Elements of a Quality Article

[Dan-Petrovic]

In your opinion, what are the signals Google uses to judge the quality of an article or post?

Here are some of my ideas:

• Reactions:
  • Comment history
  • Sharing (Twitter / FB / Social Bookmarks...etc)
  • Citations / Mentions / Pingbacks
• Word count
• Content (Topical and qualitative analytsis, uniqueness)
• Domain (Qualitative analysis of domain article is published on)
• Use of images and media
• Use of references
• Timeliness (News, current affairs)
• Presence of date of publishing
• Spam filters:
  • Anchor text usage
  • Number, type and relation of outgoing links
  • Content (Topical, semantic, qualitative analysis including keyword usage)
• Author data:
  • Presence of author name
  • Connection / link to author profile (hyperlink, rel tag, meta)
  • Reputation of author (prior content, domains published and reactions)

Looking forward to your contributions.

[EGOL]

Try the keyword research tool for google adwords.

[Dan-Petrovic]

Pretty much if you follow advice from this page you can't go wrong. As far as I know there isn't a "content comprehensiveness tool" out there (yet).

[findachristianjob]

So this is a tool or a way that we can determine how to make the article comprehensive enough based on a certain topic?  I know I want to write about widgets but is there a tool that can tell me I should write about blue widgets to get better results?

[Dan-Petrovic]

Yes, I forgot about that post. These rules became guidelines for my team as soon as they were launched. They fail to provide specific technical guidance however. For example "Would you trust this information?" - how does Google figure that out? Surely there are algorithmic signals involved.

[KeriMorgret]

Just in case some people aren't familiar with Google's recent post about high quality sites, I'll throw that into the mix. I've edited the list, and selected things that focus more on an individual article than the site itself.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?

[EGOL]

For a single word query, I believe that google wants an article in the #1 position that is the first document that a person should read about that subject.  That article should be comprehensive.

[Dan-Petrovic]

I like this. It makes so much sense and Google does have the data to put the criteria together.

[EGOL]

Is the content comprehensive?

If you are writing an article about widgets, google knows what everybody is asking about them.... people want to know about brass widgets, the cost of widgets, widget inventor, the first widget, number of widgets made annually.... google knows this from search queries.

If you are trying to rank for the word "widgets" google could assess your article and determine if you are comprehensive - that means you are addressing all of the subjects that everybody is asking about - or at least the ones that are most frequently asked about.

Incorporating this into your writing has many benefits. One is that you have what visitors want to know and second it puts your page into relevancy for lots of long tail queries.

Anybody can write an article about widgets... but the savvy writer knows what people want to know about them and has the expertise to address all of those details.

[EGOL]

In addition to visitor "Reactions", I would like to think that visitor "Interactions" are important.

Google might be able to collect "interactions" information from the SERPs logs, Google Toolbar and Chrome browser to determine... just speculating....

--- how long a visitor stays on the page

--- how much a visitor scrolls

--- does the visitor click

--- does the visitor print or bookmark

I don't know if these are used or if google can even detect them.  However, I think that they would be valuable information for determining content qualilty or at least how much visitors interact with it.