How Does Google Determine Quality Content?

Quality has always been, and should always be, priority. But as search engines get more advanced, websites feel pressured to create even higher quality content or risk being penalized in search engine rankings.

So how does Google determine quality?

To answer this question it is important to first understand Google’s viewpoint. They want to provide their consumers (people using Google search tools) websites and pages that are not only relevant to their search, but also provide substantial value compared to other sites.

Google grades your site on these primary factors:

• Amount of page content
• Amount of NEW page content
• Broken vs working links
• Page load time (the faster, the better!)
• Relevance to the search query
• Spelling and grammatical errors (your high school English teacher was right – grammar matters!)

But it also takes the following into account:

• Bounce rate – high bounce rates can indicate the site was not relevant to the visitor’s search criteria
• Site traffic including new and repeat visitors
• Time spent on site – if visitors are sticking around for a while, chances are they found a site that meets their needs!

Tags: Google • Questions & Answers • Search Engine Optimization