What Google's quality raters look for in a business's reputation

Google works with external people called Search Quality Raters. They are given real searches and real results and asked to judge how good the results are. To keep their judgments consistent, Google gives them a long public manual: the Search Quality Rater Guidelines.

A good part of that manual is about trust, and one section tells raters how to find out whether a website, or the business behind it, has a good or bad reputation. If you run a small business, that section is the closest thing you will get to Google describing, in plain words, what a careful stranger should find when they check you.

Who the raters are and what they do not do

Start with the limit, because it is the part most often misquoted. Raters do not decide where your site ranks. Google’s How Search works page says it uses raters “to measure the quality of Search results on an ongoing basis” and that “these ratings do not directly impact ranking, but they do help us benchmark the quality of our results”. Section 0.1 of the guidelines says the same thing from the other side: “No single rating can directly impact how a particular webpage, website, or result appears in Google Search.” Instead, ratings “are used to measure how effectively search engines are working”.

So nobody can sell you a way to “pass the rater test”. What the guidelines give you is a description of the qualities Google wants its systems to reward, written for humans.

Section 3.3: reputation of the website and its creators

In the version dated 11 September 2025, reputation research is section 3.3, “Reputation of the Website and Content Creators”, on pages 22 to 25. It has five parts, and these four matter most for a business:

• 3.3.1, Reputation of the Website
• 3.3.2, Customer Reviews as Reputation Information
• 3.3.3, How to Search for Reputation Information about a Website
• 3.3.5, What to Do When You Find No Reputation Information

The core idea is in the first sentence of 3.3.1: “A website’s reputation is based on the experience of real users and the opinions of people who are experts.” Raters are told to look past what a site says about itself. In the guidelines’ words, their job is “to independently evaluate the Page Quality of the website, not just accept information that appears on one or two pages of the website without further verification.”

The sources they are pointed to are what you would expect: independent reviews, references and recommendations by experts, news articles, Wikipedia articles where they exist, forum discussions and ratings from independent organisations.

How raters search for a reputation

Section 3.3.3 gives a method. First identify the site’s homepage. Then search for the site’s name while excluding the site itself, using examples like these:

• [ibm -site:ibm.com]
• ["ibm.com" -site:ibm.com]
• [ibm reviews -site:ibm.com]
• [ibm site:en.wikipedia.org]

Then “look for articles, references, recommendations by experts, and other credible information written by people about the website”, and make sure what you found is actually about this website and fit for judging its reputation.

Run those searches with your own name and domain and you see your business through the same window. That is the whole trick, and it costs nothing. Our 10-minute check builds a routine around it.

How raters are told to read reviews

Section 3.3.2 is the most practical part for a local business, so it is worth quoting at length. It says customer reviews “can be helpful for assessing the reputation of a store, business, or any website that offers products or services”, and that a large number of detailed, trustworthy, positive reviews can be taken as evidence of a positive reputation. Then it adds four cautions:

1. Be skeptical of both positive and negative reviews. “Anyone can write them, including the website owner or someone whom the store or business hires for this purpose.”
2. Find as many reviews as possible. “Any store or business can get a few negative reviews”, which the guidelines call “completely normal and expected”. Large companies receive thousands, and most receive some negative ones.
3. Read them. “The content of the reviews matter, not just the number or star rating.”
4. Weigh what they describe. “Credible, convincing reports of fraud and financial wrongdoing is evidence of extremely negative reputation.” But “a single encounter with a rude clerk or the delayed receipt of a single package should not be considered negative reputation information.”

Two things follow for a small business. A handful of bad reviews is not, by Google’s own description, a bad reputation. And the reviews that matter most are the ones that describe dishonesty with money: hidden fees, deposits not returned, work paid for and not done. Those are the ones to answer, fix and, if they are fake, report.

What gets the lowest rating

Elsewhere, in section 4.5.2, the guidelines tell raters to “use the Lowest rating if the website and content creator have an extremely negative reputation, to the extent that many people would consider the webpage or website untrustworthy”. Evidence of fraudulent behaviour is one of the examples.

That is a high bar. It describes a business that people widely consider untrustworthy, not one with a 3.8 average on Yelp.

If there is almost nothing about you

Many small businesses worry that they have no Wikipedia page and no press. Section 3.3.5 of the guidelines addresses this directly: “small websites may have little or no reputation information. This is not indicative of high or low quality.”

A rater is told not to punish silence. A buyer may still be more cautious, so honest reviews on the sites your customers use, a clear About page and accurate business listings help. But you do not need to manufacture fame.

Where E-E-A-T fits

The same guidelines are where the term E-E-A-T comes from: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Google’s documentation for site owners says that “of these aspects, trust is most important”, that “E-E-A-T itself isn’t a specific ranking factor”, and that “rater data is not used directly in our ranking algorithms”. Reputation is one of the main inputs raters use to judge trust. We look at the link between brand mentions and visibility in E-E-A-T and brand mentions: what the evidence says.

What this means for a small business

The guidelines will not move your rankings. They will tell you, in Google’s own words, what a careful person is supposed to find when they look you up. If what they would find today surprises you, it is better to learn it from your own search than from a lost customer.