Google’s John Mueller was asked if search quality is quantifiable, that is if it can be measured and expressed as a metric. John Mueller’s response was unexpected because he mentioned looking into a search console-quality metric to assist publishers.
What Exactly Is Site Quality?
The concept of site quality appears to be deceptively simple, but it is not.
Many people, including John Mueller, talk about the importance of site quality for indexing and ranking, but what that actually means at Google is a mystery, so we’re stuck with our own subjective ideas.
The concept of “site quality” is a subjective concept that is based on individual opinions, which are influenced by their vastly different levels of experience and knowledge.
There is no absolute or objective way to define Site Quality.
Because Google does not specify the height, width, and depth of their definition of site quality, everyone is literally blind to what “quality” actually means for Google.
And, as the questioner implies, there may be no way to quantify what multiple algorithms are independently verifying.
The person who asked the question was, understandably, looking for something more objective and quantifiable.
The question:
“When you say improve the quality of your website is this quality something that is quantifiable?
Or is it simply a term used to determine how multiple algorithms look at your website?”
Site Quality Isn’t Measurable
Not surprisingly, John Mueller confirmed that site quality cannot be quantified.
John Mueller answered:
“I don’t think it’s quantifiable in the sense that we have kind of like a quality score like you might have for ads when it comes to web search.
We have lots of different algorithms that try to understand the quality of a website so it’s not just one number, anything like that.”
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Metric for Search Console Site Quality
This is where John Mueller revealed something unexpected. He stated that he has discussed the creation of a quality metric in the search console.
That’s really cool because it shows Mueller sympathizing with publishers’ plight and looking into whether there’s a way to help them with some kind of quality metric.
Mueller continued his answer:
“From time to time I talk with the search quality team to see if there’s some quality metric that we could show for example in search console.
But it’s super tricky because we could create a separate quality metric to show in search console but then that’s not the quality metric that we actually use for search so it’s kind of almost like misleading.
And if we were to show exactly the quality metric that we use then on the one hand that opens things up a little bit for abuse and on the other hand it makes it a lot harder for the teams internally to work on improving this metric.
So that’s kind of the tricky balance there.
I don’t know… At some point maybe we’ll still have some measure of quality in search console though.”
There Isn’t Just One Number That Defines Quality
Mueller’s statement that “if we were to show exactly the quality metric that we use” does not imply that there is a single metric. That statement must be understood in the context of his entire response, which begins with him stating that there are multiple quality-related algorithms and that “it’s not just one number.”
So, in order to provide an actionable quality metric, Google would have to reveal the various quality-related algorithms, which, as Mueller noted, would open the door to “abuse.”
One thing we do know is that site quality, as defined by Google, is a broad concept that encompasses far more than just text content.
Nonetheless, it’s intriguing that Mueller left the door open to the possibility of having some kind of quality-related metric one day.
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