Every page belongs to a website, and it should be clear:

• Who (what individuals, company, business, organization, government agency, etc.) is responsible for the website.
• Who (what individuals, company, business, organization, government agency, etc.) created the content on the page you are evaluating.

Websites are usually very clear about who is responsible for the website and who created the content on the page. There are many reasons for this:

• People may want to showcase their own personal talent, experiences, and perspectives.
• Artists, authors, musicians, and other original content creators may want to be known and appreciated.
• Commercial websites may have copyrighted material they want to protect.
• Businesses and organizations may want people to know who they are and what they do.
• Stores want customers to feel comfortable buying their products online.

Most websites have “contact us” or “about us” or “about” pages that provide information about who owns the site. Many companies have an entire website or blog devoted to who they are and what they are doing, what jobs are available, etc. Here are some examples:

In PQ rating tasks, you will need to identify who created the MC on the page. To help you do so, the table below describes the primary content creators for common webpage types. These types can overlap (e.g., a page may have multiple articles, some written by individual authors or journalists and others written by the website owner).

Now that you are an expert in understanding websites and webpages, here are the high-level steps of Page Quality rating:

1. Assess the true purpose of the page. If the website or page has a harmful purpose or is designed to deceive people about its true purpose, it should be rated Lowest.
2. Assess the potential of the page to cause harm as described in these guidelines. Websites or pages that are harmful to people or society, untrustworthy, or spammy as defined in these guidelines should be rated Lowest.
3. Otherwise, the PQ rating is based on how well the page achieves its purpose as described in these guidelines.

On Page Quality rating tasks, you will use the Page Quality sliding scale (slider) to assign the overall PQ rating.

You may also use the in-between ratings of Lowest+, Low+, Medium+, and High+. Please interpret the "+" as "+ 1⁄2," meaning that the Lowest+ rating is halfway between Lowest and Low, Low+ is halfway between Low and Medium, etc.

Identifying Lowest and Low quality pages can be the most difficult part of PQ rating. The guidance in the sections on Lowest and Low is more extensive to help you rate accurately. High and Highest quality pages are typically easier to identify, but be sure to apply the standards and examine the examples throughout these guidelines to help calibrate your ratings.

The following table summarizes the things that you should consider in Page Quality rating. Upcoming sections of these guidelines will elaborate on these considerations and explain how they apply to pages across the PQ rating scale.

The quality of the Main Content (MC) is one of the most important considerations for PQ rating. The MC plays a major role in determining how well a page achieves its purpose.

The unifying theme for evaluating the quality of the MC is the extent to which the MC allows the page to achieve its purpose and offers a satisfying user experience. For most pages, the quality of the MC can be determined by the amount of effort, originality, and talent or skill that went into the creation of the content.

Key Quality Factors:

Effort: Consider the extent to which a human being actively worked to create satisfying content. Effort may be direct, such as a person translating a poem from one language to another. Effort may go into designing page functionality or building systems that power a webpage.

Originality: Consider the extent to which the content offers unique, original content that is not available on other websites. If other websites have similar content, consider whether the page is the original source.

Talent or Skill: Consider the extent to which the content is created with enough talent and skill to provide a satisfying experience for people who visit the page.

Accuracy: For informational pages, consider the extent to which the content is factually accurate. For pages on YMYL topics, consider the extent to which the content is accurate and consistent with well-established expert consensus.

The purpose of the page, topic of the page, and type of website all play a role in how to evaluate the quality of the MC. For example, consistency with well-established expert consensus is important for medical advice. Skill is important for how-to videos. Talent and originality is important for artistic expression.

For each page you evaluate, spend a few minutes examining the MC before drawing a conclusion about it. Read the article, watch the video, examine the pictures, use the calculator, play the online game, etc. Remember that MC also includes page features and functionality, so test the page out. For example, if the page is a product page on a store website, put at least one product in the cart to make sure the shopping cart is functioning. If the page is an online game, try to play the game yourself. Do your best to imagine that you are someone who's very interested in the topic, functionality, or purpose served by the page, then think about how satisfying the MC would be for that person.

High and low quality MC comes in all formats (e.g., text, audio, video, images) and all lengths (e.g., short-form videos and full-length professional documentaries). High and low quality content also exists on all types of websites, from small personal sites to large corporate sites, from forums and social media to websites that handle financial transactions. Think carefully about what helps the page achieve its purpose and what makes the MC satisfying for users.

An important part of PQ rating is understanding the reputation of the website. If the website is not the primary creator of the MC, it's important to research the reputation of the content creator as well.

Reputation research should be performed according to the topic of the page. For example, if the page contains medical information, research the reputation of the website and content creator for providing medical information.

A website's or content creator's reputation can also help you understand what a website or content creator is best known for. For example, newspapers may be known for high quality, independent investigative reporting while satire websites may be known for their humor.

A website's reputation is based on the experience of real users and the opinions of people who are experts. Websites may represent real companies, organizations, and other entities. Reputation research applies to both the website and the actual company, organization, or entity that the website is representing.

Many websites are eager to tell users how great they are. Your job is to independently evaluate the Page Quality of the website, not just accept information that appears on one or two pages of the website without further verification. Be skeptical of claims that websites make about themselves, particularly when there is a clear conflict of interest.

Instead, look for independent reviews, references, recommendations by experts, news articles, and other sources of credible information about the website. Look for information written by a person or organization, not statistics or other machine-compiled information.

For YMYL topics, the reputation of a website should be judged by what experts in the field have to say. Recommendations from expert sources, such as professional societies, are strong evidence of a positive reputation.

Sources of reputation information will also vary according to the topic or type of company/organization/entity that the website represents. For example, you might find that a newspaper (with an associated website) has won journalistic awards. Prestigious awards or a history of high-quality original reporting are strong evidence of positive reputation for news websites.

Note that some types of information about a website is not related to its reputation. For example, websites like Similarweb have information about Internet traffic to the website, but do not provide evidence of positive or negative reputation. You can ignore this type of information since it's not helpful for PQ rating.

Customer reviews can be helpful for assessing the reputation of a store, business, or any website that offers products or services to users. You may consider a large number of detailed, trustworthy, positive user reviews as evidence of positive reputation for a store or business.

However, you should interpret customer reviews with care, particularly if there are only a few. Keep the following in mind:

• Be skeptical of both positive and negative reviews. Anyone can write them, including the website owner or someone whom the store or business hires for this purpose.
• Try to find as many reviews as possible. Any store or business can get a few negative reviews—this is completely normal and expected.
• Read the reviews because the content of the reviews matter, not just the number or star rating. Credible, convincing reports of fraud and financial wrongdoing is evidence of extremely negative reputation.

Here is how to research the reputation of the website:

1. Identify the "homepage" of the website. For example, for the IBM website, ibm.com is the homepage.
2. Using ibm.com as an example, try one or more of the following searches on Google:
   • [ibm -site:ibm.com] - A search for IBM that excludes pages on ibm.com.
   • ["ibm.com" -site:ibm.com] - A search for "ibm.com" that excludes pages on ibm.com.
   • [ibm reviews -site:ibm.com] - A search for reviews
   • ["ibm.com" reviews -site:ibm.com] - A search for reviews of "ibm.com" that excludes pages on ibm.com.

3. Look for articles, references, recommendations by experts, and other credible information written by people about the website.
4. Make sure the information you find is appropriate for judging the reputation of the website. For example, reputation information for YMYL topics should come from sources that have expertise in the associated YMYL topic.

Here are some examples of reputation information:

For individual authors and content creators, biographical information articles and online discussions can be a good source of reputation information. Expect to find more formal reputation information about people who create content in a journalistic, scientific, academic, or other traditionally professional capacity, as they often need online credibility for professional success.

Educational degrees, peer validation, expert co-authors, and citations can be evidence of positive reputation information for professionals who publish their work. Employment history can also support a positive reputation for topics where training, credentials, or experience are important.

Influencers and other individual content creators who earn income on social media platforms often have reputation information available as well, ranging from biographical details or news articles to less formal reputation sources such as comments by other influencers in their fields.

For non-professional content creators including ordinary people who post on social media or forums, you may find informal reputation information on the page itself such as comments by other people about the creators. For example, you may find comments or posts from other users helpful to see what other people think about a particular content creator.

You should expect to find some reputation information for large websites and well-known content creators. People or businesses who create content in a professional capacity typically have some reputation information available.

However, small websites may have little or no reputation information. This is not indicative of high or low quality. Many small local businesses or community organizations have a small "web presence" and rely on word of mouth.

Furthermore, many ordinary people participate in forum discussions or post on social media websites in a personal capacity. People may use an alias or username to post in order to avoid sharing personally identifiable information online. There may be no reputation information available for some individuals. A lack of reputation about people who post personal content is neither a positive nor a negative sign in your assessment of the page.

Finally, remember that there are several important considerations involved in PQ rating (refer back to Section Section 3.1). Reputation is important, but if reputation information is not available for a website or content creator, pay extra attention to other PQ considerations, especially when assessing pages on YMYL topics.

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust (E-E-A-T) are all important considerations in PQ rating. The most important member at the center of the E-E-A-T family is Trust.

Trust: Consider the extent to which the page is accurate, honest, safe, and reliable.

The type and amount of Trust needed depends on the page, for example:

• Online stores need secure online payment systems and reliable customer service.
• Product reviews should be honest and written to help others make informed purchasing decisions (rather than solely to sell the product).
• Informational pages on clear YMYL topics must be accurate to prevent harm to people and society.
• Social media posts on non-YMYL topics may not need a high level of Trust, such as when the purpose of the post is to entertain its audience and the content of the post does not risk causing harm.

Experience, Expertise and Authoritativeness are important concepts that can support your assessment of Trust:

Experience: Consider the extent to which the content creator has the necessary first-hand or life experience for the topic. Many types of pages are trustworthy and achieve their purpose well when created by people with a wealth of personal experience. For example, which would you trust: a product review from someone who has personally used the product or a "review" by someone who has not?

Expertise: Consider the extent to which the content creator has the necessary knowledge or skill for the topic. Different topics require different levels and types of expertise to be trustworthy. For example, which would you trust: home electrical rewiring advice from a skilled electrician or from an antique homes enthusiast who has no knowledge of electrical wiring?

Authoritativeness: Consider the extent to which the content creator or the website is known as a go-to source for the topic. While most topics do not have one official, Authoritative website or content creator, when they do, that website or content creator is often among the most reliable and trustworthy sources.

When it comes to Page Quality rating, your assessment of E-E-A-T should be informed by one or more of the following:

• What the website or content creators say about themselves: Look at the "About us" page on the website or profile page of the content creator as a starting point.
• What others say about the website or content creators: Look for independent reviews, references, news articles, and other sources of credible information about the website or content creators.
• What is visible on the page, including the Main Content and sections such as reviews and comments: For some types of pages, the level of experience and expertise may be clear from the MC itself.

Pages on YMYL topics can be created for a wide variety of different purposes. If the purpose of a page on a clear YMYL topic is to give information or offer advice, a high level of expertise may be required for the page to be trustworthy.

However, sometimes pages on YMYL topics are created to share personal experiences, often regarding difficult life challenges. People turn to each other in times of need to share their own experience, seek comfort or inspiration, and learn from others. Factual information from experts and authoritative sources may not satisfy this need.

Pages that share first-hand life experience on clear YMYL topics may be considered to have high E-E-A-T as long as the content is trustworthy, safe, and consistent with well-established expert consensus. In contrast, some types of YMYL information and advice must come from experts.

Lowest quality pages are untrustworthy, deceptive, harmful to people or society, or have other highly undesirable characteristics. The considerations for Lowest quality include quality of the MC, reputation, E-E-A-T, etc., but there are special checks you will need to complete first.

As a reminder, here are the steps for doing PQ rating:

1. Assess the true purpose of the page. If the website or page has a harmful purpose or is designed to deceive people about its true purpose, it should be rated Lowest.
2. Assess the potential of the page to cause harm as described in these guidelines. Websites or pages that are harmful to people or society, untrustworthy, or spammy as specified in these guidelines should receive the Lowest rating.
3. Otherwise, the PQ rating is based on how well the page achieves its purpose using the criteria outlined in these guidelines.

Steps 1 and 2 are a screening process to quickly detect harmful content before other PQ considerations are applied.

There are many different shapes and forms that Lowest pages can take. To help you keep track, the table below organizes Lowest pages into three broad categories: Harmful, Untrustworthy, and Spammy. These categories can overlap (e.g., pages that contain Harmfully Misleading Information are also Untrustworthy).

Use the Lowest rating for pages with content that encourages, depicts, incites, or directly causes harm to self or other individuals. Harm includes physical, mental, emotional, or financial harm to people.

Pages should be considered Harmful to Self or Other Individuals if they directly attempt to harm people; encourage behavior that may result in harm; depict extremely violent or gory content without a beneficial/educational purpose; or otherwise are severely traumatic to people who view the page.

Pages do not have to be harmful to all people to be considered Harmful to Self or Other Individuals. Different people have different levels of vulnerability to scams, awareness of potential dangers (e.g., dangerous feats depicted in stunt videos), and tolerance for viewing violent/disturbing content. If there is a reasonable possibility that viewing a particular page would cause harm to those who are most vulnerable, it should be considered harmful.

Pages created with a beneficial purpose that report on, discuss, or inform about harmful actions or events (e.g., fictional entertainment, reputable news, education) should typically not be considered Harmful to Self or Other Individuals.

Use the Lowest rating for pages that promote, condone, or incite hatred against a Specified Group of people.

For the purposes of Search Quality rating, a Specified Group is a group of people that can be defined on the basis of:

• Age (e.g., older adults)
• Caste (e.g., Dalits)
• Disability (e.g., people who are blind)
• Ethnicity (e.g., Roma)
• Gender Identity and Expression (e.g., transgender people)
• Immigration Status (e.g., student visa holders)
• Nationality (e.g., Italians)
• Race (e.g., Asians)
• Religion (e.g., Christians)
• Sex/Gender (e.g., men)
• Sexual Orientation (e.g., lesbians)
• Veteran Status (e.g., Marines)
• Victims of a major violent event and their kin (e.g., victims of the Holocaust)
• Any other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization (e.g., refugees, people experiencing homelessness)

The tone of the harmful content must be either serious (i.e., not joking or satirical) or mean-spirited (i.e., with an intent to demean or promote intolerance) to be considered Harmful to Specified Groups. Comedy or artistic expression related to a Specified Group should not be considered harmful unless it is clearly mean-spirited or has other clear harmful impact.

Criticism of objects, philosophies, and ideas are generally not considered Harmful to Specified Groups. For example, negative criticism of a religious doctrine should not be considered targeted at the Specified Group that follows that religion. Remember that the content must promote, condone, or incite hatred of people to be considered Harmful to Specified Groups.

Educational pages (e.g., definitions, research, academic papers), news stories, or other pages that have a beneficial purpose of informing society should not be considered Harmful to Specified Groups. Similarly, historical documents/videos that aim to capture the beliefs of different eras should not be considered Harmful to Specified Groups.

Here are some examples of content that is vs. is not considered Harmful to Specified Groups:

Use the Lowest rating for pages that mislead people in ways that can cause harm to people and society. Misleading pages may have been produced with the intent to misinform people, or the content creator may believe that the inaccurate information they are sharing is true.

There is an especially high standard for accuracy on clear YMYL topics or other topics where inaccurate information can cause harm. Be sure to research consequential facts or claims as necessary and to the extent the task time allows.

Pages should be considered to contain Harmfully Misleading Information when they contain at least one of the following:

Harmfully Misleading Information can occur from any websites or content creators - even seemingly "expert", "authoritative" or "official" ones. Any type of page with Harmfully Misleading Information should be rated Lowest, regardless of the source.

However, note that some types of information are subjective, debatable, unverifiable, or inconsequential. For example, pages should not be considered to contain Harmfully Misleading Information if they exclusively contain:

• Non-YMYL content created with a clear entertainment purpose, containing no hard claims of factual accuracy and are not harmful to people or society. Examples include many types of fiction, satire or parody, astrology, folklore, myths, and urban legends.
• Reviews expressing personal preferences, opinions, or value-based judgments about a product, restaurant, book/movie/TV show, etc.
• Claims or statements that are reasonably debatable when there is not a single established correct answer or truth (e.g., discussions about the relative effectiveness of different healthcare systems)
• Insignificant errors or inaccurate information about a trivial topic (e.g., inaccuracies in the height of a celebrity)

Pages that aim to persuade others that a certain position or perspective is correct are fairly common on the Internet. Pages with one-sided/opinionated/controversial/polarizing content should not be considered to contain Harmfully Misleading Information unless they could create harm to individuals or Specified Groups (as described above) and contain clearly inaccurate information, contradict well-established expert consensus, or are not grounded by reasonable facts/evidence.

A webpage may be considered to have Harmfully Misleading Information based on the MC or on other characteristics of the page or information about the content creator (e.g., the title of an article is harmfully misleading, even if the article on its own is not; a creator blatantly misrepresenting their medical credentials for a video on medical topics).

Harmfully Misleading Information can be especially hard to identify because it may require research from outside sources. Reputable fact-checking websites can't always keep up with the volume of unsubstantiated theories/claims produced by the Internet, and some theories may even claim that debunking information is inaccurate. You should attempt to find high-quality, trustworthy sources to check accuracy and seek out the consensus of experts if you are unsure. Please research theories and claims to the extent the task time allows. If a theory/claim seems wildly improbable and can't be verified by independent trustworthy sources, you should consider it unsubstantiated.

The Lowest rating should be used for pages or websites you strongly suspect are engaging in deceptive or malicious practices. Some untrustworthy pages are created to benefit the website or organization rather than helping people. Some untrustworthy pages may even exist to cause harm to people who engage with the page, such as scams or malicious downloads.

Your assessment of untrustworthiness may be based on the content of the page, information about the website, information about the content creator, and the reputation of the website or content creator. Your assessment may also be based on a lack of critically important information. For example, any website involving financial transactions or sensitive information should have comprehensive information about who is responsible for the site and a way to contact the site if something goes wrong.

If some aspect of a page or website makes you suspect deception or maliciousness, please look for information about the site. If you cannot find reputation information to confirm your suspicion, carefully explore the site. Sometimes a single page on an unknown website in isolation may seem odd but subsequent exploration shows no concern. However, if you see a pattern of what appears to be deception or manipulation or become concerned about your own safety, please use the Lowest rating and leave the website immediately.

Pages with the following characteristics should be considered Untrustworthy:

• Multiple or significant factual inaccuracies on an informational page which would cause users to lose trust in the webpage as a reliable source of information
• Inadequate information about the website or content creator for its purpose
• Lowest E-E-A-T or Lowest reputation
• Deceptive purpose, deceptive page design, or deceptive intent
• Deliberately obstructed or obscured MC
• Characteristics of scams, malicious downloads, or other harmful behavior
• Any webpage or website designed to manipulate people into actions that benefit the website or other organization while causing harm to self, others, or Specified Groups

For pages that require a high level of trust, information about who created the content and who is responsible for the content is critical. As discussed in Section 2.5.3, we expect most websites to have some information about who (e.g., what individual, company, business, foundation, etc.) is responsible for the website and who created the MC and some contact information, unless there is a good reason for anonymity. As you will see in the examples below, many types of Lowest pages such as malicious downloads and scams typically have no information or fake information about who is responsible to prevent recourse by people who are harmed.

Any site that handles personal, private or sensitive data must provide extensive contact information. This includes sites that ask users to create passwords, share personal information, or conduct financial transactions. YMYL pages or websites that handle sensitive data with absolutely no information about the website or content creator should be rated Lowest.

If the E-E-A-T of a page is low enough, people cannot or should not use the MC of the page. If a page on YMYL topics is highly inexpert, it should be considered Untrustworthy and rated Lowest.

Use the Lowest rating if the website and content creator have an extremely negative reputation, to the extent that many people would consider the webpage or website untrustworthy.

Here are some examples originally shown in Section 3.3.3. All pages on these websites should be rated Lowest because of the credible extremely negative or malicious reputation of these websites, making them untrustworthy.

All pages or websites using deception of any type should be rated Lowest because they are Untrustworthy. Here are some types of deception to look for during Page Quality rating.

Please see below for some examples.

Deceptive purpose:

• A webpage with deliberately inaccurate information to promote products in order to make money from clicks on monetized links. Examples include a product recommendation page on a website falsely impersonating a celebrity blog, or a product recommendation based on a false claim of personal, independent testing when no such testing was conducted.
• A webpage claims to offer an independent review or share other information about a product, but is in fact created to make money for the owner of the website without attempting to help users. For example, the MC may contain intentionally misleading or inaccurate information created with the sole purpose of getting users to click on monetized links or buy the product.

Deceptive information about the website or content creators:

• A webpage or website that impersonates a different site e.g., copied logo or branding of an unaffiliated site, URL that mimics another site's name, etc.
• A non-satirical social network profile made by an impersonator.
• A webpage or website that looks like a news source or information page, but in fact has articles to manipulate users in order to benefit a person, business, government, or other organization politically, monetarily, or otherwise.
• A website claims to be the personal website of a celebrity, but the website is actually created to make money for the owner of the website without the permission of the celebrity. For example, the page may have false testimonials for a product and is created for the sole purpose of getting users to click on monetized links or buy the product.
• A webpage or website with deceptive business information. For example, a website may claim to have a physical "brick and mortar" store but in fact only exists online. While there is nothing wrong with being an online business, claiming to have a physical "brick and mortar" (e.g. fake photo, fake physical store address) is deceptive.
• A webpage or website with "fake" owner or content creator profiles. For example, AI generated content with made up "author" profiles (AI generated images or deceptive creator descriptions) in order to make it appear that the content is written by people.
• Factually inaccurate and deceptive information about creator expertise. For example, an author or creator profile inaccurately claims to have credentials or expertise (e.g. the content creator claims falsely to be a medical professional) to make the content appear more trustworthy than it is.

Deceptive design:

• Pages that disguise Ads as MC. Actual MC may be minimal or created to encourage users to click on the Ads. For example , fake search pages that have a list of links that look like a page of search results. If you click on a few of the links, you will see that the page is just a collection of Ads disguised as search engine results. A "search box" is present, but submitting a new query just gives you a different page of Ads disguised as search results.
• Pages that disguise Ads as website navigation links. For example , fake directory pages that look like a personally curated set of helpful links, possibly with unique descriptions. In reality, the links are Ads or links to other similar pages on the site. Sometimes the descriptions of the links are unrelated to the page.
• Pages with deceptively designed buttons or links. For example, buttons or links on pop ups, interstitials or on the page are designed to look like they do one thing (such as close a pop up) but in fact have a different result which most people would not expect, e.g. download an app.
• Pages with a misleading title or a title that has nothing to do with the content on the page. People who come to the page expecting content related to the title will feel tricked or deceived.

Take a good look at the page and use your judgment. If you believe the true purpose of the page is not what it appears to be, the page should be rated Lowest. If you believe the page was deliberately created with the primary purpose to manipulate users to click on Ads, monetized links, questionable download links, etc., rather than to help people, the page should be rated Lowest. If the website has any form of deceptive or significantly misleading information about itself, or if the page or website uses deception in any form even if not described here, the page should be rated Lowest.

Pages are untrustworthy if the MC is deliberately obstructed or obscured due to Ads, SC, interstitial pages, download links or other content that is beneficial to the website owner but not necessarily the website visitor. Attempts to manipulate or coerce users away from the MC is evidence of untrustworthiness.

Here are some examples of pages with deliberately obstructed or obscured MC that should be rated Lowest:

• Ads that continue to cover the MC as the website visitor scrolls down the page. The Ads are virtually impossible to close without clicking on the Ad
• Pop-ups that obscure the MC and cannot be closed without taking an action that benefits the website
• An interstitial page that attempts to coerce a download or click that does not benefit the website visitor
• Ads that push the MC down so far that many users would not notice the MC
• MC in white-on-white text or MC presented so that it is difficult for a human being to read

Logins or paywalls on otherwise trustworthy sites should not be considered untrustworthy, deceptive, or coercive. Many high quality sites such as newspapers or magazines cannot exist without monetization through subscriptions and paywalls. Some types of MC should be login protected, such as pages with personal information online banking websites or private pages on social network websites.

MC may be inaccessible for non-deliberate or non-coercive reasons, such as content that doesn't load or content that is unavailable in a country or region. These are not reasons for Lowest. Use your judgment to assess whether the page is designed to manipulate or coerce users into taking actions that benefit the website. If you are unsure, look at other pages on the same website, conduct reputation research, etc.

It may be difficult to prove that a page causes harm without experiencing harm yourself. For this reason, you may use the Lowest rating if you strongly suspect a page is malicious or harmful even without having proof.

Any of the following should be considered untrustworthy:

• Pages or websites that you strongly suspect are scams (see these links for more information about Internet scams: Avoid Scams 1 , Avoid Scams 2 , Internet Fraud ).
• Pages that ask for personal information without a legitimate reason (for example, pages that ask for name, birthdate, address, bank account, government ID number, etc.).
• Pages that appear to "phish" for passwords to Facebook, Gmail, or other popular online services. See here for information about "phishing" fraud.
• Pages with links that you strongly suspect are malware downloads.

Note that not all warnings your browser may display are related to malware (e.g., other types of browser warnings include certificate acceptance requests, content filtering warnings, etc.). If you are unsure or hesitant to continue to the page for any reason, you can release the task.

Pages and websites should exist for the benefit of people who visit the website. There are many types of webpages that can benefit visitors, such as online shopping or banking services, videos offering entertainment, or personal pages sharing a perspective or experience. Some of these pages depend on advertising and monetization to maintain the website and create high quality content while still benefiting visitors.

However, some pages are created to benefit the website owner or other organizations and with little to no attention paid to the experience of the people who visit. When such pages use deceptive techniques to appear near the top of search results, it may disincentivize the creation of high quality content by crowding out pages created with effort, originality, talent, or skill that is helpful for visitors.

This section describes characteristics of spam or spam-like pages that should be rated Lowest. The Google Search Web Spam Policies page is a good reference to learn more about different spam techniques. If you recognize any of these spam techniques on a page, please use the Lowest rating.

All pages should be created with sufficient MC quality so that the page can achieve its purpose. However, some pages are so lacking in MC that the purpose of the page itself is unclear or you may suspect the page is not actually created for people.

If any of the following are true, the page should be rated Lowest:

• Despite your best efforts, the purpose of the page cannot truly be understood because the MC is gibberish or otherwise unusable for people
• The page deliberately has no MC
• The page is deliberately created with so little MC that it fails to achieve any purpose
• The page is deliberately created with such low quality MC that it fails to achieve any purpose
• The MC is created with little to no effort, has no originality and the MC adds no value compared to similar pages on the web

A hacked or defaced website is a site that has been modified without permission from the website owner(s). Websites can become hacked, defaced, or filled with a large amount of distracting and unhelpful content from bad actors. Bad actors may add unrelated MC or SC or may modify existing MC on webpages to change the purpose of the page. These pages should be rated Lowest because they fail to achieve their original purpose.

Responsible website owners should regularly check their websites for suspicious behavior and take steps to protect users.

A common problem on forum pages or in the comments sections of pages is "spammed" comments: posts with unrelated comments that are not intended to help other people, but rather to advertise a product or create a link to a website. Frequently these comments are posted by a "bot" rather than a real person. If a specific page on a website has many unrelated "spammed" comments, the page should be rated Lowest.

See the Google Search Essentials Hacked Content Policy for more information.

Expired domain abuse is where an expired domain name is purchased and repurposed primarily to benefit the new website owner by hosting content that provides little to no value to users. Often the expired domain was a highly trusted site such as a government website, a charity, or a school with a trustworthy looking URL. The new website owner hopes to rank well using the reputation of the expired domain. The new content is often highly monetized or otherwise benefits the owner of the website. Visitors to the website may be confused by the new content, expecting to find a trustworthy government website, charity, etc.

Here are some examples:

• Affiliate content on a site previously used by a government agency
• Commercial medical products being sold on a site previously used by a non-profit medical charity
• Casino-related content on a former elementary school site

How can you tell if a page is abusing an expired domain?

Sometimes the URL or other aspects of the website offers a clue. For example, the URL may look like an elementary school website but the current content is on a topic that you would not expect from an elementary school such as payday loans or gambling.

To confirm, look up the homepage or other pages of the website on the Internet Archive to see if an obvious change has occurred.

Site reputation abuse is a tactic where third-party content is published on a host site mainly because of that host's already-established ranking signals, which it has earned primarily from its first-party content. The goal of this tactic is for the content to rank better than it could otherwise on its own.

Third-party content is content that's created by an entity that's separate from the established host site. Examples of separate entities include users of that site, freelancers, white-label services, and content created by people not employed directly by the host site.

Having third-party content alone isn't site reputation abuse; it's only site reputation abuse if the third-party content is published on a host site mainly because of that host site's already-established ranking signals.

Examples of site reputation abuse include, but are not limited to:

• An educational site hosting a page about sponsored reviews of payday loans written by a third-party that distributes the same page to other sites across the web
• A medical site hosting a third-party advertising page about "best casinos" that readers wouldn't expect and that's being placed on the site to rank better due to the established site's ranking signals
• A movie review site hosting third-party pages about topics that would be confusing to users to find on a movie review site (such as "ways to buy followers on social media sites", the "best fortune teller sites", and the "best essay writing services")
• A news site hosting coupons provided by a white-label service where the main reason for publishing the coupons on the news site is to capitalize on the news site's reputation
• An established first party site branches out into a new area primarily using freelance content because this content will rank better on the first-party site than it would have otherwise

Examples that are NOT considered site reputation abuse include:

• Wire service or press release service sites
• News publications that have syndicated news content from other news publications
• Sites designed to allow user-generated content, such as a forum website or comment sections
• Columns, opinion pieces, articles, and other work of an editorial nature
• Third-party content (for example, "advertorial" or "native advertising" type pages) where the purpose is to share content directly to readers (such as through promotion within the publication itself), rather than hosting the content to manipulate search rankings
• Using affiliate links throughout a page, with links treated appropriately, or embedding third-party ad units throughout a page
• Coupons that are sourced directly from merchants and other businesses that serve consumers

Creating an abundance of content with little effort or originality with no editing or manual curation is often the defining attribute of spammy websites.
Scaled content abuse is a spam practice described in the Google Search Web Spam Policies. Scaled content abuse occurs when many pages are generated for the purpose of primarily benefiting the website owner and not helping users. This practice is typically focused on creating large amounts of unoriginal content that provides little to no value for website visitors compared to other similar pages on the web, no matter how it's created.

Examples of scaled content abuse include:

• Using automated tools (generative AI or otherwise) as a low-effort way to produce many pages that add little-to-no value for website visitors as compared to other pages on the web on the same topic.
• Scraping feeds, search results, or other content to generate many pages (including through automated transformations like synonymizing, translating, or other obfuscation techniques), where little value is provided to website visitors
• Stitching or combining content from different web pages without adding value
• Creating multiple sites with the intent of hiding the scaled nature of the content
• Creating many pages where the content makes little or no sense to a reader but contains search keywords

Pages and websites made up of content created at scale with no original content or added value for users, should be rated Lowest, no matter how they are created. Even if you are unsure of the method of creation, e.g. whether or not the page is created using generative AI tools, you should still use the Lowest rating when you strongly suspect scaled content abuse after looking at several pages on the website.

The Lowest rating applies if all or almost all of the MC on the page (including text, images, audio, videos, etc) is copied, paraphrased, embedded, auto or AI generated, or reposted from other sources with little to no effort, little to no originality, and little to no added value for visitors to the website. Such pages should be rated Lowest, even if the page assigns credit for the content to another source.

As a reminder, there are many types of effort that people put into content creation, from directly creating the content on the page to building custom page functionality. The criteria "little to no effort" means little to no effort of any type. Please review the description of Effort in Sections 3.2.

The word "copied" refers to the practice of "scraping" content, or copying content from other non-affiliated websites without adding any original content or value to users. (see here for more information on copied or scraped content). Any type of content may be copied: text, images, video, etc. Images may be slightly cropped or edited to avoid detection. People may alter videos as well, or even make a video of a screen playing video!

Content on a webpage may be "paraphrased" from another source. We will consider MC to be paraphrased if it contains content that is unoriginal and exists on other pages, with different wording, organization or phrasing. People can paraphrase content manually by rewriting the content from other sources using different words. Automated tools can also be used to create paraphrased content by restating or summarizing the content on other pages.

Sometimes content is "embedded" or included on the page from another source. There is nothing wrong with embedding content, but the Lowest rating applies if there is no significant original content or added value on the page.

Social media posts may be reposted by an unrelated account. There is nothing wrong with reposting content, but the Lowest rating applies if there is no added value in the form of additional content, context, or discussion.

All of the following are considered copied or paraphrased content:

• Content copied, reposted, or embedded exactly from an identifiable source. Sometimes an entire page is copied, and sometimes just parts of the page are copied. Sometimes multiple pages are copied and then pasted together into a single page. Content that has been copied, reposted, or embedded exactly is usually the easiest type of copied content to identify.
• Content that is copied, but changed slightly from the original. This type of copying makes it difficult to find the exact matching original source. Sometimes just a few words are changed, or whole sentences are changed, or a "find and replace" modification is made, where one word is replaced with another throughout the text. Images may be cropped or videos may be segmented into shorter clips. These types of changes are deliberately done to make it difficult to find the original source of the content. We call this kind of content "copied with minimal alteration."
• Content copied from a changing source, such as a search results page or news feed. You often won't be able to find an exact matching original source if it is a copy of "dynamic" content (content that changes frequently). However, we will still consider this to be copied content.
• Content that is paraphrased from a single source or multiple sources. Content from a single page or from many websites can be summarized, reworded or paraphrased by people or generative AI tools. Paraphrasing may be valuable, for example when an expert paraphrases the contents of a government policy in easy-to-understand language.

How do you determine whether all or most of the MC is copied? How do you identify the original source of the content? How do you know if content is paraphrased from a single page or from multiple pages? These things can be difficult to determine, but the following steps may help.

1. Copy a sentence or phrase in the text. It may be necessary to try a few sentences or phrases from the page just to be sure. When deciding what sentence or phrase to copy, try to find a sentence or series of several words without punctuation, unusual characters, or suspicious words that may have replaced the original text.
2. Search on Google by pasting the sentence or phrase (surrounded by quotation marks to search for an exact match) inside the Google search box. You may also try without quotation marks to search for more general matches.

Here are some sentences and phrases from this page about "The Wizard of Oz" film and how to search for them:

3. Compare the pages you find that match the sentence or phrase. Is most of their MC the same? If so, does one clearly come from a highly authoritative source that is known for original content creation (newspaper, magazine, medical foundation, etc.)? Does one source seem to reasonably be the original? Does one source appear to have the earliest publication date, verified by sources like the Wayback Machine?

Based on this older version of a Wikipedia article "The Wizard of Oz," which can be found using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine Wayback Machine , we can confirm that the text in the table has been copied. Please note that searching for the above sentence and phrases will not lead you to a current Wikipedia article about "The Wizard of Oz," which demonstrates how confirming that the MC of a page contains copied content can sometimes be difficult.

Paraphrased content can be much harder to recognize. Use the same process described above to search for other pages with similar content by searching for sentences from the page or searching for the page title. Paraphrased content is likely to:

• Only contain commonly known information or generally known facts
• Have high overlap with webpages on well established sources such as Wikipedia, reference websites, etc.
• Appear to summarize a specific page such as a forum discussion or news article without any added value
• Have words or other indications of summarizing or paraphrasing generative AI tools, such as words like "As an AI language model" example

Use your best judgment. Sometimes it is clear that the content is copied or paraphrased from somewhere, but you cannot tell what the original source is. Other times the content found on the original source has changed enough that searches for sentences or phrases may no longer match the original source. For example, Wikipedia articles can change dramatically over time. Text copied from old copies may not match the current content. Summaries or paraphrased content may have a different organizational structure than the original source. If you strongly suspect the page you are evaluating is not the original source, consider it likely to be copied or paraphrased.

Low quality pages do not achieve their purpose well because they are lacking in an important dimension or have a problematic aspect. Low quality pages do not meet the standards for Lowest but may have similar though milder undesirable characteristics.

To identify Low quality pages, start by considering the following:

Next, assess the page to determine if any of the criteria for Low apply:

Low quality pages often lack an appropriate level of E-E-A-T for the topic or purpose of the page.

Here are some examples:

• The content creator lacks adequate experience, e.g. a restaurant review written by someone who has never eaten at the restaurant
• The content creator lacks adequate expertise, e.g. an article about how to skydive written by someone with no expertise in the subject
• The website or content creator is not an authoritative or trustworthy source for the topic of the page, e.g. tax form downloads provided on a cooking website.
• The page or website is not trustworthy for its purpose, e.g. a shopping page with minimal customer service information

MC is Low quality if it is created without adequate effort, originality, talent, or skill necessary to achieve the purpose of the page in a satisfying way. Mild inaccuracies on informational pages are evidence of Low quality. However, if the page has harmful inaccuracies or so many inaccuracies that it feels untrustworthy, the Lowest rating is justified.

Here are some examples of pages with Low quality MC:

The title of the page is also considered part of the MC. Titles are important because they represent the page in search results and help users decide what to click on. A misleading title can lead to a poor search experience. Exaggerated or shocking titles are evidence of Low quality because of the poor user experience that results when users see the actual MC after reaching the page.

Here are some examples of pages with Low quality titles:

The level of talent or skill required for artistic expression by ordinary people on social media or other websites that allow content sharing should be viewed leniently. In many cases, people post activities to share with friends, such as a video documenting a first attempt at a new hobby. These types of pages should not be considered Low on the basis of talent or skill because the primary purpose is sharing content. Use the Low rating only if the lack of talent or skill prevents the page from achieving its purpose well.

People who search benefit from a variety of websites offering high quality content and good experiences to website visitors. However, some webpages are created by "repackaging" content available on higher quality sites, with low effort, low originality and low added value for website visitors compared to higher quality sources.

As a reminder, the Lowest rating applies if all or almost all of the MC on the page (including text, images or videos) is copied, paraphrased, embedded, or reposted from other sources with little to no effort, little to no originality, and little to no added value for website visitors. However, the Low rating should be used if much of the MC on the page is copied, paraphrased, embedded or reposted, with a low amount of effort to create value by editing, manually curating, reformatting or injecting some original content.

Examples of low effort, low originality and low added value include:

• Social media reposts with little additional comment or discussion
• Pages with content from other sources (e.g. pages of embedded videos or pages with "repinned" images) with little additional comment, discussion, or curation by the content creator of the page
• "Best" lists based on existing reviews and lists with little original content

The Low rating applies when the MC is created using any technique with low effort, low originality, and low added value for website visitors compared to other pages that contain similar content.

The main content (MC) of a page should support its purpose. Web site owners and content creators should place the most helpful and essential MC near the top of the page so that visitors can immediately access it.

A high quality page has the most helpful MC placed most prominently. Content that supports the page purpose without directly contributing to the primary goal can be included, but it should be shown lower on the page in a less prominent position. For example, on recipe pages, the recipe itself and important supporting content directly related to the recipe should be prominently displayed near the top of the webpage.

Sometimes, MC includes "filler" - low-effort content that adds little value and doesn't directly support the purpose of the page. Filler can artificially inflate content, creating a page that appears rich but lacks content website visitors find valuable. Filler can result in a poor experience

Sometimes, MC includes "filler" - low-effort content that adds little value and doesn't directly support the purpose of the page. Filler can artificially inflate content, creating a page that appears rich but lacks content website visitors find valuable. Filler can result in a poor experience for people who visit the page, especially if placed prominently ahead of helpful content for the purpose of the page.

A Low rating is appropriate if the page:

• Contains a large amount of low quality and unhelpful filler, causing a poor experience for people visiting the page
• Contains a large amount visually prominent filler that makes it difficult to find the helpful MC, causing frustration for people visiting the page

We expect Ads and SC to be visible. However, some Ads, SC, or Interstitial webpage (i.e., pages displayed before or after the content you are expecting) make it difficult to use the MC. Pages with Ads, SC, or other features that significantly distract from or make it difficult for the user to efficiently access the information they want from the page should typically be given a Low rating even if some of the MC is helpful.

A single pop-over Ad or interstitial page with a clear and easy-to-use close button is not terribly distracting, even though it may annoy some people. However, difficult-to-close Ads that follow page scrolls, or interstitial pages that require an app download, can be truly distracting and make the MC difficult to use. You can see examples of interstitial pages here .

The content of the Ads, SC, or other features may be distracting as well: sexually suggestive images, such as here , grotesque images, such as here and sexually suggestive Ads on otherwise non-sexual pages are very distracting.

Finally, Ads and SC can be distracting if the titles or images of the Ads or SC are shocking or disturbing. Here is an example of a page with shocking and exaggerated titles, images, and text in the Ads and SC.

The Low rating should be used if the website or the content creator has a mildly negative reputation.

If the MC was created by a content creator who is using the website to host it, research the reputation of the content creator. Expect to find reputation information on well-known journalists, authors, social media influencers, bloggers and vloggers, professionals such as lawyers and doctors, etc. Pay attention when there is evidence of mildly negative—though not malicious or financially fraudulent—reputation. However, a lack of reputation information for ordinary people and lesser-known content creators is expected and is not a sign of Low quality.

Exercise care when researching the reputation of businesses. Try to find enough reviews to understand a range of customer opinions and experiences, and read the details of negative reviews and low ratings before inferring that the business overall has a negative reputation. A few negative customer service reviews are typical for businesses such as stores or restaurants.

Expect to find some form of website information for many or most websites. We expect clear information about who (e.g., what individual, company, business, foundation, etc.) created the MC, unless there is good reason for anonymity. A long-standing Internet alias or username can identify the content creator. For personal websites or forum discussions on non-YMYL topics, an email address or social media link alone may be sufficient. Many people are reasonably hesitant to share personally identifiable information online!

Stores and websites that process financial transactions require a high level of user trust. If a store or financial transaction website has just an email address and physical address, it may be difficult to get help if there are issues with the transaction. Likewise, many other types of websites on clear YMYL topics also require a high level of user trust.

Recall that deceptive information about a website or content creator is a strong reason for the Lowest rating. However, sometimes the information about the website or content provider seems exaggerated or mildly misleading, such as claims of personal experience or expertise that seem overstated or included just to impress website visitors.

E-E-A-T assessments should be based on the MC itself, the information you find during reputation research, verifiable credentials, etc, not just website or content creator claims of "I'm an expert!".

If you find the information about the website or the content creator to be exaggerated or mildly misleading, the Low rating should be used.

Medium pages have a beneficial purpose and achieve their purpose. There is nothing wrong with Medium quality pages. Expect to encounter many Medium quality pages in PQ rating tasks.

To identify Medium quality pages, start by considering the following:

Next, assess the page to determine if the criteria for Medium apply:

There are two types of Medium quality pages:

High quality pages serve a beneficial purpose and achieve that purpose well. High quality pages exist for almost any beneficial purpose you can imagine, from providing information to selling products to making people laugh to artistic expression.

To identify High quality pages, start by considering the following:

Next, assess the page to determine if the criteria for High apply:

High quality MC should be satisfying for people visiting the page. High quality MC shows evidence of effort, originality, talent, or skill. For informational pages, High quality MC must be accurate and consistent with well-established expert consensus when such consensus exists.

Have high standards! If you aren't sure whether the content is high quality, try finding other pages on the same topic to help calibrate your assessment: "typical" and "average" pages on a topic generally have Medium (not High) quality MC.

To help develop your standards, here are some examples of High quality MC in contrast with Low quality MC:

Positive reputation of the website can be a reason for a High rating if the website is responsible for the MC. If the website is not responsible for the MC (e.g., posts on social media websites or forums), positive reputation of the content creator(s) can be a reason for the High rating.

For non-YMYL topics, reputation information may be less formal. Popularity, user engagement, and user reviews can be considered evidence of reputation for non-YMYL websites: websites can be considered to have a positive reputation if they are popular and well-known for their topic or content type.

Depending on the purpose of the page, topic, and type of website, a high level of E-E-A-T may be required for the page to achieve its purpose well and be considered High quality. Pages with High E-E-A-T are trustworthy or very trustworthy.

Experience is valuable for almost any topic. Social media posts and forum discussions are often High quality when they involve people sharing their experience. From writing symphonies to reviewing home appliances, first-hand experience can make a social media post or discussion page High quality.

Expertise is required for satisfying content on a variety of topics, from hobbies such as photography to YMYL topics such as tax preparation. Think about the topic of the page and what expertise is needed to create satisfying, trustworthy content. There are many types of informal expertise that may be visible in the MC itself.

Authoritative pages of all types can be found. Government tax websites are an authoritative source for tax forms. Local businesses and organizations may be go-to sources for local information. When looking at a page or website, consider whether it is considered a go-to, authoritative source for the type of information it is displaying.

Trust is especially important for High quality pages that involve processing financial transactions or cover YMYL topics. Even if the topic is not YMYL, trust may still be required; for example, product reviews and pages offering advice require at least some level of trust. While not all pages require a high level of trust, a trustworthy page is often a satisfying one.

Think about the topic of the page. What kind of E-E-A-T is required for the page to achieve its purpose well?

Highest quality pages serve a beneficial purpose and achieve that purpose very well. The distinction between High and Highest is based on the quality of MC, the reputation of the website and content creator, and/or E-E-A-T.

To identify Highest quality pages, start by considering the following:

Next, assess the page to determine if the criteria for Highest apply:

Very high quality MC should be highly satisfying for people visiting the page. Very high quality MC shows evidence of a high level of effort, originality, talent, or skill. For informational pages, very high quality MC must be accurate, clearly communicated, and consistent with well-established expert consensus when it exists.

Very high quality MC represents some of the most outstanding content on a topic or type that's available online. The standards for Highest quality MC may be very different depending on the purpose, topic, and type of website.

Here are some examples of Highest quality original content:

• For news: Original reporting that provides information that would not otherwise have been known had the article not revealed it. Accurate, original, in-depth, and investigative reporting requires a high level of skill/talent and effort. Very high quality news content will include a description of primary sources and other original reporting referenced during the content creation process. Very high quality news content must be accurate and should meet professional journalistic standards.
• For artistic content (videos, images, photography, writing, etc.): Unique and original content created by highly skilled and talented artists or content creators. Such artistic content requires a high level of skill/talent and effort. If the artistic content is related to a YMYL topic (e.g., artistic content with the purpose of informing or swaying opinion about YMYL topics), YMYL standards should apply.
• For informational content: Original, accurate, comprehensive, clearly communicated, and should reflect expert consensus as appropriate. Expectations for different types of information may vary. For example, scientific papers have a different set of expectations than a social media post sharing information about a hobby such as stamp collecting. However, all types of very high quality informational content share common characteristics of accuracy and clarity of communication, in addition to meeting standards appropriate to the topic or field.

The Highest rating may be justified for pages with very satisfying MC created with a very high level of effort, originality, talent, or skill.

Reputation research is important when giving Highest ratings. For YMYL topics, very positive reputation is often based on recommendations from known experts or professional societies appropriate to the topic of the page. Prestigious awards may be evidence as well, depending on the topic and type of content.

For non-YMYL topics, reputation information may be less formal. Popularity, user engagement, and user reviews can be considered evidence of reputation for non-YMYL websites: websites and content creators can be considered to have a very positive reputation if they are seen as one of the best sources available online for a topic or type of content.

Very high E-E-A-T is a distinguishing factor for Highest quality pages. A website or content creator who is the uniquely authoritative, go-to source for a topic has very high E-E-A-T. A content creator with a wealth of experience may be considered to have very high E-E-A-T for topics where experience is the primary factor in trust. A very high level of expertise can justify a very high E-E-A-T assessment.

Very high E-E-A-T websites and content creators are the most trusted sources on the internet for a particular topic.

Think about what E-E-A-T means for the topic of the page. How important is first-hand experience? Who are the experts? What makes a source highly authoritative for the topic? What makes a website or content creator trustworthy for the topic? Standards for very high E-E-A-T will differ depending on the topic of the page.

This section provides specific guidance for evaluating different types of pages that may require special considerations during Page Quality rating.

There are many encyclopedia-type websites. Some are highly-respected publications that are standard references, while some are websites with content created and edited by anonymous users, with no editorial oversight or fact checking. We may not always know the author of the specific encyclopedia article, and therefore must rely on website reputation research to determine the E-E-A-T of the article.

High and Highest quality ratings should only be used for encyclopedias with very good reputations for accuracy and expertise, where the article itself is well-researched with appropriate references cited.

A note about Wikipedia: in general, the website has a good reputation and is a very popular resource that is generally valued for accuracy. However, there is no single author or organization that vouches for the accuracy of Wikipedia articles, and the quality of pages varies. You should check individual articles to evaluate the quality of the MC.

• A Wikipedia article on a non-YMYL topic with a satisfying amount of accurate information and trustworthy external references can usually be rated in the High range.
• A PQ rating in the Medium range is often appropriate for pages with less extensive MC and external references.
• Naturally, Wikipedia articles with very little MC should get lower PQ ratings.
• Factual inaccuracy is a sufficient reason for a Low or Lowest rating.

In PQ rating tasks, you may encounter pages with error messages or other types of "broken" pages. Please think about whether the page offers help for users—did the website owner make an effort to ensure that users visiting the page have a good experience and get help finding what they are looking for?

Pages with an explicit error (or custom 404) message are often Medium quality, since they tend to clearly communicate that there's a problem and help users navigate to other/better pages on the website. A rating of High (or occasionally even Highest) may be used for the rare error message page that involves a high level of effort and original content and provides a truly satisfying experience for users.

Pages that are "broken" are often Low quality, because the broken aspect prevents them from achieving their purpose even if the problem is temporary and likely to be fixed later on by the website owner. However, sometimes "broken" pages should be rated Lowest if the problem is not temporary and instead is due to a systemic problem with the website.

To differentiate between Low quality (temporarily broken) vs. Lowest quality (evidence of a systemic problem) pages, check other pages on the same website. If many other pages have the same problem, there is a systemic lack of effort on the part of the website owner that justifies the Lowest rating. Otherwise, use the Low rating to reflect the (hopefully temporary!) issue with the MC on the page.

Here are some examples:

Ratings for forum and Q&A pages can be challenging. Here is some guidance on how to approach these pages:

• The Main Content includes the question, the answers/responses, and the resulting discussions.
• Rate from the point of view of a user who visits the page, rather than a participant involved in the discussion.
• Users who post answers/responses or comments are often identified only by a username or alias. A page can be High or Highest quality with just usernames or aliases depending on other criteria.
• The E-E-A-T of a discussion among users can often be judged by the posts or comments themselves.
  • For some topics, Experience is the most important dimension of Trust. For other topics, assessing Expertise through the posts may be important. In some cases, the posters themselves will highlight either their own Experience or Expertise, or other people will comment on it.
  • Pages on YMYL topics require more attention to Trust and more care in the assessment of E-E-A-T.
• Highest quality forum/Q&A pages have extremely satisfying conversations, including participation from users who have put a great deal of effort into their posts and have a wealth of Experience and/or Expertise on the topic.
• Low quality forum/Q&A pages often lack effort (few responses, surface-level rather than in-depth discussion), lack Experience or Expertise, contain mild inaccuracies, or show a significant lack of respect or decorum among the participants.
• Lowest quality forum/Q&A pages may contain information or advice that is harmfully misleading, contradicts well-established expert consensus, encourages harm towards self or other individuals/participants, etc.

One challenge is rating pages with little to no participation:

• A new page or recently started discussion that consists only of a question or initial post by a person should generally be rated Medium unless there are other low quality attributes. These pages may need time to achieve their purpose.
• Over time, no participation in a discussion (or only superficial discussion) and/or no meaningful answer to an open question may be a reason for a Low quality rating, especially in the presence of other low quality attributes.

Another challenge occurs when the discussion on the page drifts, becomes combative, or becomes dominated by misleading or spammy content. When rating, value the insightful, meaningful discussion that exists. If the page is a mix of high and low quality characteristics but has insightful, meaningful discussion, the Medium rating may be most appropriate as long as the page is not potentially harmful.

At first, PQ rating may seem difficult. There are several aspects of the page and the website to look at and think about.

Do not consider the country or location of the page or website for PQ rating. For example, English (US) raters should use the same PQ standards when rating pages from other English language websites (UK websites, Canadian websites, etc.) as they use when rating pages from U.S. websites.

These guidelines are specific to "regular" webpages. Occasionally, you may be asked to rate a landing page that is not a webpage. For example, you may be asked to rate a PDF file, a PNG or JPEG image file, etc. When the landing page of the URL is not a webpage, some of the criteria in these guidelines may not apply. In this case, please use your judgment.

Finally, this Page Quality Rating Guideline does not completely cover every aspect of page quality. If you find pages that you truly believe to be High or Low quality, please rate them as such, even if the reason is based on something not covered in these guidelines. Please use the comment section to explain your reasoning. As always, use your judgment.

The Page Quality task page is broken up into several parts:

1. Some initial questions about the task landing page.
2. A "PQ grid" to record your observations about PQ characteristics of the landing page.
3. The Overall PQ rating slider which records your Overall PQ rating.
4. A comment box to explain your rating.

Some results to the initial questions will end the task early. If the page is Porn, Foreign Language, Did Not Load, or consists of restricted or inaccessible MC (e.g., subscription is required to view MC), you will not fill in the PQ grid or assign an overall rating.

• Foreign Language should not be used when the language on the landing page is in the task language, a language that is commonly used by a significant percentage of the population in the task location, or English.
• Did Not Load should be used for pages where there is absolutely no content on the page created by the website. There is no MC, SC, or Ads on the page.

The PQ grid is designed to be your "note pad." It allows you to record your observations about the landing page and the website it belongs to.