Google’s Matt Cutts Hints at Release of Quality Raters Guidelines

Matt Cutts heads up Google’s web spam team and is the de facto conduit between the Big G and the SEO industry. Cutts recently responded to a question submitted by a user to Google’s Webmaster Help team about the impact of human beings on the search engine’s algorithm, in particular the Quality Raters employed to put real eyeballs on search results and dodgy websites.

While the question itself isn’t anything to get worked up about, part of Cutts’ response is, because he suggests that Google may be making available the actual guidelines used by Quality Raters. In other words, the instructions provided to the humans tasked with figuring out whether a website is really what Google is looking for to be ranked highly in the search results.

“WOW!” I hear everyone saying…not!

This is something that only a dedicated SEO or webmaster is going to be getting worked up about. But there is reasoning behind why this is an exciting development: being able to get an insider view, on what Google’s official view is of a good, bad or indifferent website, is seriously important to those of us tasked with reaching #1 in the search rankings. So, the idea of having a 2-inch manual of the actual Google guidelines to help figure out what will get the seal of approval or the kiss of death, has SEOs salivating at the thought.

The Quality Raters’ Guidelines were leaked some time back, and I have a copy, which is why I know it is about 2-inches thick, but this is quite old. That said, what is the in the leaked copy is really surprising, precisely because it contains nothing surprising…it’s pretty much common sense written down.

Is the website relevant to the search terms it ranks for – is content original and well-written – is the navigational structure of the site OK for a human – is the site doing anything naughty, such as showing something to the search engine but something else to humans.

While I doubt there has been a lot of updated material in the current Guidelines, it will still be a welcome addition to the technical library. As a White Hat SEO, I’m hoping Cutts realizes I’ve been a good this year and brings me something special for Christmas.