What are the tasks of a Google Quality Rater?
Quality raters have the task of evaluating the search results of the Google search engine. While not employed by Google, these raters are independently selected for the “job” by Google. Their responsibility only includes the evaluation, so they have no direct influence on the search results. Google uses the ratings of the quality raters to identify specific patterns in the search results. This is particularly important in areas where the Google search algorithm must be fully developed and cannot deliver optimal search results.
Google no longer uses the “Quality Rater” term within its own Quality Rater Guidelines. Currently, the raters are officially referred to as “Search Evaluators.”
What are the Quality Rater Guidelines?
The Quality Rater Guidelines do not provide any information about how the Google ranking algorithm works. They serve exclusively as a guide for quality raters or search evaluators. In the guidelines, the quality raters receive all the necessary information and guidelines to consider when evaluating Google search results, entry pages, and complete websites. The original Google Quality Rater Guidelines document was published by Google in 2012. Since then, the guide has been revised several times to meet the ever-changing needs of Google’s search algorithm.
The Quality Rater Guidelines mention four parameters that are important for evaluating Google search results:
- PQ rating
- EAT score
- YMYL Pages
- Needs Met rating
The guidelines also contain the so-called “23 Panda Questions”, which can be used to evaluate the content quality.
