I finally dug into the January 2025 Update of the Rater guidelines And there are many changes! ((Here is the previous version If you want to compare.)
Why do we take care of the QRG?
While quality applicants have no direct influence on their ranking lists, their ratings help Google, determine whether the changes they make on their ranking systems improve the quality of the results. These changes can include an engineer who implemented a new code. Or it is very likely that the implemented changes are the result of machine learning systems that learn to better stand up to what viewfinds find helpful.
You can find more information about this fascinating testimony from the Doj against Google test by Professor Douglas Oard. If you are short, the results of CTRL-F are for “frozen” and “rewritten” results. Here you will also find more information about what we know about Google’s quality reviewers and how your work is used.
Essentially, the QRG describes the ideal that Google wants to have their systems rewarded. The more we match the QRG, the more we match the Various signals with which Google’s systems evaluate content.
It makes sense for me that Google is working on recognizing and rewarding (or down) when something new is added, then Google is working on the fact that Google is working on recognizing and rewarding (or reducing).
Here are some interesting additions in the update January 2025.
Filler content
As I have said for some time, they make it easy for the viewfinder to find what they came to your side for!
Like Tenny Jesse emphasized In the search barThe additions in the QRG in relation to main content match Google’s Documentation on side experience. Jeannie Hill pointed out that the Gemini models in AI Studio can be used to analyze and determine the content of the main and additional content.
This is aimed specifically at recipe points.
I know that this is not well received by recipe bloggers. Recipe locations are based on scrolls for advertisements. Casey Marke, who works with a number of recipe pages said that in his testsIf the recipe card is added to the tip of the page, the advertising income drops by 78%. I think that a well -organized page with a jump to the recipe button, which is easy to find, can still do well even with some filler content. We will see.
Abuse of scaled content
There is a new section of scaled abuse of content. I think this will be relevant for many blogs and for those who use AI to create plenty of content.
The word “paraphrased” or versions of it rose from 3 mentions in the previous version of the QRG to 25.
Also,
And,
Relevant for many blogs again. Gone are the days when we can try to maneuver with generic content that only swears what others wrote. This corresponds to the documentation from Google Create helpful content. You do not need a generic blog posts that repeat what everyone else has already said.
AI generated content
There are also some AI -generated content. Google is not against using it, but it must be valuable content that is helpful for seekers.
Here is that Example linked above.
The Next example is not so obvious at first. I would encourage you to look at it first before I read the explanation why it should be seen as content with the lowest quality.
Here is Another example that is clearly spam – A AI generated article about chickens on a website via Senior Care. However, the most interesting is the part that says: “While the method for creating content is unknown, the format of the articles (question and answer) is often used to a Low effort to create unoriginal, paraphrased content with generative AI tools.
Now it is not necessarily spam to write a contribution in which you ask questions and then answer questions.
However It is interesting to determine that many websites influenced by Google’s helpful content system used a rank method in which they covered as many as the Google (PAA) employees.
I think the following. I think that content that covers related questions have an advantage in the search, since the vector search is looking for content that corresponds to the user’s intention and also does a good job in order to fulfill related microinents. Therefore, content that has been written mainly by questions and relatives on a topic would have been well ranked before Google takes into account other signals if this predicts whether a page is likely to be helpful. In other words, this type of content looks good for machines, but is not necessarily the content that people find most helpful.
Use of expired domains for ranking purposes
It is unlikely that a website will be punished just because you use a previously used domain. What counts here is the intention. The examples given by Google are extreme, such as: B. Casino -related content at a former primary school.
A company often buys the competitors’ websites and leads them to his website. In many cases this is probably OK. However, if I examined a location with a dramatic drop in traffic and I knew that they had used this tactic, I could suggest removing these forwarding in the event. Google will not tell you whether you are suppressing a site due to this suspected spam tactics.
Reputation abuse at the location
This section was also added in January 2025. Reputation abuse at the location If third-party providers are published on a host site, mainly due to the already established ranking signals of the host. The goal of this tactic is that the content ranks better than it could. This is considered a spam tactics.
In 2024, Google made manual actions to many websites. Here is a Article that I wrote with several examples Show news sites with your voucher -subcomains. These voucher domains were operated by third -party websites who used the authority of the news side to run well.
At the time of writing (January 2025), Google has not yet enforced this guideline algorithmically. Danny Sullivan, Google’s search connection, said that this would happen at some point. In view of the fact that the evaluators now receive instructions in order to evaluate a potential abuse of reputation from locations, I expect that we will be determined algorithmically without requiring manual measures.
Here are Google Official documentation On site reputation abuse.
And here is how the quality applicants assess this.
In view of the new additions to the QRG, there is a good chance that Google will tackle these changes algorithmically in the coming months.
Visit me for a live podcast to discuss the changes in the QRG
I would love it if you join me on Monday, February 11th at 11 a.m. There is a chat area with a Q&A that follows the presentation.
RSVP here – It’s free!
Webinar participants receive a discount on my upcoming workbook so that you can improve your website based on the rater guidelines. Searchable -pro members Get yourself for free.
Soon come – the 3rd edition of my QRG checklist
This workbook was first published in 2018 and sold many copies! I wanted to rewrite it for years now. In view of the number of changes and the meaning I think it will be, I took the time to completely rewrite them.
Here are a few screenshots.
It also contains links to GPTS that you can use with ideas filled with ideas that have been collected over the years, as well as important documentation from Google. You can make brainstorming with the GPTs to evaluate and improve your content and your EAT.
Stay up to date to obtain information about purchasing.