Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines for 2025: Lowest quality section insights

In January of 2025, Google updated it’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines.

I’ve just read through the entire document, cover to cover. 🥵 (You can too using that link above.)

In the change log in the appendix, Google mentions how this latest version differs from past versions, including:

“Updated Page Quality Lowest and Low sections to better align with Google Search Web Spam Policies; added illustrative examples”

The section on Lowest page quality is earlier in the document, but I remember thinking while reading it how much the guidance is applicable to discussions around creating helpful content.

In particular, a lot of the insights from that section made me think about sites impacted by the HCU back in 2023. (As we know, the HC system is now incorporated into Google’s core ranking algorithms.)

Let’s start by looking at some helpful information about Page Quality in general, then we’ll get into the Lowest section.

I’ll incorporate some quotes throughout this post, for which I’ll include the section for reference.

The first quote has to do with page quality ratings and main content (MC):

“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. For informational pages and pages on YMYL topics, accuracy and consistency with well established expert consensus is important.”

Section 3.2

Effort, originality, talent or skill, and accuracy — remember those qualities as we delve deeper into the Lowest and Low page quality insights.

Effort, for example, is described as “the extent to which a human being actively worked to create satisfying content.”

Originality involves “the extent to which the content offers unique, original content that is not available on other websites.”

Talent or skill, meanwhile, involves “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, finally, is about scientific or expert consensus, and pertains to Your Money, Your Life categories, especially.

In other words, AI-generated content with no human oversight may have accuracy but is not indicative of effort, originality, talent or skill.

Keep that in mind as we delve into the Low and Lowest categories.

But first, we need to talk about reputation of content creators, as this is a BIG emphasis that I don’t hear stressed enough from the SQRGs.

“An important part of PQ rating is understanding the reputation of the website. … Reputation research is especially important for detecting untrustworthy websites and content creators. Content may look great on the surface, but reputation research can expose scams, fraud, or other signs of harm. You never know what you will find unless you look! Therefore, reputation research is required for all PQ rating tasks.”

Section 3.3

But what makes up a website’s reputation?

“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.”

Section 3.3.1

There are several more sections on reputation, including detailed instructions on how to search for a website’s reputation information. This is clearly a point of emphasis.

It makes me think of all those hobby websites decimated by the HCU, and whether they had external sources of validation to affirm their positive reputations.

There’s also a lengthy section about E-E-A-T. This tends to get the bulk of the focus in SQRG reviews, so I’ll go ahead and leave out any rehashing of familiar territory, except to note the following:

Experience is “the extent to which the content creator has the necessary first-hand or life experience for the topic.”

Expertise is “the extent to which the content creator has the necessary knowledge or skill for the topic.”

Authoritativeness is “the extent to which the content creator or the website is known as a go-to source for the topic.”

However,

“Trust is the most important member of the E-E-A-T family because untrustworthy pages have low E-E-A-T no matter how Experienced, Expert, or Authoritative they may seem.”

Section 3.4

With that background, let’s now turn to the Lowest Quality Pages section.

The reason for focusing on this section, by the way, is to learn what not to do, and by extension reverse engineer what we should be doing when it comes to SEO content.

I feel the lowest page quality section reveals more than the high page quality sections, which tended to emphasize strong brands with sterling reputations, a universal goal of any business.

First, let’s review what it means to be a Lowest quality page.

“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.”

Section 4.0

When it comes to the purpose of the page, there are two instances when the Lowest quality rating is required:

• “if the page has a harmful purpose, or if it is designed to deceive people about its true purpose or who is responsible for the content on the page.”
• “if the page is created to benefit the owner of the website (e.g. to make money) with very little or no attempt to benefit website visitors or otherwise serve a beneficial purpose.”

It’s that second one about self-benefit over a user’s benefit that I find particularly notable in the context of HCU-impacted sites, as many had affiliate links that could contribute to such perceptions by search quality raters themselves.

On that note, Lowest quality pages’ main content (MC) can have one of several characteristics:

• “The page is hacked, defaced, or spammed.”
• “The page is gibberish or otherwise makes no sense.”
• “The MC is created with little to no effort, has little to no originality
  and the MC adds no value compared to similar pages on the web.”
• “The MC is created with so little effort, originality, talent, or skill
  that the page fails to achieve its purpose.”

That third bullet particularly stands out, as a hallmark of SEO-first content is generally to summarize existing web sources without contributing much additional new information. This is also the inherent problem with AI-generated content based on training data alone.

There are many types of Lowest quality pages, many of which involve a harmful aspect, but pages can also qualify as Lowest quality if they are untrustworthy or spammy.

Let’s focus on the latter two, starting with untrustworthy webpages:

“Some untrustworthy pages are created to benefit the website or organization rather than helping people. …

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”

Section 4.5

Deception seems to be a big problem, as the guidelines spend quite a lot of time discussing instances of that, from deceptive information to the design of the website itself.

What I really want to focus on, though, is the following section about Spammy Webpages.

There’s a lot to be said here, but let’s start with an overview of what qualifies as a spammy webpage:

“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.”

Section 4.6

Note that line in the second paragraph: “When such pages use deceptive techniques to appear near the top of search results.”

That sounds like doing SEO for its own sake, versus to create a satisfying experience for users.

Two types of spammy websites include expired domain abuse and site reputation abuse, both of which are discussed in the SQRGs.

But I want to focus on a third type of spam that I’ve dealt with more: scaled content abuse.

“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.”

Section 4.6.5

There is then a list of examples of scaled content abuse:

• “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.”

I’ve worked with several clients who engaged in scaled content abuse using generative AI, in particular.

It’s difficult because the content itself isn’t low quality, in general, but the mechanism of creating it, in comparison to existing content on the web, often is low quality, and that’s what Google is having its search raters look out for.

I expect we’ll see more sites using generative AI impacted by future algorithm updates.

Which brings us to the final type of spam: “MC Created with Little to No Effort, Little to No Originality, and Little to No Added Value for Website Visitors”

“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.”

Section 4.6.6

I’ve posted AI-generated content in my blog before, but I did so because it was unique insights on a topic that wasn’t discussed widely on the web.

What’s different is when AI-generated content is created based on existing sources, thus not contributing originality or demonstrating skill.

Let’s now look at some examples of Lowest quality pages.

Up first we have a page that’s deemed untrustworthy.

Here’s the rationale:

“This page appears to be an informational article about the animal the praying mantis.
Factual inaccuracies and odd statements exist in the section titled “Praying Mantises Are Not Poisonous”: “In contrast to praying mollies, which are mostly solitary creatures that avoid human interaction, praying mollusks are more closely related to God. There are no poisonous snakes, and there are no venomous turtles.”

Odd, factually inaccurate and/or misleading statements:

• The section suddenly refers to praying mantises as “praying mollies” a name does that isn’t supported through a quick web search
• Praying mollusks do not exist – there is no such animal
• Statements about animals and their relation to God are not what one would expect on an informational page like this
• Poisonous snakes exist

It is unlikely a human author would make these odd statements and obvious mistakes. It’s likely this content was auto-generated with no human editing.

No matter how this content was created, the odd statements and factual inaccuracies make
this article untrustworthy and therefore Lowest E-E-A-T and Lowest quality.”

Section 4.7

Next up we have a page with the Lowest E-E-A-T and that’s deemed deceptive.

Here’s the rationale:

“The page appears to be an informational article about switching babies from breast milk
to whole milk.

The bottom of the page states “Our blog is dedicated to all things related to kids and
parenting – including product reviews, news, recipes, and more. We strive to provide
parents with the information they need in order to make informed decisions for their families.”

However, if you read the terms of service page, you’ll find a very different description of
pages on the website.

The terms of use page states “Some articles on this website might have been partially
generated by an artificial intelligence language model and published for experimental and
research purposes. The articles on this website are only to be used as proof of concept by AI enthusiasts and not intended for general public. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the use or interpretation of this content for any other purpose than it was intended. While we strive for accuracy and quality, please note that the information provided may not be entirely error-free or up-to-date. We recommend independently verifying the content and consulting with professionals for specific advice or information.”

Given the statements above, the articles on this website should be considered untrustworthy and Lowest E-E-A-T.”

Section 4.7

Next we have an example of untrustworthy information on a YMYL medical topic.

Here’s the rationale:

“Medical information about this dental condition could significantly impact how people seek
dental treatment. This page is on a YMYL topic.

There is no information about who created this website, no contact information, and no
information about the author.

Medical pages require a high level of user trust. Because there is no information about
who owns this website and who created this content, this is considered an untrustworthy
website.”

Section 4.7

Next we have another untrustworthy site for a YMYL medical topic.

Here’s the rationale:

“The writing is extremely poor and there is virtually no information in this article.

For example, the opening sentence is “Popping pimples could be or could be not the
new trend of getting rid of them.”

It is clear from the content that the author does not have skin care expertise.”

Section 4.7

What strikes me about these examples is that they don’t inherently look like spam or lowest quality content.

It’s only upon a close examination of the page text and website reputation that such implications can be gleaned.

But since I mentioned it explicitly earlier, let’s look at two examples of scaled content abuse specifically.

The first example is a YMYL medical article.

Here’s the rationale for why it’s scaled content abuse:

“The contents of the page show it is created with generative AI with likely no original
content and provides no value to users. For example, the article starts with “As a language
model, I don’t have real-time data and my knowledge cutoff date is September 2021.
Cancer rankings..” The end of the text of the article appears to be cut off with an incomplete sentence “Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (NETs): Pancreatic NETs are a rare type of pancreatic cancer that can have a poor”

This is spam (scaled content abuse) and a highly untrustworthy medical page: it
demonstrates no real expertise and may not be correct and is especially concerning for
YMYL topics.”

Section 4.7

Finally, let’s look at another example of scaled content abuse where the content was deemed untrustworthy and spammy.

Here’s the rationale:

“Website information indicates this is a website for rabbit enthusiasts “We are rabbit lovers and breeders, we will share some of our guides here, welcome to discuss with us.”

However the website includes articles on a very wide variety of topics unrelated to rabbits
such as YMYL human health, making the information about the website appear deceptive.

All the MC on the page is embedded from a different source or likely paraphrased and
unoriginal. If you explore the site, you’ll find hundreds of templated articles with unoriginal, paraphrased content and embedded videos. This is an example of scaled content abuse.

While the method of content creation is unknown, the format of the articles (question
and answer) is a common technique to create scaled content by collecting questions
(available from sources such as Google Search’s “People also ask” feature) and
answering the questions with unoriginal, paraphrased content (often using generative
AI tools).”

Section 4.7

We’ve seen Googlers like John Mueller give the advice to not create content directly from PAA questions. It appears that is a type of spam Google’s quality raters are looking for directly.

That concludes our review of the Lowest page quality section for the updated 2025 version of the SQRGs.

Not everything we reviewed here is new, but it’s helpful information to grasp because by understanding what’s undesirable for Google’s search quality raters, we can better appreciate the qualities they’re looking for in content.

I plan to return to this article in the future for additional updates and improvements, so stay tuned!

Until next time, enjoy the vibes:

Thanks for reading. Happy optimizing! 🤗

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