Google: Search Quality Raters Guidelines Not A Guide For Search Rankings

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Barry Schwartz / Executive Editor

John Mueller from Google said that the Google Search Quality Raters guidelines are not a guide for search rankings. Meaning, the content in those guidelines is not a blueprint on how to rank your website in Google Search.

He said this on Bluesky, "It is sometimes worth pointing out that while the Search Quality Raters Guidelines are insightful to read through, they're not a guide for search ranking."

Of course, you should keep in mind that these quality rater guidelines used to be confidential but they continued to be leaked over and over again, so Google finally decided to publish them officially for the public.

Also, while this is not a guide for search rankings, it is a guide for what pages Google wants rank in its search results. That is the distinction here.

This was in response to this question:

Would love to ask @johnmu.com if most people's definition of YMYL queries are way too broad maybe?

It seems - I might be wrong - that way too many categories are being lumped in - like "sites" (vs Queries) - like law for example.

I think we need an update here to help sanity in SEO

— Weblinkr (@weblinkr.bsky.social) May 28, 2026 at 3:11 PM

Here is the full response:

I don't know most people's definitions of YMYL :-). It is sometimes worth pointing out that while the Search Quality Raters Guidelines are insightful to read through, they're not a guide for search ranking.

— John Mueller (@johnmu.com) May 28, 2026 at 4:27 PM

To be fair, Google said this numerous times but I haven't covered this in years. Here is my previous coverage of this topic:

• Google: Quality Raters Guidelines Are Not A Collection Of Ranking Tips
• Google: Quality Raters Guidelines Are Not One-To-One With The Ranking Algorithm
• Google: Quality Raters Help Us Understand If Our Signals Produce Good Results

Forum discussion at Bluesky.

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