Elements of a Quality Article
-
In your opinion, what are the signals Google uses to judge the quality of an article or post?
Here are some of my ideas:
- Reactions:
- Comment history
- Sharing (Twitter / FB / Social Bookmarks...etc)
- Citations / Mentions / Pingbacks
- Word count
- Content (Topical and qualitative analytsis, uniqueness)
- Domain (Qualitative analysis of domain article is published on)
- Use of images and media
- Use of references
- Timeliness (News, current affairs)
- Presence of date of publishing
- Spam filters:
- Anchor text usage
- Number, type and relation of outgoing links
- Content (Topical, semantic, qualitative analysis including keyword usage)
- Author data:
- Presence of author name
- Connection / link to author profile (hyperlink, rel tag, meta)
- Reputation of author (prior content, domains published and reactions)
Looking forward to your contributions.
- Reactions:
-
Try the keyword research tool for google adwords.
-
Pretty much if you follow advice from this page you can't go wrong. As far as I know there isn't a "content comprehensiveness tool" out there (yet).
-
So this is a tool or a way that we can determine how to make the article comprehensive enough based on a certain topic? I know I want to write about widgets but is there a tool that can tell me I should write about blue widgets to get better results?
-
Yes, I forgot about that post. These rules became guidelines for my team as soon as they were launched. They fail to provide specific technical guidance however. For example "Would you trust this information?" - how does Google figure that out? Surely there are algorithmic signals involved.
-
Just in case some people aren't familiar with Google's recent post about high quality sites, I'll throw that into the mix. I've edited the list, and selected things that focus more on an individual article than the site itself.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html
- Would you trust the information presented in this article?
- Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
- Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
- Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
- Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
- Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
- How much quality control is done on content?
- Does the article describe both sides of a story?
- Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
- Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
- Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
- Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
- Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
- Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
- Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
- Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
-
For a single word query, I believe that google wants an article in the #1 position that is the first document that a person should read about that subject. That article should be comprehensive.
-
I like this. It makes so much sense and Google does have the data to put the criteria together.
-
Is the content comprehensive?
If you are writing an article about widgets, google knows what everybody is asking about them.... people want to know about brass widgets, the cost of widgets, widget inventor, the first widget, number of widgets made annually.... google knows this from search queries.
If you are trying to rank for the word "widgets" google could assess your article and determine if you are comprehensive - that means you are addressing all of the subjects that everybody is asking about - or at least the ones that are most frequently asked about.
Incorporating this into your writing has many benefits. One is that you have what visitors want to know and second it puts your page into relevancy for lots of long tail queries.
Anybody can write an article about widgets... but the savvy writer knows what people want to know about them and has the expertise to address all of those details.
-
In addition to visitor "Reactions", I would like to think that visitor "Interactions" are important.
Google might be able to collect "interactions" information from the SERPs logs, Google Toolbar and Chrome browser to determine... just speculating....
--- how long a visitor stays on the page
--- how much a visitor scrolls
--- does the visitor click
--- does the visitor print or bookmark
I don't know if these are used or if google can even detect them. However, I think that they would be valuable information for determining content qualilty or at least how much visitors interact with it.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Downsides on shortening article title?
Hi there, I'm new to Moz: great tool so far! I just tried the page optimization feature and see that (for instance for this article) page titles are often too long. Now it's tempting to just shorten the title straight away, but I have a memory of someone once telling me changing the title will change the URL. And changing the URL is something not appreciated by Google. Could someone please explain if and why this is/isn't the case? And if there are any downsides/things to consider before changing the article's title? Thank you in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | RaoulWB1 -
Does a similar article title bring negative impact to seo?
I am wondering if a similar article title may bring negative impact to seo, such as: 1. The benefits of eating potatoes 2. The benefits of eating tomatoes 2. The benefits of eating apples. Any idea? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | tangjianghuan0 -
A charset attribute on a meta element found after the first 1024 bytes.
Can anybody help me with this error please... Error: A charset attribute on a meta element found after the first 1024 bytes https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fsocialmotors.uk%2F I have no idea how to find or fix this issue, i have spoke to my theme dev and they say it is not a problem with the theme, so i do not know were to turn now. As you will see in the link above there are a couple of errors, i do not know how to fix them either 😞 Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Taylor170 -
Would you Consider this High Quality?
Hello, I have a wordpress website that i have updated with a lot of content about the products i sell. Some of the pages link back to my ecommerce website (all links are targeted at the proper/related page). I put a lot of time and effort into creating the content and providing all of the information that i think users or consumers would find useful, but the site doesn't rank at all. I'm wondering what your opinions are as to why this is not being shown in the serps. The URL is http://goo.gl/Qz5jSQ All opinions welcome. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Prime850 -
Can you help with quality and interesting content ideas?
Hi I'm ranking for "online biology degree" and "online wildlife biology degree" but I have bad content and I receive almost 100% bounce rate. Can you help me with ideas on good content and interesting information I can provide for people looking for "online wildlife biology degree" and "online biology courses" "biology degree online" Every idea would be appreciated. Yoseph
On-Page Optimization | | Joseph-Green-SEO0 -
New Articles and Posts - what key word to focus on?
I have a few pages on my site focused on key words...such as office design Birmingham. The contact page and a tag page. http:www.businessinteriors.co.uk/tag/office-design-birmingham/ Now I recently published an article about a big new office design in birmingham for a company....and I tagged it as office design birmingham naturally...put it in the category for Birmingham office news....and then also put office design Birmingham at key strategic seo points.... the result being this article now seems to rank higher than my office design Birmingham pages?! My question is this....how should I optimise posts? Lets say I put 3 or 4 posts on my webiste/blog about an "office design Birmingham"....I dont want to rank for "HSBC office design birmingham"....I want the article to lend weight to my office design Birmingham credentials ...so I focus on office design birmingham? I dont really want my posts to rank very high though...I want them to help my key pages "float". I'm very confused how to optimise my posts. If I do it too well, they out rank the "old" pages that I actually want people to visit?! Mmm, thanks for pointers!
On-Page Optimization | | bizint0 -
Is it better to embed my longtail article or give it a separate url?
Within my e-commerce site I have jewelers who using uncommon techniques and maetrials. I have a few long tail type article ready to publish about these niche topics. My site navigation has each jeweler as a category with their often changing products within their category. I am thinking I would add an article to the artist-category content. But in the past, I have put "how to" or "what is" content in an article section of the site. This way I could link to it from several places. With the long tail in mind, would I be better off adding the article to the jeweler's category page? If I have a 2nd jeweler using this same technique, I am thinking I would rewrite the 1st article including different long tail phrases. Thank You for Helping- Handcrafter
On-Page Optimization | | stephenfishman0 -
I need quality backlinks. Do they need to be similar to company website?
Our website seems to be well optimized. However I need to find more quality backlinks. I am having a hard time with this. Do backlinks have to related to the company? The reason I ask is because I can receive some links, but they do not relate to our company. BUT sometimes we have customers come to our facility and we book them a local hotel room and send them to near by restaurants. Is it ok to have local restaurants and local hotels links on our website and have them link to ours, on a page for customer visits. OR any other tips on receiving quality backlinks?
On-Page Optimization | | hfranz0