SEO Tips For Internet Marketers

Posted by megan on December, 5th 2011

When you think of Google and how it ranks websites for keywords, you tend to think of high tech computerised systems that judge websites on their quality, relevance and authenticity. This of course is something that does happen, however Google do employ actual human beings, known as ‘Google Search Quality Raters’, to check websites that are ranking highly for specific popular keywords. These raters are employed by external companies and must study information and take a two part exam before being accepted. They have a set of guidelines to follow to ensure they know how to rate websites for their quality and relevance, as well as how to judge whether or not a website should be classed as spam. A leaked version of this handbook recently came to light, enabling people to gain an insight on what the raters look for.

You may be wondering who these people are and the answer simply is ‘normal people’ like you and me. They’re not marketing experts or particularly knowledgeable of SEO. The point of having raters is to make sure that Google is meeting the needs of its users, when it comes to delivering search results, hence the need for real people to have an input. They work from home and are paid on an hourly basis. Their performance is judged on how many URLS are checked per hour. What is a concern of many website owners is that if the raters’ performance is judged on how many URLS are checked, they may not check them properly, and simply judge on first glance of a website. This means it’s essential that you design your website to give a good first impression.

Raters have three types of search queries to study: navigational, which is searches for particular websites, informational, where people are searching for information and finally transactional, which is when people are searching to buy particular products. The scale of quality ratings goes from vital, the top rating, which is usually given to official sites, for navigational searches, all the way down to ‘off topic’ which is given to websites that are completely irrelevant to the keyword they rank for. Raters are also taught to look at whether or not a website is ‘spammy.’ This can be judged on irrelevant content, excess banners, buttons and advertisements.

Human raters are not a new thing for Google, however we have only recently learnt more about them and what they are trained to do. First impressions of a website are particularly important, as you as a consumer yourself know just how quickly you can judge a website. With this in mind it’s essential that you design a website that you, yourself, would be happy to use. In terms of SEO, Meta descriptions are particularly important, as if rankers are simply just looking at URLS that come up on search results, they will judge to see if the description you’ve given is relevant to the keywords. Google raters are ordinary people judging search results and websites, so the best thing you can do is look at your website as a consumer, rather than the creator.

Google Sitemaps – What To Look Out For

When looking at your Webmaster Tools which features do you normally look at? The lazy SEO’er will just click through the links on the left hand side of the page, hoping that nothing stands out as odd or wrong. If you’re new to Webmaster Tools or just find it a little daunting, one thing you [...]

How to get Google Sitelinks

The Holy Grail of SEO is where your site is powerful enough that “Google Sitelinks” appear in the search results for your site’s listing. Recently our highly talented SEO team managed to get their 5th Site links appearance for one of our new clients University of Whatever: University of Whatever (UOW) sell fantastic Uni-style clothing [...]

SEO Myth – Google’s Maximum Keyword Density Percentage

What is Google’s Maximum Keyword Density? The simple answer is that there isn’t one! So why is there so much fuss over keyword densities online? The answer lies within past spammy SEO techniques… When Yahoo were the top search engine you could rank highly by simply adding every keyword you could think of within the [...]

What’s the deal with Google Sitelinks?

If you use Google a lot for searching the internet, you may have noticed some changes in recent weeks. When you search for a brand e.g. “Graham and Green”, you will see that the majority of the first page of Google has changed. This is because Google have recently made some changes to how they [...]

Google Trends – Seasonal and Yearly Changes in Online Searches

Seasonal Changes Fur Coats in Summer?!  Google trends allows you to see the trend of online searches whether it be a monthly change or a yearly change. Let’s say you were starting up a brand new site and wanted to maximise your SEO efforts.  Any new domain takes at least 2/3 months to rank highly [...]

Find out more about Juno Blinds
Remote control and electric blinds by Controliss

Labels: Google, raters