5 important changes that took place in Google Search Quality Guidelines in 2019
Google search quality guidelines are being used to provide training for thousands of evaluators to analyze the web pages and determine their overall quality. Information obtained from those evaluators are then being used to make appropriate changes to the search engine algorithm.
If you are a website owner who is concerned about Google updates, you need to have a solid overall understanding about these quality guidelines as well. Then you will be able to take appropriate measures in order to make sure that you are not penalized by the Google updates. You will have a sense of what’s going to happen with the newest Google updates. Hence, you can stay ready to face them.
Here is a list of 5 of the most prominent changes that were made to the Google search quality guidelines. These changes were made in two different occasions, which include 19th of May and 6th of September.
1. List of examples for YMYL websites were modified and rearranged
YMYL (Your Money Your Life) website list was modified during the recent Google search quality guideline changes. Along with ordering, language that is being used to define them also got changed. As per Google, YMYL can be a page as well as a topic. That’s the main reason why these changes took place. Even if you have a bit of content related to YMYL, your web page will be considered as YMYL.
Before these updates, “News and current events” niche was given with more priority than YMYL. However, Google is looking forward to enhance the priority of YMYL websites. Along with these changes, finance and shipping were moved into separate categories. This can help to create a clear differentiation in between the online stores and YMYL websites on the internet.
The category that existed as “medical information” is now changed into “health and safety”. Along with that, Google went ahead and removed information about “mental health” and “specific diseases or conditions”. Instead of them, a new term named “medial issues” is being used to describe them.
2. Google is now specific about high quality content
It is important for you to have high quality content in the web pages to secure outstanding results with Search Engine Optimization. However, the term high quality was quite vague in the past. That’s where Google has taken appropriate measures to add few new paragraphs, which deliver a better definition about high quality.
If you are having a news website, you need to make sure that the content you publish is original. Google also adheres to the fact that it requires more time to come up with high quality content. Due to the same reason, Google believes that it requires both time as well as creativity to create them.
In case if you are having artistic content in the website, you need to have talent and skill to create appropriate content. This is applicable for all the artistic content that exist in the website, including photos, videos and images.
Websites that deliver informational content need to make sure that high quality information is provided to the visitors through words. It should be professional as well as clear. In addition to that, informational content available on the website should represent expert consensus as well. It is better if you can create informative content while citing scientific papers as well.
3. Pulitzer Prize is not the only source of journalistic integrity
With the latest updates in the Quality Rater Guidelines, we can see how Google is supplementing all the references of Pulitzer Price along with the other award examples. That’s because Google had to face many backlashes when they went ahead and suggested that Pulitzer Price should be the key method of measuring the reliability of news publications. On the other hand, some people strongly believe that Pulitzer Price is rewarding liberal publications. Due to those reasons, Google has introduced much-needed changes and make sure that content given with more priority are politically neutral.
4. Google introduced extra recommendations for measuring the YMYL content creators
Google has been measuring the reputation of YMYL topic content creators. However, they are now planning to be more specific at the time of evaluating the YMYL content creators. Few new lines have been added in order to clearly explain how quality checks should be carried out.
As per Google, this is more prominent for the online shopping stores. That’s because the experts should have used the store to make a purchase before they leave the customer reviews. Only such customer reviews come along with a sense of trustworthiness. Hence, it is important to pay extra attention towards this fact. However, things have changed when analyzing medical advices. They should come from the medical experts, who have dealt with them.
5. Google has reshaped the language that pages use to promote hate
Google has also introduced some changes to the language that people are using to promote violence or hate. Below mentioned are those changes.
- Victims of atrocities is now removed
- Political beliefs is now removed
- Socio economic status is now removed
- Citizenship is now removed
- Gender has become gender identity
- Ethnicity has become ethnic origins
You need to keep these words and phrases in your mind and make sure that you go ahead to do appropriate changes in the documents and web pages.
Final Words
Now you are aware of latest changes that are made to the Search Quality Guidelines of Google. This is done in order to reduce ambiguity linked with measuring the quality of content. On the other hand, Google is looking forward to make sure that the new documentation is inoffensive, all-inclusive and politically neutral.
If you are looking for the ways to improve traffic on your website or want to improve search engine rankings of your website or targetted keywords Akshar Technologies we also provide Marketing services like SEO Services, Search Engine Optimization, Online Marketing, Internet Marketing, Digital Marketing, Web Marketing Consulting, SEO Strategies, and much more.
Contact us online or you can send us an email at info@akshartechnologies.com.
