Thursday, November 16, 2023
As of November 16, our Search Quality Rater Guidelines have been updated to simplify our guidelines.
Specifically, we’ve simplified the “Needs Met” scale definitions, added more guidance for different
kinds of web pages and modern examples including newer content formats such as short form video,
removed outdated and redundant examples, and expanded rating guidance for forum and discussion pages.
None of these involve any major or foundational shifts in our guidelines.
As a reminder, these guidelines are what are used by our search raters to help evaluate the performance
of our various search ranking systems, and their ratings don’t directly influence ranking.
The guidelines share important considerations for what content is helpful for people when using Google Search.
Our page on how to create helpful, people-first content summarizes these concepts for creators to
help them self-assess their own content to be successful in Google Search.