content-effort-audit
Content Effort Audit
Score visible effort on finished URLs. Production hours, cost, and process do not count unless they left residue a stranger can point at.
Why this matters
Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines judge Main Content quality by effort, originality, and talent or skill, plus accuracy on informational/YMYL pages. 2025 updates made “little to no effort, originality, and added value” a Lowest path, including AI paraphrase and scaled content abuse. Generative AI alone does not determine the rating.
Three evidence layers stay separate:
- QRG effort — documented rater criterion (primary source).
- Leaked
contentEffort— reported LLM estimate for article pages. Mapping it to QRG is inference, not a Google statement. - People-first questions — original information, first-hand expertise, not just rewriting sources.
Do not brief “Content Effort is a confirmed ranking factor.” Operate as if visible effort is industrially scored. Label the leak as speculation.
Cross-links: library keep/refresh/prune → seo-aeo-content-strategy. Implementing effort adds on the page → on-page-seo-aeo-optimization.