Google’s updated QRG now targets falsified EEAT content and other deceptive behavior in a move that supports the idea of authenticity.
A significant update to Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines (QRG) has emphasized on reasons behind and marks of ‘low-quality content’ and has introduced a full new section to it. This was in a trend toward tightening up the guidelines as quality raters became more skilled at identifying ever-more granular forms of quality issues.
Table of Contents
TL/DR
Anything having to do with SEO and content strategy your authenticity should always be the key.
Guideline 4.5.3
Section 4.5.3 has been rewritten and made clearer but, more importantly, it has been expanded to be able to describe a wider range of deceptions. It’s possible that the quality raters weren’t catching certain types of web spam and that these changes are designed to close that gap. This might indicate, as well, that Google’s algorithms will soon be better at detecting the described variations of deception.
The modification of the title of section 4.5.3 of ECSS-P-004 (formerly, ECSS-P-004A [4]), gives more comprehensive information of the updates, over the original version.
The section heading was updated from:
4.5.3 Deception About Page Purpose and MC Design
To this:
“4.5.3 Misleading Page Purpose, Misleading Information about the Website, Deceptive Design”
The entire section was partly rewritten and restructured for clarity. That’s not so much a move as a much more detailed and nuanced version of the same, with a few parts that are indeed, brand new.
Deceptive Purpose
Here is a new paragraph on deceptive purpose:
“A page containing intentionally false information in order to sell product(s) to generate click revenue on monetized links. Examples include a product recommendation page of a website which falsely impersonated a celebrity blog or a product recommendation making a false representation of personal, independent testing when no testing was conducted.”
Google almost certainly has algorithmic signals and procedures to identify and remove from its index sites with this kind of deceptive content. In summary, even though one doesn’t think that a bit of faking would manage a big time ranking knock, why even take that chance? The best advice is almost certainly to follow the money.
,Modified by author Source If that point is still not clear, simply changing some specific information on a website isn’t our attention here what we are paying attention to is manipulation outside the purpose. The direct opposite of a deceptive purpose is a purpose that is authentic -it is authentic intent.
Deceptive EEAT Content
Now by the way there is a new section, which is literally about fake EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) content on a site. There is a lot of discussion about SEOs adding EEAT to the web pages but that’s not quite an accurate statement, because EEAT is not what is added to a website. EEAT is a feature of a site relative to the overall experience while performing research or learning or consuming itself where signals might be generated by people visiting a page on a site.
Here is the guidance about fake EEAT material:
“A web page or website with false business information. For instance, a Web site might say it has a “brick and mortar” store but really only sells over the Web. Not that there’s anything wrong with being an online business! But pretending to have a physical “brick and mortar” presence is dishonest.
A web page or site containing “fake” owner or content creator profiles. Eg. AI generated content impersonating people (with fake “author” profiles like AI generated images or misleading creator descriptions) to masquerade said content as an output not from a bot but people.
Misinformation and lies about creator expertise. For instance, metadata associated with an author or creator falsely asserts that an author or creator has training or knowledge (e.g., that a content creator falsely asserts to be a medical professional), thereby lending the content more credibility than the content should have.”
Misleading Content, Buttons, Or Links
The new guidelines for quality raters also target sites that engage in deceptive tactics to get people to take actions that they didn’t mean to. This is like seeing a fetus wearing a fake beard —a good website should never need to worry about this order of deception.
And here are some new entries in the deceptive design section:
“Pages with misleading buttons or links. Such as, a button or link on a pop up or an interstitial or on the page that is designed to look like it does one thing (such as closing a pop up) but actually does another thing that most people would not tend to expect, eg it makes an app download.
A page with deceptive or irrelevant title or simply no title at all. “People expect to see content related to the title of the page and when they do not find exactly what they were looking for, they will feel that they were fooled, or clickbaited.
Conclusion
Here are 3 key takeaways from Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines update to section 4.5.3:
New definition Of Deceptive Purpose
Section 4.5.3 is now updated to specifically reference more examples of deceptive page intent, like false endorsements or pretending to be product testing.
The revision clarifies that deceptive purpose is broader than mere misinformation – it also takes into account misleading intent behind the content.
Focus on MSE of Deceptive EEAT Content
A second subsection tackles false depictions of EEAT that:
Falsified business information (e.g. claiming to have a store front).
Fabricated author profiles or AI-created personalities.
Spurious claims of the creator’s expertise, such as professional experience, research, or training.
The dark patterns and UIs of deception
The raters instructions also highlights manipulative interface elements, for example:
Buttons that fake to close popups but actually start downloads.
Deceptive page titles that don’t correspond to the content.
Google Search Quality Raters Guidelines Updated for 2025: Big Changes for Webmaster’s to Assimilate Google’s January 2025 update to the Search Quality Raters Guidelines is a giant step forward in how raters should be classifying misleading web pages. The update seems to centre on deceptive techniques regarding page intent, fake EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) content and misleading design.
The update is designed to assist raters in better identifying manipulation that misrepresents users or result in inflated ratings, and may be representative of what Google is focusing on with low quality.
