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View Full Version : What is the definition of a "high quality website"?



mettro2
03-04-2011, 03:40 PM
So I just finished renovating my website. I always wondered if there's a place online to check what is the quality level and if there even are such defined standards. Please if anyone know more about this subject I would love to get your opinion on it.

Harold Mansfield
03-04-2011, 04:18 PM
IF you are referring to the way Google sees it, here is a page that explains the method to their madness:
Google-friendly sites - Webmaster Tools Help (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=40349)

vangogh
03-04-2011, 05:16 PM
Quality is in the eye of the beholder. It depends on what kind of quality you're looking for. There are tools that can tell you if your code validates for example. If you specifically mean the content that's much harder since quality will need to be defined by your target audience. Same or things like the design of the site.

I would think of it like this. Your site presumably has some goal or goals. How well it meets those goals is a measure of the quality of the site. Your site likely isn't meant to appeal to everyone, but rather a specific group of people so how well your site achieves it's goals and the goals your audience has on your site determines the site's quality. Some of that can be measured through analytics, though not in the sense of their being an overall quality metric. More that you'd be measuring different things like conversion rate or time on site. Each gives you some idea of whether the site is meeting the goals of the business and the users.

In the end quality is still a subjective thing. You can measure many things that indicate quality, but I don't think you can put an absolute measure on quality itself.

TotalPC
03-04-2011, 06:39 PM
personally i consider a quality site as one where its easy to find what you are looking for, with good usability.

But overall quality would include: site speed, usability, content, adhering to standards, nice design etc.

jpohl
03-04-2011, 08:50 PM
I periodically use Website SEO Tool | Website Grader (http://websitegrader.com) It's not the be-all/end-all but it does give you a grade comparison and it gives good suggestions for improvement. Generally it is good as I have put crap sites through it and good sites and I think the grading is pretty good.

Spider
03-04-2011, 09:58 PM
Thanks for the link, Jeff. I had heard of Website Grader but never used them. I will now, though.

mettro2
03-05-2011, 10:45 AM
Thanks. I appreciate all the comments. They were all very helpful.

vangogh
03-07-2011, 10:48 AM
Glad we could help Amir.

deesseboutique
03-17-2011, 01:46 AM
Great post about the Website Grader - just used it.

Uh - just posted another message for Jphol but it is being delayed .... hopefully you will get it soon.

Steve B
03-17-2011, 04:57 AM
That was a cool link on getting your website graded. Mine got a 57 (anyone else want to share their score?).

The best thing is that I found out my domain was set to expire in a little over a month (I didn't know that) and that some search engines might penalize the site for being near its expiration.

I'll be giving you some Rep points for that Jeff.

vangogh
03-17-2011, 10:56 AM
While I think the info in the Website Grader report is generally good, be careful not to get caught up in optimizing for Website Grader. It's not the same thing as optimizing for search engines and not every piece of advice they give you is something you need to follow.

Case in point is the domain registration Steve mentioned above. The idea that search engines may penalize you if your domain is near expiration is garbage. It's based on paranoia from a few years ago when Google purchased a domain registrar. Lots of people speculated about what they would do with the information they could get and decided that since spam sites typically only register for a year that any site not registering longer would be seen as a spam site. There's never been any indication though that Google penalizes sites who aren't registered for multiple years. Register your domain for as long as you want and don't let a tool tell you that you need to register it for a longer time than you planned.

Most of my domains are set to auto renew each year. Sometimes I manually go in and register them for 2 years, mostly so I don't have to think about whether or not the auto renew.

Of course if the tool reminded Steve he needed to renew his domain then it did a good job. Steve when you renew just set the domain to auto renew each year and then you shouldn't have to worry about remembering.

jamesray50
03-17-2011, 09:21 PM
I only scored a 27 on my new website and I was getting a 43 on my old website. But my new website hasn't been crawled yet, and the website grader didn't find any links to my website. It's a much better website so I'm sure in a few weeks the grade will go up.

Spider
03-17-2011, 11:17 PM
That was a cool link on getting your website graded. Mine got a 57 (anyone else want to share their score?)...FrederickPearce.com scored 63. Interesting report details, I thought.

Harold Mansfield
03-18-2011, 12:03 AM
I had to go back and see what you guys were talking about. Never used it before and I don't put much stock in it but there are some interesting notes...more like reminders of things that I know aren't done.
My blog got a 92, but I think it had more to do with age than anything:
124bpms.com | Website Grader Report (http://websitegrader.com/site/124bpms.com)

Steve B
03-18-2011, 05:41 AM
It was great information - especially for an amateur. It's clear that I would have scored better if I had a Blog (which my web developer has been telling me to do for a long time). I also typed in the domain of a competitor and it was nice to see how I did on a comparison basis.

Spider
03-18-2011, 08:34 AM
Yes, I liked the openness of it, that one could enter any URL and get the report. I typed in another coaching website and was able to see why they were scoring better than I did. Which obviously indicates if I can can copy them in those aspects, I can improve my serps positioning.

billbenson
03-18-2011, 11:00 AM
I was 87 and my site has all kinds of problems that I'm aware of. Like eborg I think they heavily weight site age. I would use it as a source of ideas for your site rather than a grading tool. Also they only took a look at a couple of pages. That only grades those pages and they may not be your "sell" page.

I noticed the the thing Steve B mentioned about the site expiration and Vangogh commented on. I never take any SEO information as gospel. Certainly not from one source. As an example, I highly respect Vangoghs knowledge as a SEO and developer. I can think of a thing or two I would disagree with even him on.

@Spider, look before you leap. One point as well Spider. There are some very knowledgeable web designers and developers here. This is, however, a business forum. It is not a webmaster forum, web design forum, etc. There are ones that use black hat and white hat techniques. Ones specific to types of industries... As much time as you are spending on your site, you should be looking at other types of forums, blogs, etc as well.

vangogh
03-18-2011, 11:15 AM
Which obviously indicates if I can can copy them in those aspects, I can improve my serps positioning.

No. And that's the problem with these kind of tools. What you'd be doing is optimizing for the tool not search results. Everyone seems to assume that because some tool assigns a number to your site that it's advice is exactly what you need to do to rank well. Some of the items listed in the report will have exactly 0 impact on how well your site performs in search engines. I mentioned the domain thing earlier. Now I'll mention readability level. The readability level of your text isn't going to change anything as far as where your pages rank. It also lists a contact form. Adding a contact form is not going to improve your position in search results one bit.

This tool doesn't even claim to create an seo report. It's a marketing report with an seo component. Not an seo report.

For most of you all you would need to do is add a blog with a couple of posts to significantly improve your website grader score, but simply having a blog isn't going to suddenly make your pages rank better.

My point is you can work to achieve a score of 100 on this tool and still have a site that does nothing in search results. Success in search results is going to be a result of things this report isn't measuring. Now most of the advice the report gives is generally good advice. I've been saying for years I think a blog is one of the best marketing tools available to you. Again though just having a blog is meaningless. It's a tool that you still need to use effectively.

Sure test your site and see what grade it gets. Read through the report and see the advice it gives. However unless you understand the why behind everything listed you're not going to see improvements in your search traffic. You'd just be blindly following a tool without regard to what it's actually measuring.

Harold Mansfield
03-18-2011, 11:27 AM
And a tool can't measure the human factor. Sometimes I read a website or blog just because I like the way the author writes, or to see the joke of the day. I've been a regular at sites just because the domain was cleaver and I went back to see what they were up to.
Everything is important, but no one thing is most important.
You don't need to do EVERYTHING that you have heard about or read about concerning SEO and marketing to get the targeted readership that you desire. You have to do the things that are right for your website.

What I do for my music blog, does not work for my work website. Those sites require a different approach.
What VG does for his SEO blog, isn't necessarily a good fit for someone else's SEO blog.

2 websites can do the exact same things SEO-wise and they will not get the same results.
Like they tell you when driving in snow and ice..."Turn into the skid"..sometimes your website or readers will tell you what you to need focus on and were you are having successes that need to be improved.