Google And Misleading Poorly Placed Ads On Our Articles

1. 97

   chef-de-jourposted 15 months ago

   Google's EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) is an interesting acronym because it places emphasis on Trust  - is the page/site trustworthy? Google ranks pages and sites by applying the EEAT test to each page and site.
   
   According to a SEJ article I read recently, Google places TRUST above everything else. The writer may be excellent, the information spot on, the authority without doubt but is the page to be trusted?
   My question would be - Can Google's algorithm updates distinguish between ads such as the Recommended For You headlines below our HP articles and the main content?
   
   I've been reading this:
   
   https://static.googleusercontent.com/me … elines.pdf
   
   It gives specific detail about EEAT and subjects like Lowest Page Quality Assessment. It also focuses on ads, and how they're placed.
   On page 30 you'll find this:
   
   
   Lowest Page Quality Assessment Any one of the following is justification for Lowest
   Quality of the MC ● The page is hacked, defaced, or spammed.
   ● The page is gibberish or otherwise makes no sense.
   ● The MC is copied, auto-generated, or otherwise created without
   adequate effort.
   ● The MC is created with so little effort, originality, talent, or skill
   that the page fails to achieve its purpose.
   The title of the page The page title is extremely misleading, shocking, or exaggerated.
   The role of Ads and SC on the page The MC is deliberately obstructed or obscured due to Ads, SC,
   interstitial pages, download links or other content that is beneficial to
   the website owner but not necessarily the website visitor.
   
   It's quite clear and plain. With ads interrupting text, Google gives lowest quality page ranking.
   Am I being naive or does this fact suggest that this is the reason our traffic and earnings are declining at a rate of knots?
   
   I'm working my way through the 176 pages. Trustworthiness is mentioned 170 times.

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2. 94

   PaulGoodman67posted 15 months ago

   Good luck with that! Haha!
   
   Googlespeak is hard work!
   
   I tend to read SE Roundtable translations or Matt Diggity's interpretations on YouTube.

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   1. 97

      chef-de-jourposted 15 months agoin reply to this

      Right. War and Peace is my next read! Then it's Waiting For Godot.
      
      But what little I have read regarding EEAT proves to me the fallacy of the current ads regime here on HP.

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      1. 94

         PaulGoodman67posted 15 months agoin reply to this

         Ah, so it's already confirmed a belief that you strongly held beforehand!

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         1. 97

            chef-de-jourposted 15 months agoin reply to this

            This isn't an easy read. It's page by page torture. There won't be a fairy tale ending is my guess.
            
            Page 50 basically repeats page 30:
            
            

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3. 96

   eugbugposted 15 months ago

   "As far as Google’s algorithm is concerned, it sounds like there are no hard signals in place to measure a publisher’s E-A-T."
   
   https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how … 965/#close

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   1. 97

      chef-de-jourposted 15 months agoin reply to this

      Well, the text of googleusercontent pdf is open to different interpretation, the language being consciously vague and ambiguous, that's why many sites like searchenginejournal can spin their own version of events so to speak.
      
      Bottom line is, no online journalist or individual knows how the algorithm  system really works, how the final rankings are made following an update.
      
      As veteran writers we can only go by our own experiences and ranking results and of late they're in a slump. You might say in a dangerous decline. Reading the google document, between the lines, I think it's clear that the HP ads regime at present has to be detrimental. Google is labelling our pages as lowest quality.
      
      I'd loved to be proven wrong - if HP experimented with a text-first approach on some articles, say for six months, and gave us the feedback and stats, objective facts, I'd be a lot happier. Having to guess and speculate and complain is becoming tedious.
      
      Yet I'm writing fresh articles. I'll never leave because things could get fixed and the lights come back on, and the flag Writer's Paradise be raised again! Yeh, some hope.

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   2. 97

      Glenn Stokposted 15 months agoin reply to this

      The hard signals to follow to ensure E-A-T are easier to understand here (even though it doesn't mention E-A-T):
      
      https://hubpages.com/help/hub_hop_table#informational
      
      I always try to achieve 10 on that scale.

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      1. 94

         PaulGoodman67posted 15 months agoin reply to this

         That's a great table!
         
         It sounds basic and old-fashioned, but I think that a key way to boost an article's credibility is still to get links from sites that Google respects. Your reputation is enhanced by their reputation.
         
         The recent Google updates haven't changed that. If anything, it might be more important.

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         1. 97

            Glenn Stokposted 15 months agoin reply to this

            Yes, it is more important. But it's not easy getting incoming links from credible sites. One can't ask for it. It just happens when it happens.

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            1. 96

               eugbugposted 15 months agoin reply to this

               That's true. If people wrote newspaper articles about network sites, would it give them some authority? Hubpages don't ever seem to do any marketing or advertising as far as I can see, apart from shares on social media. Also there's no Wikipedia articles about the network sites, but they can't be created unless a site is determined by Wikipedia to be "notable".

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4. 94

   Solarasposted 15 months ago

   Not just the Ads, which are egregious, but the PetNews on Pethelpful  is appalling.
   
   I dare you to click on this link and read it.  It will cost you a mere 33 seconds of your life to read it. Sorry to the author, but this slow loading page, and their are thousands of them now, drag the entire site down by epic failures of EEAT.
   
   "The MC is created with so little effort, originality, talent, or skill
   that the page fails to achieve its purpose.
   
   The title of the page The page title is extremely misleading, shocking, or exaggerated."
   
   https://pethelpful.com/pet-news/puppy-playdate-no-show
   
   This is sick, and all of these pages need to be removed or substantially revamped.  Who ever thought this was a good idea? It is ruinous. The lowest quality pages, and they are legion.

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   1. 97

      chef-de-jourposted 15 months agoin reply to this

      If it's a conscious decision to undermine our work by adding such dross then there has to be, I'm guessing, some decision from somewhere up high in the Arena clouds that repeats 'Keep HP pages low'.
      
      If it's ignorance (of Google's page quality assessment EEAT) then what are we to think?

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      1. 94

         Solarasposted 15 months agoin reply to this

         They have a "newsletter" attached to it, so silly people can sign up for wholesome, heartbreaking videos that are just too cute, and have everybody crying..
         
         Grab your Kleenex. It's a cash grab for short term income, at the expense of the Pethelpful author pages.

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