These guidelines have been created by Google to rate the quality of a web page, helping them provide the most relevant content to its users. We’ve condensed over 160 pages into a simple infographic to help you get your website into gear, and achieve the highest possible quality rating. Download our Free Infographic here.

How does Google define page quality?

Web pages should be created for a purpose, and it should help people achieve that purpose. The effectiveness of the purpose of a page is rated from highest quality to lowest quality.

Purposes that determine page quality:

  • To share information on a topic
  • To share personal or social information
  • To share media to allow users to post and answer questions
  • To express an opinion
  • To entertain
  • To sell products or services
  • To allow users to share files or download software

1. E.A.T Rating

Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness
Expertise factors by industry
Medical industry

Medical advice should be produced by people or organizations with appropriate medical expertise or accreditation on the topic. This specific type of advice or information should be produced in a professional style and should be edited, reviewed, and updated regularly.

Journalism

News articles should be produced with journalistic professionalism. They should contain factually accurate content presented in a way that helps users achieve a better understanding of events. Sources under this silo typically have published established editorial policies and robust review processes

Scientific

Information should be produced by people or organizations with appropriate scientific expertise. Represent well-established scientific consensus on issues where such consensus exists

Finance, Legal & Tax advice

Information on financial, legal and tax advice should come from trustworthy sources and be maintained and updated regularly.

High-Cost Advice Pages

Advice pages on topics such as home remodeling (which can cost thousands and impact your living situation) or parenting should be given by experts or experienced sources.

2. REPUTATION

Information written by a person, not statistics or other machine-compiled information. This helps determine authoritativeness and trustworthiness.

  • News articles
  • Wikipedia articles
  • Blog posts
  • Forum Discussions
  • Independent ratings
  • Magazine articles

3. MAIN CONTENT

Main Content is the part of a page that directly helps the page achieve its purpose.

Pet food homepage – To sell or give information on pet food

Online banking login page – To log into your banking profile

A shopping page – To sell a product

    3.1 Supplementary Content

Contributes to a good user experience on the page, but does not directly help the page achieve its purpose – like navigation links.

  3.2 YMYL Pages

YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE

These pages could potentially impact the future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety of users, and have very high page quality standards.

      • Shopping or financial transaction pages
      • Financial information pages
      • Medical information pages
      • Legal information pages
      • Official information pages
      • Other – Such as child adoption pages

4. SITE RESPONSIBILITY

Every page belongs to a site, and it should be clear who (individual, company, business, foundation, etc.) is responsible for the website AND who (individual, company, business, foundation, etc.) created the content on a page.

Add a “Contact Us”, “About Us” or “About” page to provide this information.

Download our Free Infographic on Search Quality Rating Guidelines