Quality Rater
A trained human reviewer used by Google to evaluate search result quality.
Key takeaways
- Quality Rater is a trained human reviewer used by Google to evaluate search result quality.
- Read the relevant sections of the Quality Rater Guidelines for your type of content.
- Avoid: treating the guidelines as a list of ranking factors.
What is Quality Rater?
Quality raters do not directly affect rankings, but their feedback trains the algorithms. Google's public Quality Rater Guidelines describe the EEAT signals they look for.
The criteria raters use are published in Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
Why Quality Rater matters for EEAT in 2026
Quality raters don't rank pages, but their judgements help Google test and improve its systems. Their published guidelines are the clearest description of what Google considers high quality.
For a wider view of where this fits, see our full EEAT glossary or explore the Strategy and Audits service we run for clients.
How to apply Quality Rater on your site
Knowing the concept is only half of it. Work through these steps in order to put Quality Rater into practice on your own pages:
- Read the relevant sections of the Quality Rater Guidelines for your type of content.
- Review your key pages the way a rater would: who wrote this, and why trust them?
- Fix the obvious trust gaps first, such as missing authors, sources or contact details.
Common mistakes to avoid
Most sites that struggle with Quality Rater fall into the same traps. Check your pages against each of these before moving on:
- Treating the guidelines as a list of ranking factors.
- Assuming raters will review your specific site.
- Ignoring the guidelines entirely because they 'don't affect rankings'.
Questions about Quality Rater
A trained human reviewer used by Google to evaluate search result quality.
Quality raters don't rank pages, but their judgements help Google test and improve its systems. Their published guidelines are the clearest description of what Google considers high quality.
Start here: read the relevant sections of the Quality Rater Guidelines for your type of content. Then review your key pages the way a rater would: who wrote this, and why trust them?
The most common is treating the guidelines as a list of ranking factors. Another is assuming raters will review your specific site.