Google Confirms: Quality Is Foremost Factor In Search Indexing

According to a recent podcast discussion, content quality is the main factor that influences Google's indexing and crawling decisions.

1. Quality affects everything in search, especially indexing.
2. However, high-quality content does not guarantee a high ranking.
3. Removing low-quality content can help improve Google's perception of the site.

According to a recent discussion between John Mueller and Gary Ellis of Google's Search Relations team, quality is a key factor that impacts almost every aspect of search.

During their recent Search for History podcast, the two highlighted the role of quality in everything from crawling and indexing to rankings.

Although high-quality content does not guarantee a high ranking, it can impact how Google interacts with a site.

Additionally, the talk dispelled common myths about search engine optimization (SEO) and demonstrated that affiliate sites can produce high-quality content.

Below are highlights from the latest podcast episode.

Quality affects every aspect of research.

According to Ellis, quality is a key factor in all search systems, affecting everything from sitemaps to rankings.

“Quality impacts almost everything search systems do,” Ellis explained, emphasizing the breadth of the role of quality from sitemaps to rankings.

The discussion revealed that Google's Crawl Scheduler uses standard signals to prioritize URLs for crawling. If Google knows it has X URLs to crawl from a site, it tries to create a ranked list based on its expected criteria.

Additionally, quality is an important factor when it comes to indexing decisions, as Ellis explains:

"The most important thing is quality. It's always quality. And I think people don't necessarily believe it from the outside, but quality, and most of the indexing and crawling decisions we make, is the biggest driver."

Website quality can affect crawling, even for new sites. For example, if a new page is discovered through sitemaps, Google will examine the quality of the previously crawled home page to determine whether to crawl the new page.

The role of quality in classification

Although quality affects how Google crawls and indexes pages, it does not necessarily mean a high ranking.

Ellis explained that having high-quality content does not automatically guarantee a top spot in Google search results.

Quality varies across the site

Ellis explained that standards can be specific to different parts of a website.

For example, if one part of the site consistently provides high-quality content, it may be treated differently than another part known for low-quality content.

On the other hand, if parts of a website consistently provide low-quality content, these areas may be crawled less frequently.

User generated content (UGC) was cited as an example where quality can vary. If a low-quality content pattern is found in a UGC section, this may affect Google's crawling behavior for that specific section of the site.

The ability to improve the quality of the site

Ellis assured the audience that he could improve the quality of his site, even if it previously contained low-quality content. It encourages site owners to remove low-quality content to improve the rest of the site.

Removing low-quality content can enhance Google's perception of the site, which may affect how Google crawls and indexes the rest of the pages.

Debunking misconceptions about SEO

Ellis revealed some common misconceptions about SEO during the discussion.

Contrary to popular belief, duplicate content isn't always a problem, and affiliate links aren't a problem as long as the surrounding content is unique and valuable.

The same applies to translated content, although human review of machine translations is highly recommended.

Affiliate sites and standards

Regarding affiliate sites, Ellis highlighted that it is not just about the affiliate link. Equally important is the quality of the content surrounding the product.

He says:

“If the product is reviewed, photographed and unique content is created, it is high quality content.”

A summary

Improving overall site quality can positively impact how Google crawls, indexes, and understands your site. When you remove low-quality content, the rest of the site can benefit.

While high-quality content alone does not guarantee high rankings, dedicating resources to producing valuable, unique content will likely increase a site's position in search.