Quality scores and you

[dutter]

Google's update to its quality guidelines and subsequent penalizing of perceived violators looks like it will be the norm at Yahoo too. Oh, and they talked about some patents.

More...

[Webnauts]

Looking forward for the link! :)

[dutter]

Look up :)

[Webnauts]

A question though: What is not a high-quality web site?

[MeanSEO]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

A question though: What is not a high-quality web site?

Or then again - What is quality? (as denoted by them)

[PumaSpirit]

Originally Posted by suesheboy

Or then again - What is quality? (as denoted by them)

Let's hope they define it for us and include those nasty link farms in their definition of "not-high quality web sites".

[jrb@w3f.com]

Originally Posted by dutter

Google's update to its quality guidelines and subsequent penalizing of perceived violators looks like it will be the norm at Yahoo too.

Maybe they are getting tired of the complaints from searchers, that popularity has nothing to do with relevance. I hope so.

[jrb@w3f.com]

Originally Posted by PumaSpirit

Let's hope they define it for us and include those nasty link farms in their definition of "not-high quality web sites".

I would think they could downgrade them a bit, but remember they are full of AdSense and Google makes money when people click all over the place trying to get to the site they want.

Also remember that the linkfarms (the better ones) actually help focus peoples searches into vertical market listings of related items. Since most have no clue to what a Boolean is, they get too much from Google and the farms weed out the chaff.

I find them helpful on occasion, so I hope they don't kill them completely.

[jrb@w3f.com]

Originally Posted by dutter

Google's update to its quality guidelines and subsequent penalizing of perceived violators looks like it will be the norm at Yahoo too.

Penalizing is better that finding yourself in the sandbox. Hopefully they will start giving explanations with the downgrade, like in google.base instead of purposely leaving us clueless to why.

Good report Dutter, thanks for the insight, and link.

[Keimos]

Hi All,

Q. What defines a quality site?

A. Whoever pays!!!! for it.

Definition of a search is - To make a thorough examination of ( a place, building or receptacle for example) in order to find something; look over; explore. to make a careful examination or investigate.

I would say that at least 60% (my guestimation) of searchers do not "Search"

So how can for example a purely based text site with no frills and trims compete against a similar site based on, we think it should be looked for like this.

Or a site could have the latest and funkiest look and the best technology available. Which one is the quality site?

My thoughts

Keimos

[DrTandem1]

I seem to recall way back when that Yahoo used to require contact information such as a physical address and phone number when they were big in search.

Today's version of a "quality" web site may be whether or not you pay to advertise on the particular SE. We shall see.

[PumaSpirit]

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

I seem to recall way back when that Yahoo used to require contact information such as a physical address and phone number when they were big in search.

Today's version of a "quality" web site may be whether or not you pay to advertise on the particular SE. We shall see.

So true...

Imagine the big SE's making rules in line with FTC rules. Requiring a business to be legal. Now, wouldn't that be a novel idea?

Imagine getting more links to quality and honest/honorable web sites and their owners that way, not to scam artists and others hiding behind their "creations" trying to make all the money they can, fast.

Imagine online businesses actually paying for quality clicks on their ads...

Imagine...

Shush Cinderella, it's time to go back to the kitchen, where real life awaits, amongst the soot and ashes, serving the nasty step sisters who get all the benefits of your hard and honest labor :(

[Peter (IMC)]

Though you can't know 100% sure what "they" consider quality you can make a very educated guess.

First of all, Quality is relative and you can almost say that what is quality depends completely on the keyword(s). You can't say: "This is a quality website." All you can say is: "This is a quality website for this keyword phrase."

But you can say some things about "quality". Look at the historical data that Google uses... Monitoring history implies monitoring activity. This activity is compared to average activity for all selected sites for a keyword phrase. If you´re more active than the average, your quality is higher, if you´re less active than the average, your quality is lower.

There are so many sites that just static on-page factors are useless now-a-days and as Google determined a couple of years ago, static off-page factors are also pretty much useless.

In my opinion, a huge factor in quality is how active a site is. If it doesn't change enough compared to the average, it will never rank high.

[Orion]

My top three thoughts...

Relevant, unique and up-to-date (frequency) content (I think you're right on track Peter (IMC)) will be one 'quality' factor. This is probably one of the majors.

Another should be quality of the coding itself.. not necessarily W3C validated, but at least close, and a site SHOULD conform to accepted usability and accessibilty best practices (meaning that it should be available for all browsers, and the majority of people with disabilities should be able to access the information on the site).

IBL's inbound links have to be a factor in quality. As their original reason for using IBL's is still valid, if you have a good high quality site, people out there will go, 'hey check this out' and link to it. As is the trend, NOT IBL's from link farms whose purpose is to simply but valid links and vertical directories should be considered decent links, maybe not as good as someone saying 'this site is great' but a heck of a lot better than an exchanged link for the purpose of raising your SE rankings.

What does everyone else think? I know there's a lot more but if your site works well in those three I would consider it 'quality'.. Let's hope Google and Yahoo do the same.

[mnsandy]

Hey guys, quality site can be tracted this way (www.veoreport.com) it's the visitor behavior on the site.

For example, google and yahoo as well alexa has toolbars, so they can check every page request by visitor this also means they can track visitor behavior on site, for example, visitor lenght, return visitrs, pageviews per visitor, etc;

I think this is very serious quality score, if they look for "x topic" and they stay on site 20 minutes, this site is good on that topic, but if he clicks and then clicks away, it might be bad for the site quality;

AdSense is not helping much for this approach as it's more like cookie cutter site to just get visitors to click on adsense; and these things could hurt many fast buck makers quite seriously;

[PumaSpirit]

Originally Posted by mnsandy

I think this is very serious quality score, if they look for "x topic" and they stay on site 20 minutes, this site is good on that topic, but if he clicks and then clicks away, it might be bad for the site quality;

Nice idea, mnsandy, but I see a monkey wrench there.

Let's say I am only looking to compare the price of a product skipping around 10 different web sites in 1 minute flat. I then go to mull things over and end up buyng it at Wal-Mart, because I go there anyways tomorrow.

Does that make for bad quality for those 10 sites?

Let's say I go to a site or 2 to compare some research, but the phone rings as soon as I get there and I leave the pc for 30 minutes with the sites still displayed.

Does that make for quality sites?

All in all, I think WE know when we hit on a bad or good site. Bookmarking is one way of expressing that.

I find that a valid way, but it leaves out people with good memories, lol. Such as in the case of my site. It's specific to helping cigarette smokers and is named for what the product does. Many wont bookmark it, because it is easy to remember.

I believe we are caught in a catch 22 at this stage of the game and whoever can come up with a (nearly) fool-proof method, will rival Bill's bank account in a very short time. Any comments?

[jrb@w3f.com]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Though you can't know 100% sure what "they" consider quality you can make a very educated guess.

...

In my opinion, a huge factor in quality is how active a site is. If it doesn't change enough compared to the average, it will never rank high.

When looking at the links in a search engine listing, the links that are clicked on the most are those whose line entry catches the most clicks. What does this have to do with the quality of the site they end up viewing? Nothing.

Like popularity of inbound links they are only an easy parameter to measure, but can be enhanced by trickery.

None of this has anything to do with relevance nor quality of a site, and yet it affects your ratings, standings, and cost of garnering traffic.

Hopefully, someday, the heuristics will improve.

Quality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Unfortunately, rating programs can't see very well, they can only measure.

[mnsandy]

Originally Posted by PumaSpirit

Nice idea, mnsandy, but I see a monkey wrench there.

Well, of course, you're right, but if we look that google will try to move content sites to the top and have paid advertising around then this is exactly how content site visitors would behave in normal situation.

And again quality score consists of 23984 elements so this could be just one of them.

On one site they spend 30 seconds, but on another site they spend 3 minutes - why? because they using some advanced comparison tool that makes them to hang out there.

About 30 minute opening - well, its quite tricky one, you need to page trough pages and have some activity. I bet they can come out with some nice ideas for this;)

[jrb@w3f.com]

Originally Posted by mnsandy

And again quality score consists of 23984 elements so this could be just one of them.

On one site they spend 30 seconds, but on another site they spend 3 minutes - why? because they using some advanced comparison tool that makes them to hang out there.

About 30 minute opening - well, its quite tricky one, you need to page trough pages and have some activity. I bet they can come out with some nice ideas for this;)

Some new methods are asking websites to place a "target" on their "goal" page. That could be a shopping cart, or something. If people get there, then, and only then, will the advertiser pay for the click. Interesting concept for people selling things. Unfortunately, people that have just info to read, where the content is the goal, it is a tougher thing to measure.

Like you say, it's tricky.

[Keimos]

Hello again,

I am not really convinced that anyone knows.

I can spend 3 minutes looking for something on a site purely because I have to search for it. I can spend 3 seconds because I do not like what I see.

It could be the total opposite for somebody else.

Designer Jeans or from the market, they both look the same, are probably manufactured from the same factory. They both have the same quality?

Activity should not be relevant because good content can always stay the same, like a good book. Blogs are another FAD that will die out. They generate content but so do marketing tools so IMO they will be phased out.

Relevancy to your audience is a consideration, which should contribute, but at the end of the day $$££ will be the deciding factor whether you like it or not.

Oh for a peaceful world!

Keimos

[Peter (IMC)]

What search engines should do and I think they actually do, especially Google, is leaving the quality score decisions to the internet. All they have to do is decide on which parameters to monitor.

PageRank is an example of it. It leaves the decision on what is quality to the webmasters. PageRank was a huge leap forward because it was no longer the search engine deciding what pages are good results.

But PR had its flaws mostly because it could be influenced unnaturally.

All historical data algorithms of Google are again a step forward because more power to the people. And in this case more power again to the owners/webmasters of the websites. Keep your site active and updated gives you higher rankings.

But underneith all of this you still need to get the very basic SEO rules right.

Quality scores are not determined by a search engine like Google, they just monitor factors that are most likely to indicate what searchers consider quality. And the fun thing is,.. what today may be considered quality, can be far from it 3 months from now.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

What search engines should do and I think they actually do, especially Google, is leaving the quality score decisions to the internet. All they have to do is decide on which parameters to monitor.

PageRank is an example of it. It leaves the decision on what is quality to the webmasters. PageRank was a huge leap forward because it was no longer the search engine deciding what pages are good results.

But PR had its flaws mostly because it could be influenced unnaturally.

I think they want the public to influence the ranking positions more than them. The problem with this is as you described, spammers and the lack of unbiased PR system. The underlying PR concept is truly effective is weighting websites, but it is open to manipulations which makes it totally ineffective.

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

All historical data algorithms of Google are again a step forward because more power to the people. And in this case more power again to the owners/webmasters of the websites. Keep your site active and updated gives you higher rankings.

But underneath all of this you still need to get the very basic SEO rules right.

Quality scores are not determined by a search engine like Google, they just monitor factors that are most likely to indicate what searchers consider quality. And the fun thing is,.. what today may be considered quality, can be far from it 3 months from now.

Believe it or not if everyone was signed into something like a Google account or MSN Passport the search results would be much, much better because the engines would be able to truly weight websites effectively. Of course this will never happen unless they give the public very, very good reason to do so.

[mnsandy]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Believe it or not if everyone was signed into something like a Google account or MSN Passport the search results would be much, much better because the engines would be able to truly weight websites effectively. Of course this will never happen unless they give the public very, very good reason to do so.

Only one problem mate - privacy! I don't want them to know which sites I own, what markets I operate, what hobbies I got and so forth.

AOL did great thing providing data, so this could be even more dangerous at some point.

[incrediblehelp]

I agree we should have privacy as well. I was just making the point that SERPs could be much better with this info, but we should have to forsake privacy to do the search engines jobs for them.

[zbatia]

From what I read, so far, Peter has expressed several good ideas. However, we all can have only the ideas, but the quality will be determined by the huge number of parameters that are built into an algorithm. There are smart enough (as you can imagine) guys who work full time. They will do their job. Let’s just wait and not speculate.

[Peter (IMC)]

Actually, in their core algorithms are pretty simple I think. The original PR algorithm was very simple, yet required a mathematical formula in order to make it practical. Then implementing it was a huge and pretty complex undertaking.

What makes it so complex is the input data the algorithms have to work with. There is so much data the algorithms have to work through the results almost seem chaotic. And they are,. :)

If you know the algorithms completely, that still doesn't give you any advantage over people that have no clue about the algorithms.

Understanding the algorithms is fun, but it won't make you any money. Building a great site that many people love can make you money though. In the end, SEO is nothing more than helping the search engines understand the site better and being a marketer.