How Low Can You Go?

byDianeScorpio

18.1K followers

5 years ago

I seem to have skipped a day, blame it on the Jack Daniels.. Never mind, onwards and upwards, or actually in this case, downwards, as we are looking at the lowest rating given by Google's evaluators.

This will take more than one blog post, as Google's manual does go pretty in-depth into this category of site. Lets start with the six different types of low rating aspects they are looking for.

• Pages that potentially spread hate
• Potentially harmful pages
• Pages that potentially misinform users
• Pages that potentially deceive users
• Lack of purpose pages
• Pages that fail to achieve their purpose

And now lets look at their definition of each category.

Pages that potentially spread hate; promote hate or violence towards a group of people.

Potentially harmful pages; encourage harm to self or others. Malicious pages, e.g., scams, phishing, malware downloads. Extremely negative or malicious reputation.

Pages that potentially misinform users; demonstrably inaccurate content. Your money or your life (YMYL) content that contradicts well-established expert consensus. Debunked or unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.

Pages that potentially deceive users; deceptive intent, e.g., websites created to deceive users. Deceptive design, e.g., ads that are disguised as main content.

Lack of purpose pages; no main content. Gibberish main content. Cannot determine a purpose.

Pages that fail to achieve their purpose; Lowest Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. No or little main content or lowest quality main content. Copied main content or auto-generated main content. Obstructed or inaccessible main content. Inadequate information about the website or creator of the main content. Unmaintained websites, and hacked, defaced, or spammed pages.

I would like to think that none of us here are guilty of the first or second categories.

Category three - potentially misinform with inaccurate content. Here are some examples as per Google - "the moon landings were faked, carrots cure cancer, and the U.S. government is controlled by lizard people." Sorry to say, that I did once find a site here at WA requesting feedback, that made an outlandish claim about a cure for cancer. Very disturbing, and good to know it would have received the lowest rating.

Category four - deception. Some examples:

* 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 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 main content may contain intentionally misleading or inaccurate information created with the sole purpose of getting users to click on monetized links or buy the product.

* A webpage with a misleading title or a title that has nothing to do with the content on the page. Users who come to the page expecting content related to the title will feel tricked or deceived.

So, tomorrow, we will be looking at categories five and six, which will revolve around the actual content, which I hope you will find interesting!