Legal Marketing & PR

How Google Decides if You have a Quality Website

By Larry Bodine

The rollout of Google's Panda 4.0 update in May promoted "quality" websites and downgraded "low quality" sites. As a result, some law firm websites saw their organic traffic and search engine rankings drop by 30% to 40%.

So what is quality in Google's view? We know that bad quality is duplicate content copied from other websites, pages that just have one or two sentences, and thinly-rewritten content that no one is engaging with.

Thanks to an official blog post by Google Fellow Amit Singhal, we have a 23-point checklist:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don't get as much attention or care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you'd want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?

Now that you have the official Google checklist, how did you site rate?

Full post as published by Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog on August 02, 2014 (boomark / email).