|
· An unsatisfying amount of
MC for the topic of the page
·
Very low quality MC
·
No evidence of E-A-T
· True purpose of the page
and website is questionable
|
This page has so many low quality characteristics that the Lowest+
rating is appropriate. There is a question about what the true purpose
of the page is—Lowest is appropriate if you feel this page was created with little attempt to
help users.
|
|
Type of Webpage/Content
|
Lowest
Quality Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
|
· Malicious, harmful, or deceptive
|
This is a shopping checkout
page, but it asks for the user’s government ID number, driver’s license
number, ATM pin number, bank account information, etc.
|
|
|
· Auto-generated MC, created
with little to no time, effort, expertise, manual curation, or added value
for users
·
No evidence of E-A-T
|
The first sentence is incomplete, and doesn’t
provide an explanation for the code, and therefore fails the purpose of the
page. Other pages on the website have inaccurate, misleading, and/or
incomplete information. In fact, some pages seem borderline gibberish, with
contradicting information. It appears the page exists only to make money,
with no attempt to help users.
|
|
|
· Extremely negative or
malicious reputation
|
There are many claims of fraud and financial
problems about this organization on reputable news sites and charity watchdog
sites: Negative review
1, Negative review
2, Negative review
3, and Negative review 4.
|
|
|
·
No website information for YMYL website
·
No evidence of E-A-T
|
There is no information
about who created this website, no contact information, and no authorship
information.
Medical pages require a
high degree of user trust. Because
there is no information about who
owns this website and who created this content, we
will consider this an untrustworthy website.
|
|
|
·
Deceptive purpose (fake directory
page)
·
No website information for YMYL topic
·
No evidence of E-A-T
|
The links on the page appear to link to helpful
articles, but in fact the links are Ads that do not go to articles. This is a
YMYL topic, but there is no indication about who is responsible for this
content or website.
|
|
|
· Deceptive purpose (fake search page)
|
Advertising should never disguise itself as the MC
of the page. Pages with Ads that are designed to look like MC should be
considered deceptive.
|
|
Type of Webpage/Content
|
Lowest
Quality Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
|
· Deceptive purpose (fake
search page)
|
This page was created to
make money from clicks on Ads rather than to help users.
|
|
– Viagra (YMYL)
|
· Lowest quality MC (copied
content with little or no time, effort, expertise, manual curation, or added value for users)
·
No website information for YMYL website
·
No evidence of E-A-T
|
This looks like an
information website for a drug. The real purpose of this page is to get users
to this website, and then get them to click on the “order now” link, which
takes users to another website.
All MC on this page is copied with little or no
time, effort, expertise, manual curation, or added value for users. Here is the original source.
|
|
|
· Purpose of the page to make
money with very little or no attempt to help
users
· Lowest quality MC (copied
content with little or no time, effort, expertise, manual curation, or added value for users)
|
This page is titled
“Washing Machine Reviews,” but there are no reviews on the page and the
content is copied from another website. The links all go to a single Internet
retailer selling washing machines.
This is a deceptive page because it is designed to
get users to click on the prominent links.
|
|
|
·
Deceptive purpose
·
Highly untrustworthy
|
This page contains a fake survey, which appears to
promise users the opportunity to win an Apple MacBook Air, an iPhone 5c, or a
Galaxy S4.
However, after completing some survey questions
and selecting the product the user would like to win, the user is redirected
to website after website to complete more and more survey questions, while
being asked to supply more and more personal information, including medical
information and bank account information.
There is no information about who is responsible,
even though this website asks for highly personal information such as bank
account numbers. Despite appearances, there is no affiliation with Google.
|
|
|
· Deceptive or misleading
page design
|
Some users might not even
notice the MC because it is under a long list of Ads. Users may mistake the
Ads for MC.
|
|
Type of Webpage/Content
|
Lowest Quality Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
|
· Deceptive purpose and
deceptive content
|
The title of this page is “Rachael Ray Diet Blog,”
but the page has nothing to do with Rachael Ray or her diet or her products.
This page exists to sell products using Rachael Ray’s name and image. In
fact, there is a brown-text-on-brown-background section at the bottom of the
page (which we consider to be hidden text) that says “Disclaimer: Rachael Ray
is not affiliated with nor does she sponsor or endorse this blog.” This page
is deceptive in spite of the disclaimer!
This example has been annotated with red text at
the top to point out deceptive aspects of this page.
|
|
|
·
Lacking in purpose
· Lowest quality MC
(gibberish, keyword stuffing)
|
This page has no helpful MC and no helpful
purpose.
|
|
|
·
Very negative, malicious,
or financially fraudulent reputation
|
This website took users’ money and physically
threatened users who complained. These
articles on Wikipedia and the New York Times describe the deceptive
techniques used by this website and provide other negative information about
the website and its owner.
|
|
|
·
Lacking in purpose
·
Lowest quality MC (gibberish)
|
This page has no helpful MC and no helpful
purpose.
|
|
|
·
Lowest quality MC (gibberish)
·
Lack of purpose
|
This is a gibberish PDF file. We don’t have any
idea why this was created. There are
no links or Ads.
This page has no purpose and no reason to exist.
|
|
|
· Lowest quality MC (gibberish)
·
Highly untrustworthy
|
This page has deceptive features, such as a friend
request, a prize alert, and a download button.
|
|
Type of Webpage/Content
|
Lowest Quality Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
|
·
Lacking in purpose
· Lowest quality MC
(gibberish, keyword stuffing)
|
This page has no MC and no helpful purpose.
|
|
(YMYL)
|
·
No evidence of E-A-T
·
Inaccurate or misleading
·
No website information for YMYL topic
|
This content is poorly
written and uses a lot of words to say very little. There is no information about who is
responsible for the content and no contact information for this YMYL medical
topic.
|
|
|
· Highly untrustworthy
(suspect download)
|
This is a
download website with only one page – this page. There is a lot of text (with
grammar and spelling errors) promising that users will make money from this
free download. The purpose of the page seems to be to entice users into
clicking on the links with the promise of making money.
Remember that you are not required
to click on any links that are suspicious.
|
|
|
· Large amount of prominent
Ads and no attempt to help users
|
This is an example of a
page with no MC. You might think that
the MC is “missing” due to a problem with this particular page, but in fact,
this website has hundreds of pages that look the same way—no MC, just Ads. This website shows Ads with little or no
attempt to help users, and should be rated Lowest quality.
|
|
|
·
Lowest quality MC
·
No evidence of E-A-T
|
This content has many
problems: poor grammar, and sentences which are meaningless or state
something obvious. For example: "Popping pimples could be or could be
not the new trend of getting rid of them." In addition, the “About the
Author” section of the page has an Ad, but no information about the author.
|
|
Type of Webpage/Content
|
Lowest
Quality Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
|
·
Lowest quality MC
·
No evidence of E-A-T
|
The level of expertise of the author of this
content is not clearly communicated.
Providing this background information is particularly important for
medical, financial, or other topics for which expertise is needed. This is a YMYL page.
|
|
|
· YMYL page with inaccurate potentially dangerous medical advice
· Lowest quality MC
|
We must evaluate this page from the point of view
of a user visiting this page from a search engine, rather than a participant.
The question is poorly worded and difficult to understand. The answers
are poorly worded and have incorrect and potentially dangerous medical
advice. The MC is low quality.
|
|
|
· YMYL page with potentially damaging financial advice
·
No evidence of E-A-T
·
Inaccurate or misleading
|
This page gives loan advice
which can be potentially damaging, for example, instructing people not to pay
back their loans. The article has grammar and spelling errors, and the page
is highly untrustworthy.
|
|
|
· Completely inadequate or untrustworthy customer service
information for a shopping website
·
No evidence of E-A-T
·
Inaccurate or misleading
|
This page is selling Nike Air Jordan shoes. When
you look at the “Contact Us” page, it does not give the name of a company or a
physical adress, which also cannot be found anywhere else on the website.
This amount of contact information is not sufficient enough for a shopping
website.
In addition, the “Shipping and Returns” page has the name of another company that seems to be unrelated. There are also official looking logos at
the bottom of the homepage, including the Better Business Bureau logo and
Google Checkout logo, that don’t appear to be affiliated with the website.
|
In this section, we will
describe pages that should get the Medium
quality rating. Medium pages
achieve their purpose and have neither high nor low expertise,
authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. However, Medium pages lack the
characteristics which would support a higher quality rating. Occasionally, you
will find a page with a mix of high and low quality characteristics. In those
cases, the best page quality rating may be Medium.
|
Type of
Medium Page
|
Discussion
|
|
Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
The page achieves its
purpose, however, it does not merit a High
quality rating, nor is there anything to indicate that a Low quality rating is appropriate.
|
|
Mixed, but
has some E-A-T
|
The page or website has some characteristics
of both High and Low quality pages, but the low
quality characteristics are mild enough that the convincing high quality
aspects make it difficult to rate the page Low.
|
8.2
Examples of Medium
Quality Pages
|
Webpage/Type of Content
|
Medium
Quality Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
Wikipedia article about baroque pearls
|
· Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
This is a short Wikipedia article about baroque
pearls, a fairly narrow topic. This page is OK for its purpose, but it
doesn’t display characteristics associated with a High rating.
|
|
Page from a humorous site
|
· Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
This page is from a humorous site that encourages
users to post photos with mouths drawn on them. This page is OK for its
purpose, but it doesn’t display characteristics associated with a High rating.
|
|
Article about “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”
show
|
· Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
This page is on a website dedicated to
entertainment news. This page is OK for its purpose, but it doesn’t display
characteristics associated with a High
rating.
|
|
|
· Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
This page is from a news/entertainment website.
This page is OK for its purpose, but it doesn’t display characteristics
associated with a High rating.
|
|
Q&A page where a user is looking for advice on
where to buy high-quality women's clothing online
|
· Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
This Q&A page has a
discussion of different online merchants. There is some everyday expertise,
but it doesn’t display characteristics associated with a High rating.
|
|
Webpage/Type of Content
|
Medium
Quality Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
“Custom 404” page
|
· Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
This is an example of a “custom 404” page. These
pages are designed to alert users that the URL they are trying to visit no
longer exists.
Some websites do a nice job of not only alerting
users about a problem, but also giving them help.
This page is on a well-known merchant website with
a good reputation. However, this particular page displays the bare minimum of
content needed to explain the problem to users, and the only help offered is
a link to the homepage.
|
|
Page about propulsion on the “Quality Reasoning
Group” section of a university’s website
|
·
Mixed, but has some E-A-T
·
Website has a good reputation
· Content is likely to be
accurate and trustworthy because of the website, though no reference links are provided
|
Although this is a well-known, highly-respected
university with a high quality site, this page is on a very specialized
section of
the university website. No author is listed and the page may have been a
one-time project, possibly from a student, which is no longer maintained.
|
|
Song lyrics for the song “Never You/Fear Love”
|
· Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
There are many lyrics websites which have similar
content. This page is OK for its purpose, but it doesn’t display
characteristics associated with a High
rating.
|
|
Mexi-Chicken Casserole on a newspaper website
|
· Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
This recipe was contributed by an author of
cookbooks. However, the page has no SC related to the purpose of the page,
such as reviews or links to other recipes, etc. This page is OK for its
purpose, but it doesn’t display characteristics associated with a High rating.
|
|
Recipe for cherry-topped cake
|
· Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
This website is known for high quality content
about animals and the environment. This particular page has a recipe for
kids. There isn’t much MC or SC. This page is OK for its purpose, but it
doesn’t display characteristics associated with a High rating.
|
|
Webpage/Type of Content
|
Medium
Quality Characteristics of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
Video of a kitten meowing a lot
|
· Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
This is a professionally-created video of a cute
kitten meowing. This page is OK for its purpose, but it doesn’t display
characteristics associated with a High
rating.
|
|
Forum page on an online auction website. A user is
looking for help choosing a product category.
|
· Mixed, but with some
redeeming qualities
|
The relative lack of MC is balanced a bit by the
expertise of this forum. This forum is dedicated to this kind of question.
|
|
website. A user is looking
for advice on how to wash ballet shoes.
|
· Mixed, but with some
redeeming qualities
|
This forum is about dance
topics, and many pages have expertise from a community of ballet dancers. On
this particular page, participants have everyday experience washing ballet
shoes and make recommendations based on their own experiences.
This page is “mixed” because there is some
distracting content which makes it hard to read the MC. However, this is not
a beauty contest! Even though the page may be cluttered, there is some
valuable everyday expertise and helpful MC, making Medium a good rating for this page.
|
At first, PQ rating may seem
difficult. There are several aspects of the page and the website to look at and
think about. This type of rating takes practice. Rereading sections of these
guidelines and thinking about the examples may help when you encounter
difficult rating tasks.
Important: Do not struggle with each PQ rating. Please give your
best rating and move on. If you are having trouble deciding between two
ratings, please use the lower rating. If you are torn between three ratings,
choose the one in the middle.
Do not consider the country or
location of the page or website for PQ rating. For example, English (US) raters
should use the same PQ standards when rating pages from other English language
websites (UK websites, Canadian websites, etc.) as they use when rating pages
from U.S. websites. In other words, English (US) raters should not lower the PQ
rating because the page location (UK, Canada) does not match the task location.
These guidelines are specific to
“regular” webpages. Occasionally, you may be asked to rate a landing page which
is not a webpage. For example, you may be asked to rate a PDF file, a PNG or
JPEG image file, etc. When the landing page of the URL is not a webpage, some
of the criteria in these guidelines may not apply. In this case, please use your judgment.
Finally, this Page Quality
Rating Guideline does not completely cover every aspect of page quality. If you
find pages which you truly believe to be High
or Low quality, please rate them
as such, even if the reason is based on something not covered in this document.
Please use the comment section to explain your reasoning. As always, we ask you
to use your judgment.
9.2
Instructions for
Rating Page Quality Tasks
The Page Quality task page is
broken up into several parts:
1. Some initial questions about
the task landing page.
2. A “PQ grid” to record your
observations about PQ characteristics of the landing page.
3. The Overall PQ rating slider
which records your Overall PQ rating.
4. A comment box to explain
your rating.
Some results to the initial
questions will end the task early. If the page is Porn, Foreign Language, or
Didn’t Load, you will not fill in the PQ grid or assign an overall rating.
Didn’t Load should be used for pages where there is absolutely no content on
the page created by the website. There is no MC, SC, or Ads on the page. You can see this Wikipedia article for descriptions of different types of
error messages.
Similarly, if you respond that
the page is malicious, harmful, deceptive, or lacking in purpose, you will also
not fill in the PQ grid or assign an overall rating.
The PQ grid is designed to be your
"note pad." It allows you to record your observations about the
landing page and the website it belongs to.
9.1.1 Rating on Your Phone
You should open the task landing
page on your phone using the standard Send to Device feature, unless otherwise
instructured. However, more intensive analysis on the website can be done on
your computer. For example, you should open and explore the links that are
provided to help you do research on website information and reputation on your
computer.
Important: Clicking on the task URL may bring up an interstitial
page. You can ignore this page in your
rating criteria if you can easily get to the MC. However, if the interstitial
page makes it extremely hard (or impossible) to get to the MC, that should
factor into your Page Quality rating.
9.2
E-A-T: Page or Website?
The quality of the MC is
evaluated by looking at the landing page of the link in the PQ rating
task. The reputation of the website is
based on the website which the landing page belongs to. Depending on the page,
E-A-T may be based on the page alone, may be based on the website, or may be
based on both the page and website.
Landing page E-A-T is important
when a website has different authors on different pages. This is the case for
article websites or websites like YouTube, which have user-generated content.
E-A-T for pages on these websites may differ drastically based on the E-A-T of
the creator of the content on the page.
Website E-A-T is important in
the following situations:
·
All content on the website is produced by the same person or
organization. An example is a medical website which is produced by a reputable
physician group.
·
The content of the website is produced by different authors or
organizations, but the website has very active editorial standards. An example
of this is a science journal with very high standards for publication.
·
The website has an extremely positive reputation from experts in the
topic of the website, i.e., the website is acknowledged to be one of the most
expert, authoritative, or trustworthy sources on the topic.
10.1
Page Quality
Criteria for Specific Types of Pages
10.2
Ratings for
Encyclopedia Pages
There are many encyclopedia-type
websites. Some are highly-respected publications which are standard references,
while some are websites with content created and edited by anonymous users,
with no editorial oversight or fact checking. We may not always know the author
of the specific encyclopedia article, and therefore must rely on website
reputation research to determine the E-A-T of the article. High and Highest
quality ratings should only be used for encyclopedias with very good
reputations for accuracy and expertise, where the article itself is
well-researched with appropriate references cited.
A note about Wikipedia: in
general, the website has a good reputation and is a very popular resource that
is generally valued for accuracy. However, there is no single author or
organization that vouches for the accuracy of Wikipedia articles, and the
quality of pages varies. You should
perform page-level checks on individual articles.
A Wikipedia article (example)
with a lot of detailed, information-rich MC, and external
references can usually be rated in the High range. Some Wikipedia
articles may even be rated as high as Highest, although this rating is usually
considered too high for an article on a medical, financial, or legal topic,
which requires an extremely high level of expertise. A PQ rating in the Medium
range is often appropriate. Naturally, Wikipedia articles with very little,
inaccurate, etc., MC should get lower PQ ratings.
10.3
Ratings for Pages
with Error Messages or No MC
Some pages
are temporarily broken pages on otherwise functioning websites, while some
pages have an explicit error (or custom 404) message. In some cases, pages are
missing MC as well. Please think about whether the page offers help for
users--did the webmaster spend time, effort, and care on the page?
Here are some examples.
|
Webpage/Type of Content
|
Characteristics of the Page
|
Discussion
|
|
|
· Large amount of prominent
Ads and no attempt to help users
|
This is an example of a
page with no MC. You might think that the MC is “missing” due to a problem
with this particular page, but in fact, this website has hundreds of pages
that look the same way—no MC, just Ads. This website shows Ads with little or
no attempt to help users, and should be rated Lowest quality.
|
|
|
· No MC (probably due to a
temporary technical error)
·
Sufficient SC
·
Positive reputation
|
This page has no MC and no
error message. It is an isolated example of a page with no MC or error
message on a website for a reputable newspaper for a town in Michigan. All of
the navigation links work, and the page was later fixed.
|
|
Webpage/Type
of Content
|
Characteristics of the Page
|
Discussion
|
|
|
· Nothing wrong, but nothing special
|
This is an example of a
“custom 404” page, alerting users that the URL they are trying to visit no
longer exists. Some websites do a nice job of alerting users about a problem
and providing helpful tips.
This page is on a well-known merchant website with
a good reputation. However, this particular page displays the bare minimum of
content needed to explain the problem to users, and the only helpful content
is a link to the homepage.
|
|
|
· A satisfying amount of high
quality MC for its purpose
· Helpful SC which improves
the user experience
·
Positive reputation
|
This is an example of a
“custom 404” page, alerting users that the URL they are trying to visit no
longer exists. This website does a nice job of explaining the issue and
providing helpful tips, including a search box.
|
|
|
· A satisfying amount of high
quality MC for its purpose
· Helpful SC which improves
the user experience
· Very positive reputation
|
This is an example of a “custom 404” page. These
pages are designed to alert users that the URL they are trying to visit no longer
exists. The MC of this page is the cartoon, the caption, and the search
functionality, which is specific to the content of the website. It is clear
that time, effort, and talent was involved in the creation of the MC.
This publication has a very
positive reputation and is specifically known for its cartoons, which allows
us to go as high as High+ to Highest.
|
10.4
Ratings for Forums
and Q&A pages
Ratings for forum and Q&A
pages can be challenging. The most important aspect is the E-A-T of the
participants in the discussion, which can be difficult to judge. Keep in mind the following:
·
The Main Content on forum and Q&A pages includes
both the question as well as the answers/responses and resulting discussions.
·
Rate forum and Q&A pages from the point of view of
a user who visits the page, rather than a participant involved in the discussion.
Here are some examples.
|
Webpage/Type of Content
|
Characteristics
of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
|
· YMYL page with inaccurate potentially dangerous medical advice
|
We must evaluate this page
from the point of view of a user visiting this page from a search engine,
rather than a participant. The question is poorly worded and difficult to
understand. The answers are poorly worded and have incorrect and potentially
dangerous medical advice, making it lowest quality MC.
|
|
|
· Misleading page design
· Unsatisfying amount of MC
for the purpose of the page
|
In addition to having no answer, this page has Ads
and links to other questions (misleadingly labeled as “Relevant answers”)
displayed prominently, which users may mistake for answers to the question.
It takes a moment to notice that this page actually has no
answer. Deceptive design and lack of an answer
make this page a frustratingly poor user experience and cause this page to
completely fail to achieve its purpose.
|
|
|
·
Misleading page design
· Unsatisfying amount of MC
for the purpose of the page
|
In this example, the MC is boxed in red. Please
read the MC, including the completely unhelpful "answer" to the
question in the red box. This answer is so unhelpful, we can consider this
question to be unanswered. This page has an unsatisfying amount of MC.
In addition to a very unhelpful “answer,” the page
design makes it difficult to distinguish the MC from Ads. For example, below
the answer, we see a "sponsored answer," which has the same format as
the real answer, but is actually an Ad and not an answer to the question.
This page design is somewhat misleading.
|
|
|
· Unsatisfying amount of MC
for the purpose of the page
|
Some websites rely on users to create virtually
all of their MC. In this case, the MC is the user’s question. If there are no
answers, the amount of MC on the page is unsatisfying.
|
|
Webpage/Type of Content
|
Characteristics
of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
|
· Lacking E-A-T for the
purpose of the page
|
There are 94 answers to
this question with a few results that seem helpful. Many of the posts are
wrong or misleading, including the top answer, which is labeled the “best
answer.”
|
|
|
· Mixed, but with some redeeming qualities
|
This forum is about dance
topics, and many pages have expertise from a community of ballet dancers. On
this particular page, participants have everyday experience washing ballet
shoes and make recommendations based on their own experiences.
This page is “mixed” because there is some
distracting content which makes it hard to read the MC. However, this is not
a beauty contest! Even though the page may be cluttered, there is some
valuable everyday expertise and helpful MC, making Medium a good rating for this page.
|
|
|
· Everyday expertise for the
purpose of the page
|
Many participants share their personal experiences
with these products, giving details such as how well certain models work with
pet hair. There are many descriptions of participants’ own experiences with
this product and how well it works for them.
|
|
|
· Everyday expertise for the
purpose of the page
|
The answer on this page is written by an employee
of Build-A-Bear, so it offers a somewhat
unique and presumably somewhat expert answer.
The page design allows
users to read the MC as the Ads are clearly labeled, as well as both the
question and answer.
|
|
|
· High level of E-A-T for the
topic and purpose of the page
|
The person who posted the first message on this
forum page provides a helpful resource on how to master the magic loop
technique in knitting. She also shares pictures of her own version using an
old pair of blue jeans. With over 20 years of experience knitting socks, we
would consider her to be an expert on the topic.
|
|
Webpage/Type of Content
|
Characteristics
of the Page
|
Explanation
|
|
|
·
Everyday expertise
·
A satisfying amount of high quality
MC
|
The question on the page asks how long people live
with cancer. There are many results describing how long a loved one lived
after diagnosis. There is very little medical advice and the focus of the
page is sharing personal experience. Many results are heartfelt and well
written.
|
|
|
· High level of E-A-T for the
topic and purpose of the page
·
A satisfying amount of high quality
MC
|
This forum is well known for discussions on luxury
designer purses. On this particular forum page, members are consulting forum
experts who have expertise authenticating bags from this brand.
These experts can tell if a particular bag is
authentic or fake. While there is an ad at the top and a few ads within the
forum message, it does not distract from the MC, which is easy to find.
|
|
|
· High level of E-A-T for the
topic and purpose of the page
·
A satisfying amount of high quality
MC
|
This forum is well known for its community of
experts on quailty assurance. The responses are authoritative and trustworthy
for the purpose of the page. While there are Ads on the page, it is easy to
find the MC and they are clearly labeled as “Sponsored Link.”
|
|
|
· High level of E-A-T for the
topic and purpose of the page
· A satisfying amount of high
quality MC
|
This discussion focuses on the landscaping for a
particular paludarium (an aquarium with terrestrial and
aquatic elements). There is a
lot of discussion and interaction between forum members about the types of
materials and species used in the aquarium. The posts show expertise in a
niche topic aquarium landscaping.
|
|
|
· Very high level of E-A-T
for the purpose of the page
· Very positive reputation,
and the website is responsible for
all content on the website
|
The purpose of the page is to answer questions
about the usage of abbreviations. This website has a very good reputation as
a reference for information on writing, publishing, etc. It is considered
highly authoritative and trustworthy for the topic of the page.
|
11.1
Page Quality Rating FAQs
|
Question
|
Answer
|
|
Why do we have to do all these steps?
This takes a long time!
|
With practice, the amount
of time needed for accurate PQ ratings will decrease. The steps are important
and are designed to help you assess many different aspects of PQ. You may be
surprised by what you find. Pages which initially look Low quality may turn out to be Medium or High quality
with careful inspection. The reverse may happen as well. We want your most
informed, thoughtful opinion.
|
|
Are we just giving High quality ratings to pages that “look” good?
|
No! The goal is to do the exact opposite. These
steps are designed to help you analyze the page without using a superficial
“does it look good?” approach.
|
|
You talked
about expertise when rating MC. Does expertise matter for all topics? Aren't
there some topics for which there are no experts?
|
Remember that we are not just talking about formal
expertise. High quality pages
involve time, effort, expertise, and talent/skill. Sharing personal
experience is a form of everyday expertise.
Pretty much any topic has some form of expert, but
E-A-T is especially important for YMYL pages.
For most page purposes and topics, you can find
experts even when the field itself is niche or non- mainstream. For example,
there are expert alternative medicine websites with leading practitioners of
acupuncture, herbal therapies, etc. There are also pages about alternative
medicine written by people with no expertise or experience. E-A-T should
distinguish between these two scenarios.
|
|
Aren't there
some types of pages that always have Low quality content?
|
For almost any type of
page, there is a range of content quality. Remember that high quality content
is defined as content that takes time, effort, expertise, and talent/skill.
For example, there are both
High and Low quality celebrity gossip pages. Often, the purpose of these
pages is to share scandalous, but potentially true personal information about
celebrities. We can consider the MC of a gossip page to be high quality if it
is interesting information from a somewhat plausible source.
|
|
I've never seen a High quality page of type X. If there are no high
quality pages of this type, why are we giving existing pages a Low quality
rating?
|
For some topics or types of pages, there may not
be many (or any!) High quality
pages now, but there may be in the
future. We need a uniform set of standards that apply to all pages, even for
pages that have not yet been created.
|
|
Some of these criteria seem unfair. For example, some art pages do
not have a purpose. Are these pages Low quality?
|
Art pages do have a
purpose: artistic expression. Pages created for artistic expression do not
deserve the Low quality rating
simply because they have no other purpose. Artistic expression, humor,
entertainment, etc. are all valid and valued page purposes.
|
|
If I have to
open the task URL on my phone, can I check for E-A-T on my desktop/laptop?
|
Yes! More intensive analysis on the website (e.g.,
researching E-A-T) can be done on your computer. Any time that using your
computer will help you complete the task, feel free to use it. Also, tasks
should provide some links to help you do website research, and there is a note
directing you to do it on your desktop/laptop.
|
Part 2:
Understanding Mobile User Needs
What do you do on your mobile
smartphone?
 |
People rely on their phones for
many different tasks in different environments. Users may want to search the
web or may want to tell the phone to do something specific. Keep in mind that
tasks can be simple or complex, and may take multiple steps to complete. For
example, a simple task may be to find the director of a movie. A complex task
may be to find a movie’s showtimes nearby, purchase tickets, get directions,
and then use the phone’s navigation to go to the theater.
We expect our phones to do a lot. At
the same time, phones can be challenging to use, especially compared to a
desktop computer or laptop:
·
Entering data may be
cumbersome:
typing is difficult on mobile smartphones, and when users speak to their phones
instead of typing, voice recognition may not always be accurate.
·
Small screen sizes make it difficult to use
some phone features, apps, and webpages.
·
Some webpages are difficult
to use on a mobile phone. Website navigation can be difficult as menus and navigation links may
be small. Webpages may require left-to-right scrolling to read text. Images may
not fit on the screen. In addition, many mobile devices cannot access webpages
with Flash or other similar features.
·
Internet connectivity can be
slow and inconsistent for mobile users going in and out of networks. App opening, recognition of voice commands, and webpage load times can be very slow on a mobile
phone.
Important:
Mobile smartphones should make tasks easy, even for mobile users with a small
screen device (i.e., size of smartphone, not a tablet). Users want results right
away, at that moment, and may not be able to spend a lot of time to find what
they are looking for.
In order to do mobile rating
tasks, you must have experience using a mobile smartphone, which we’ll also
refer to as a mobile phone in these guidelines. If you are not familiar with
voice commands, device actions, or phone features, please take some time to
experiment on a mobile smartphone. For example, you can try some of these voice
commands:
12.2
Important Rating
Definitions and Ideas
 |
Query: This refers to the word(s) and/or number(s) that a user
types or speaks into a mobile phone. In these guidelines, queries have square
brackets around them. If a user says “navigate home,” we display: [navigate
home]. If a user types “iPhone” in the search box, we display: [iphone].
There are many different types of
queries because users ask their phones to do many things, from opening an app
to calling a friend to searching the web.
User: The user is the person trying to accomplish something by
typing or speaking into a mobile phone with a small screen (i.e., size of a
smartphone, not a tablet).
User Intent: When a user types or speaks a query, he or she is
trying to accomplish something. We refer to this goal as the user intent.
Locale: All queries have a locale, which is the language and
location for the task. Locales are represented by a two- letter country code.
For a current list of country codes, click here. We sometimes refer to
the locale as the task location.
User Location: This tells us where the user is located.
Search Engine
Results Page (SERP): The page a search engine shows after a user enters a query in the
search box. The SERP is made up of result blocks.
Result: We will use the word result
to refer to the result block and the
landing page.
·
Result Block: This is an individual
“block” which appears on the user’s phone in response to the query. The result
block may display information in the block itself or contain links, or may do both.
·
The Landing Page (LP) is the page you see after you click
a link in the result block.
Device Actions: Mobile phones and other devices can respond to
voice commands to perform many actions, such as setting an alarm or opening an
app. This is a specific type of query which we’ll refer to as a Device Action query.
·
Device Action query: Specific type of query where
users ask their phone to perform an action. These are frequently spoken
commands used to complete actions which would normally require interaction with
the screen or the device's controls.
·
Device Action
result: The phone may respond
to a Device Action
query by performing an action, such as
calling a phone number, etc.
12.3
Understanding the Query
Understanding the query is the first
step in evaluating the task. Remember, a query is what a user types or speaks
into a mobile phone.
If you don’t understand the query
or user intent, do web research using the Google search engine or an online
dictionary or encyclopedia. If you still don’t understand the query or user
intent, please release the task.
Important: If you research the query on Google, please do not rely
on the top results on the SERP. A query may have other meanings not represented
on Google’s search results pages. Do not assign a high rating to a webpage just
because it appears at the top of a list of search results on Google.
Think about users in your locale
typing or speaking the following queries into their phone.
|
Query
|
Likely User
Intent
|
|
[population of paris], English (US)
|
Find the current population of Paris, France.
|
|
[starbucks near me], English (US)
|
Find the nearest Starbucks location.
|
|
[weather], English (US)
|
Find weather information in the user location
right now.
|
|
[call mom], English (US)
|
Call/dial the number stored for the contact “Mom”
on the device.
|
12.4
Task Location
(Locale) and User Location
All queries have a task language
and task location (locale). The locale is important for understanding the query
and user intent. Users in different locations may have different expectations
for the same query. Each rating task will show you the User Location
information: some tasks have an approximate user location area and some tasks
have a very specific user location.
 |
For many or most queries, the
user location does not change our understanding of the query and user intent.
Here are some examples: [facebook.com], [pictures of kittens], [distance
between the earth and the moon], [call mom].
If the task does not display a user location, please evaluate it as a
query where the location does not matter and use your judgment.
When is the user location
important in understanding query interpretation and user intent? Please use
both web research and your personal judgment to answer this question. Ask
yourself, “Would users in one city or country be looking for something different
than users in another city or country?”
12.5
Queries with an
Explicit Location
Sometimes users tell search
engines exactly what kinds of results they are looking for by adding the
desired location in the query, regardless of their user location. We'll call
this location inside the query the “explicit location.” The explicit location
makes queries much easier to understand and interpret.
 |
Sometimes the explicit location
matches the user location or locale, and sometimes it doesn't.
When there is an explicit
location in the query, pay attention to it! Users use explicit locations to
indicate exactly what they are looking for.
12.6
Queries with
Multiple Meanings
Many queries have more than one
meaning. For example, the query [apple] might refer to the computer brand or
the fruit. We will call these possible
meanings query interpretations.
Dominant Interpretation: The dominant
interpretation of a query is what most users mean when they type the query.
Not all queries have a dominant interpretation. The dominant interpretation
should be clear to you, especially after doing a little web research.
Common
Interpretation:
A common interpretation of a query is
what many or some users mean when they type a query. A query can have multiple common
interpretations.
Minor
Interpretations: Sometimes you will find less common interpretations. These are
interpretations that few users have in mind.
We will call these minor interpretations.
Query: [apple] Locale: English (US)
 |
Query:
[mercury] Locale: English (US)
 |
Remember to think about the query
and its current meaning as you are rating. We will assume users are looking for
current information about a topic, the most recent product model, the most
recent occurrence of a recurring event, etc., unless otherwise specified by the
query.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét