Google's New Search Quality Feedback Form for Users

In October 2022, Google introduced a set of guidelines known as Search Essentials. These guidelines were created to provide transparency regarding Google's policies and practices to protect users and deliver quality search results.

One key aspect discussed in the search essentials is policy enforcement to address websites that violate Google's guidelines. When a website violates these policies, it will experience a drop in search rankings.

However, Google acknowledges that its automated systems for detecting spam may not catch every violation. To address this, they have developed search quality feedback. Here's the detail.

What is the Search Quality Report?

The search quality report is a form created by Google to address search result issues. This form allows users to provide feedback to Google when they encounter search results they believe violate Google's spam policies.

In this updated form, Google expands the types of user feedback to include traditional spam as well as other issues such as low-quality websites or pages, misleading content, paid links, and manipulative behavior in search results.

Search quality feedback also allows users to report multiple websites and select the issues they are reporting. Users can choose one main category per submission, but they can report multiple types of problems within that category.

To assist users in selecting the appropriate category, the form provides brief explanations for each category. If a reported page has multiple issues from different categories, users can resubmit the form for the same page and select a different category.

However, nearly identical reports from the same user will be disregarded to avoid spam.

If users are unsure about the appropriate category, they can choose "Other". The form also includes an optional comment section where users can provide additional details about the reported issue.

 

John Mueller's Response to User-Submitted Spam Feedback

This form can be filled out by anyone who finds specific issues with search results. Therefore, it is possible that many users may report pages for irrelevant or even nonsensical reasons. How did Mueller respond to this?

Based on a tweet he shared, Mueller commented as follows:

 

The spam report has been around for ages. Of course, some people will submit irrelevant things, but this isn't the first time we have a spam report form :)

 

So, Google has anticipated this and has its own way of handling it. Furthermore, Mueller argues that even "boring" feedback can be the right answer.

 

Finding Violating Pages According to Google's Guidelines?

If you feel that your search experience could be better because you come across low-quality pages or other issues, please report them using Google's Search Quality Feedback.