Oh boy, this is like a treasure map!
Full Text of Google's General Guidelines for Remote Quality Raters from April 2007
I was not going to leak the document publicly until others did and it was cited by other popular sources, but given that SEL blogged about the remote quality rater document, now is a fine time to mention the best weekend reading any SEO could wish for...here is the 43 page confidential Google document in PDF format.
Make sure you download a local archive in case either or both go offline. And if you don't know why the document is so important for SEOs, read my post on spying on Google.
Published: March 14, 2008
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Comments
Actually, the PDF looks like English to me. That makes this funner.
I think you have to increase the font size of that PDF to like ~ 150% to make it easy to read.
If it's out for so long, I suppose it's possible that Google "leaked" it to see the reactions. I doubt that they would carelessly let out anything important. You can't be sure of anything with these guys.
WOW, Aaron this is absolute GOLD. Thank you so much for leaking it.
Just out of curiosity, has it been confirmed that this document is authentic? It's a good read but it looks a bit crappy in terms of layout, etc. Very un-googlelike
I am almost certain it is authentic (ie: well above 99%). Matt Cutts confirmed that the 2003 documents were authentic, and this reads exceptionally similar to those.
I assume they're no longer relevant, but I have a similar set of documents from 2005 if anybody wants them.
* GENERAL GUIDELINES ON RANDOM-QUERY EVALUATION (2005)
* Exemplary Rules for Frequent Types of Queries (2005)
* Spam Recognition Guide (2005,v3.0)
* Using EWOQ (2005)
I would love to take a look at them cjb. :)
seobook@gmail.com if you don't mind sharing them
@cjb please send me the quality docs if you would:
cvos {at} yahoo dot com
I find it interesting that Google uses a CommissionJunction URL as a specific example of a "sneaky redirect" and how much of the document is focused upon labeling Amazon and eBay affiliates as "spam."
And yet the word "AdSense" does not appear anywhere in the 43 page document.
It certainly appears that Google is using it's virtual monopoly in the search market to prevent competitors from threatening its dominance in the on-page advertising market.
Great point Will. You have to wonder...what makes a CJ link any more of a sneaky redirect than a Performics link or an AdSense link (other than not being a Google service)?
Looks like that version was taken offline. There are still a bunch of other versions floating around though.
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