In recent months, we've focused on helping people find great websites from Google's search results. We have improved the ranking of a large number of high-quality websites through the "Panda" algorithm, so in most cases there is no need to worry about search quality. However, for those sites affected by "Panda" we would like to provide additional guidance on how Google searches for quality sites.
We have always recommended that publishers focus as much as possible on achieving the best user experience on their site, rather than on Google's current ranking algorithm or information. Some publishers have focused on our previous Panda algorithm changes, but "Panda" is just one of more than 500 search improvements we expect to roll out this year. In fact, we have made more than a dozen other adjustments to our ranking algorithm since the introduction of the "Panda" algorithm, and some sites mistakenly believed that their ranking changes were related to "Panda". Search is a complex, ever-changing technology and science, so we recommend that you don't focus on specific algorithm tweaks and instead focus on achieving the best user experience.
Which websites count as high-quality websites?
Our website quality algorithm is designed to help people find "quality" websites by reducing the listing of poor quality content. The recent “Panda” algorithm solves the difficult task of algorithmically evaluating website quality. Now, we want to explain some of the ideas and research that drove the development of our algorithm.
Here are some questions one can use to assess the "quality" of a web page or article, and these are the questions we consider when writing algorithms for assessing website quality. This can be seen as our guess about the user's thoughts.
Of course, we're not disclosing the actual ranking information used in our algorithm because we don't want people to bet on our search results; but if you want to understand Google's thinking, the following questions provide some insight into how we think about this issue. guide:
• Do you trust the information presented in this article?
• In your opinion, is this article written by an expert or enthusiast with deep knowledge of the subject matter, or is it more superficial in nature?
• Is there redundant content on this website with the same or similar topics, but with slightly different keywords?
• Would you like to provide your credit card information to this website?
• Does the article contain spelling, formatting, or factual errors?
• Is the article topic driven by the true interests of the site's readers, or is the site determined by guessing topics that might rank better in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content, information, original reporting, original research or original analysis?
• Does this page have significant value compared to other pages in the search results?
• How much quality control is there in terms of content?
• Does the article describe both good and bad aspects of something?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the website content created in bulk by many creators or outsourced? Or because the network of websites is huge, a single web page or website has very little attention?
• Is the article carefully edited, or was it haphazardly or hastily created?
• Do you trust the health-related information provided on this website?
• When you see this website name, do you consider this website to be an authoritative source of information?
• Does the article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain in-depth analysis or less obvious, interesting information?
• Would you like to add this type of page to your favorites, share it with friends or recommend it to others?
• Does this article have too many ads that distract or interfere with the main content?
• Do you think you will read this in a print magazine, encyclopedia, or book?
• Is the article short, devoid of substance, or lacks helpful specific content?
• Was this page created with a lot of care and attention to detail, or was it created with less attention to detail?
• Will users complain when they see pages from this site?
Writing an algorithm that evaluates the quality of a web page or website is a more difficult task, but we hope that the above questions have provided some insight into how we can write those algorithms that differentiate between good and bad websites.
what can you do
We've been hearing from a lot of people who want more guidance on how to improve their Google rankings, especially since many people believe their sites have been affected by the "Panda" algorithm update. We recommend that you consider the above issues when working to develop quality content, rather than trying to optimize for any specific Google algorithm.
Another piece of specific guidance we provide is that parts of a site's low-quality content can affect the ranking of the entire site, so remove low-quality pages, consolidate or improve individual shallow web content into more useful pages, or move low-quality pages to a A different domain name may ultimately help rank for higher quality content.
We've been working on developing additional iterations of the algorithm to help webmasters who manage quality sites get more traffic from search. As you continue to improve your site, rather than focusing on specific algorithm tweaks, we recommend that you ask yourself some of the same types of questions we asked during our overall assessment. By doing this, your website is more likely to rank well in the long term. In the meantime, if you have any feedback, please let us know via our webmaster forum. As we develop future ranking iterations of the algorithm, we will continue to monitor forum posts and relay site information to the search quality team.