Is User-Generated Content (UGC) A Google Ranking Factor?

User-generated content material (UGC) will help enhance the content material worth on a web page by including new views and interesting info for different readers – and for free of charge to the content material creator.
Common varieties of UGC used to extend phrase depend embody tagged content material from social media, weblog feedback, rankings and evaluations, and discussion board posts.
But can UGC have an effect on your natural search rankings?
Read on to be taught whether or not there may be any connection between user-generated content material and improved Google rankings.
The Claim: User-Generated Content Is A Ranking Factor
What is user-generated content material?
UGC might be textual content, pictures, video, or another type of content material (e.g., weblog feedback, discussion board posts, product evaluations) that has been created for a model, enterprise, or publication by somebody not related to that firm.
You can use UGC to create engagement or pleasure round your model/web site, improve your content material, and even assist your search engine optimisation efforts.
Just consider Amazon and the way a lot evaluations have helped contribute to its rise and continued dominance.
But is it truly a Google rating issue?
The Evidence For User-Generated Content As A Ranking Factor
Google addresses user-generated spam within the Google Search Central Advanced search engine optimisation documentation:
“Sometimes, spam might be generated on a great website by malicious customers. This spam is often generated on websites that enable customers to create new pages or in any other case add content material to the positioning.”
Not all websites will likely be negatively impacted.
“However, in case your website has an excessive amount of user-generated spam on it, that may have an effect on our evaluation of the positioning, which can ultimately lead to us taking guide motion on the entire website.”
Google goes on to offer particular recommendation on easy methods to stop remark spam. In regards to rankings and remark spam, we see:
“Low-quality content material on some components of an internet site can affect the entire website’s rankings.”
And:
“Google may take away or demote pages overrun with user-generated spam to guard the standard of our search outcomes.”
In 2020, John Mueller, Google Search Advocate, answered a query about how Google ranks user-generated content material pages by relevancy and high quality:
“User-generated content material can take a lot of varieties, from feedback on the underside of your pages to dialogue between customers to finish pages written by customers.
Overall, Google doesn’t differentiate between content material you wrote and content material your customers wrote. If you publish it in your website, we’ll see it because the content material that you just need to have revealed, and that’s what we’ll use for rankings.”
He added that,
“…you probably have a considerable amount of user-generated content material, be certain it meets your requirements for publishing content material in your web site.”
With regards to hyperlinks in user-generated content material:
“…by default, you most likely can’t vouch for the hyperlinks that had been added. For these, we’ve a means of telling us that these hyperlinks are user-generated content material with the rel=“ugc” hyperlink attribute.”
In 2021, Google launched a presentation on UGC for AdSense publishers. They describe feedback as:
“…a good way for website homeowners to construct group and readership and due to that, remark sections are sometimes utilized by spammers who run automated packages that publish spam to abuse them [the comments].”
Again, they are saying that Google can’t differentiate between your content material and UGC.
If you don’t be certain that user-generated content material meets your publishing requirements, “…spam feedback on a web page can affect your website’s rankings.”
User-Generated Content As A Ranking Factor: Our Verdict

We know, from Mueller, that Google doesn’t differentiate between content material you wrote and content material your customers wrote. And we already knew that content material is a rating issue.
Therefore, user-generated content material is a confirmed rating issue.
Unfortunately, it could even have a detrimental affect in your rankings effectively, with reference to UGC spam.
Therefore, create publishing tips that encourage customers to submit high quality content material – and all the time keep on prime of your website’s user-generated content material moderation.
Featured Image: Robin Biong/Search Engine Journal

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ranking-factors/user-generated-content/

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