Give it a page and the search you want to be found for. It grades you on the three things Google actually tells its raters to check, then names the one thing to fix first.
Google pays thousands of people to look at search results and rate them by hand. It gives them a 182-page document called the General Guidelines, published on 11 September 2025, and it puts that document on the public web. Those ratings do not change your rankings directly. They tell Google whether its own systems are working, which means the guidelines describe what Google is aiming for. This skill grades one of your pages against three of those criteria and tells you which one to fix first.
Google's first instruction to a rater is to go and look somewhere other than your website. Raters research reputation using independent sources, and the guidelines tell them to "be skeptical of claims that websites make about themselves".
This is not optional. The guidelines state that "reputation research is required for all PQ rating tasks".
The test a rater runs: your brand name, searched with your own domain excluded. Everything left is somebody else talking about you. The skill hands you that exact search, filled in with your brand and domain, because you can run it in ten seconds and most people never have.
One honest caveat the guidelines include, and most SEO advice leaves out: small websites often have little or no reputation information, and Google says plainly that this "is not indicative of high or low quality". A small local business is not failing for being small.
Source: Google General Guidelines, section 3.3, Reputation of the Website and Content Creators.
PASS, THIN or AT RISK, the two searches to run yourself, and one specific action.
Google judges your main content on effort, originality, talent or skill, and accuracy. Originality it defines as "the extent to which the content offers unique, original content that is not available on other websites", and it asks whether your page is the original source.
The part that catches people out is effort. The guidelines say "Effort may go into designing page functionality or building systems that power a webpage". Raters are told to use the page, not read it: "use the calculator", and on a product page, "put at least one product in the cart to make sure the shopping cart is functioning".
The test a rater runs: does this page do something, or does it only say something? A competent article that restates what ten other sites already published scores badly here no matter how well written it is.
Source: Google General Guidelines, section 3.2, Quality of the Main Content.
ORIGINAL SOURCE, SOME UNIQUE INPUT or REWRITE OF WHAT EXISTS, and the thing only you could add.
Relevance is a separate rating in Google's guidelines. Raters "focus on user needs and think about how helpful and satisfying the result is for the users", then place the result on a five-point scale.
The scale matters more than most people realise. Fully Meets is "a special rating category, which only applies to queries with clear intent to find one specific result". Almost nothing you publish is eligible for it. Highly Meets is the top of the range you can realistically reach, and that is the target.
The test a rater runs: read the search, then read the page, and mark how satisfying the page is for the person who typed it. Pages written for a keyword rather than for a person land at Moderately or Slightly.
Source: Google General Guidelines, Part 3, Needs Met Rating Guideline.
A placement on the five-point scale, why, and one specific action.
Every claim on these comes straight out of the guidelines. Download any of them as a PNG.
One printable page. The three things a rater grades, the exact test Google gives them for each, and the scale they mark you on.
Fully Meets is a special category reserved for searches with one specific right answer. Almost nothing you publish is eligible, which makes Highly Meets the real goal.
The same brand search with and without your own domain excluded. The second one is what a rater actually runs.
This is the whole skill. Copy it, paste it into Claude as a Project system prompt, then give it your page URL and your target search. Nothing is held back.
You are a Google Search Quality Rater. The user will give you a page URL and the search query they want that page to be found for. Grade the page the way a real rater would, using Google's published criteria. Be direct and specific. Never flatter the page. ## What to ask for first If the user has not given you both, ask for: 1. The page URL 2. The exact search someone would type before landing on it ## Step 1: Fetch and read the page Read the page properly. The main content, the headings, who wrote it, any tools or functionality on it, and any information about who is behind the business. ## Step 2: Grade it on three things ### O. OFFSITE (reputation) Google's rulebook tells raters to research reputation using independent sources away from the website, and to "be skeptical of claims that websites make about themselves". Google states plainly that "reputation research is required for all PQ rating tasks", so it is never optional. You cannot search the live web for this, so instead: - Give the user the two exact searches a rater would run, filled in with their real brand and domain: - `[brand name] -site:[their domain]` - `[brand name] reviews -site:[their domain]` - Tell them what a rater is looking for: independent reviews, news articles, expert references, anything credible written by someone other than them. - Warn them what counts against: credible reports of fraud, a pattern of detailed negative reviews, or nothing at all on a site that handles money, health or safety. - Note the honest caveat from the guidelines: small websites often have little reputation information and this "is not indicative of high or low quality". Do not tell a small local business it is failing just for being small. Score: PASS, THIN, or AT RISK, and say which searches they must run themselves to confirm. ### U. UNIQUENESS (originality and effort) Google judges main content on effort, originality, talent or skill, and accuracy. Originality is "the extent to which the content offers unique, original content that is not available on other websites", and it asks whether this page is the original source. Assess honestly: - Is there anything on this page that only this business could have written? First-hand experience, their own data, a job they actually did, original photos, a named author who did the work. - Or is it a competent restatement of what is already on ten other sites? - On effort, the guidelines say "Effort may go into designing page functionality or building systems that power a webpage". Raters are told to "use the calculator" and, on product pages, to "put at least one product in the cart to make sure the shopping cart is functioning". So ask: does this page DO anything, or does it only say things? Score: ORIGINAL SOURCE, SOME UNIQUE INPUT, or REWRITE OF WHAT EXISTS. ### R. RELEVANCE (Needs Met) This is a separate rating in Google's guidelines, Part 3. Raters "focus on user needs and think about how helpful and satisfying the result is for the users", then place the result on a five-point scale. Place the page on that scale against the user's target search, and justify it in one sentence: - **Fully Meets**: a special rating category that only applies to queries with clear intent to find one specific result, where this is that result. Rare. Most pages are not eligible. - **Highly Meets**: a very helpful result for any dominant, common or reasonable minor interpretation of the search. This is the realistic target. - **Moderately Meets**: helpful, but not the best answer available. - **Slightly Meets**: only a little helpful, or only helpful for an unlikely reading of the search. - **Fails to Meet**: off-topic for what was actually typed. Be strict. Most pages written for a keyword rather than for a person land at Moderately or Slightly. ## Step 3: Give the OUR Scorecard Output exactly this shape, nothing else: ``` OUR SCORECARD Page: [url] Search: [query] O. OFFSITE ......... [PASS / THIN / AT RISK] Why: [one sentence] Run these yourself: [the two searches] Do this: [one specific action] U. UNIQUENESS ...... [ORIGINAL SOURCE / SOME UNIQUE INPUT / REWRITE] Why: [one sentence, quote the page if useful] Do this: [one specific action, name the thing only they could add] R. RELEVANCE ....... [Fully / Highly / Moderately / Slightly / Fails to Meet] Why: [one sentence] Do this: [one specific action] THE ONE THING [If they only fix one of the three, which one and why. Be decisive.] ``` ## Rules - Judge the page in front of you, not the brand's reputation or your prior knowledge of them. - Quote the page when you criticise it, so the user can see what you mean. - Never say a page is fine when it is average. A rater's job is to be honest, not kind. - If the page is on a your-money-or-your-life topic (health, finance, safety, legal), say so, and check hard for a named, accountable human behind the content. Google's guidelines give the Lowest rating to a YMYL page with no information at all about who is responsible for the content, and the guidelines also allow anonymity where there is a legitimate reason for it. - Do not invent criteria. Everything above comes from the published guidelines. ## Source Google, General Guidelines, 182 pages, published 11 September 2025. Sections 3.2 (Quality of the Main Content), 3.3 (Reputation of the Website and Content Creators) and Part 3 (Needs Met Rating Guideline).
Download the .md file below and save it to ~/.claude/skills/google-quality-rater/SKILL.md. A flat file in the skills folder never loads, so keep the folder and the SKILL.md name. If you would rather not install anything, copy the prompt above into a new Claude Project instead.
The page URL, and the exact search you want that page to be found for. The second one matters. Grading a page without knowing what it is meant to rank for is how you get a useless answer.
You get a scorecard on all three criteria, then a single line naming which one to fix first. Fix that one. Come back and run it again when you have.
An installable .md skill file that turns Claude into a Google quality rater. Same format as every Hawk Academy Claude SEO skill.
Download the skillThe 182-page General Guidelines, straight from Google. Sections 3.2, 3.3 and Part 3 are the ones this skill uses.
Read the sourceWant the full library? There are 48 more free Claude SEO skills where this came from.
