Google’s Core Updates - What You Need to Know About Your Content Quality?

Google’s Core Updates – What You Need to Know About Your Content Quality?

Several times a year, Google makes significant changes to its search algorithms. These “core updates”, which is how Google refers to them, are intended to safeguard the relevancy and trustworthy content. With that said, many experts agree that “Content is King” and I feel it would be beneficial to review specific “questions” that Google Search Algorithms are seeking to answer when ranking the keywords contained in your post or an article. These questions are related specifically to content and can be broken up into four major sections…

1. Content and quality questions
2. Expertise questions
3. Presentation and production questions
4. Comparative questions

Let’s dive in…

1. Content and quality questions

• Does the content provide original information, reporting, research or analysis?
• Does the content provide a substantial, complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• If the content draws on other sources, does it avoid simply copying or rewriting those sources and instead provide substantial additional value and originality?
• Does the headline and/or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content?
• Does the headline and/or page title avoid being exaggerating or shocking in nature?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Would you expect to see this content in or referenced by a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?

2. Expertise questions

• Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, background about the author or the site that publishes it, such as through links to an author page or a site’s About page?
• If you researched the site producing the content, would you come away with the impression that it is well-trusted or widely-recognized as an authority on its topic?
• Is this content written by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?
• Is the content free from easily-verified factual errors?
• Would you feel comfortable trusting this content for issues relating to your money or your life?

3. Presentation and production questions

• Is the content free from spelling or stylistic issues?
• Was the content produced well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• 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?
• Does the content have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Does content display well for mobile devices when viewed on them?

4. Comparative questions

• Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• Does the content seem to be serving the genuine interests of visitors to the site or does it seem to exist solely by someone attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

It is important to understand that the search engines do not understand content the way human beings do. Instead, they look for signals, that can “answer the question” and gather information about the search result, in order to best understand the correlation and relevance of the keyword, phrase or subject matter. It takes continued improvements on the part of Google search algorithms to assess and analyze content, which is why frequent updates are so often introduced. Please, note that some parts of this article were referenced from Danny Sullivan of Google SearchLiason, and if you have any questions, specifically in regards to your site’s content or search placement, and wish to schedule an obligation SEO audit, please send me a private message via LinkedIn.