Page Quality, or PQ, rating is one of the two main tasks in Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines. Raters judge how well a page achieves its purpose on a scale from Lowest to Highest, considering the quality of the main content, the reputation of the website and content creator, and experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. The rating applies to a page regardless of any query, unlike Needs Met.
The scale
Raters place pages on a five-point scale, with in-between steps allowed. Pages with a harmful or deceptive purpose are rated Lowest no matter how polished they are.
- Lowest
- Low
- Medium
- High
- Highest
What raters weigh
First, purpose: what is the page for, and is it beneficial? Then, the main content: how much effort, originality, talent or skill went into it, and does it achieve its purpose? Then reputation: what do independent sources say about the site and the creator? Finally, E-E-A-T, with trust described as the most important element.
Low ratings are given for things like main content that is copied or auto-generated with little effort, misleading titles, distracting ads that interfere with the content, or a lack of the expertise the topic needs.
Turning it into an audit
The PQ framework is a useful lens for reviewing your own site. Pick a sample of pages from each template and ask the rater questions honestly. Pages you would rate Low are candidates for improvement or removal; pages you would rate High are models for the rest.
Example
Rating a blog sample
A team at Linkwhistle, a link management SaaS, rates 40 of its blog posts using the PQ criteria. Several old posts score Low because they summarize other articles with no original insight. They rewrite the useful ones with data from their own product and remove the rest.
Common mistakes
Rating your own pages generously
Self-assessment is only useful if it is candid. Ask someone outside the team to rate a sample.
Questions
Raters' PQ scores are not applied to your site's rankings. Google's systems have their own ways to assess quality, which are not published.
