Google: Content Accuracy Is A Ranking Factor

Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at PubCon that he would consider content accuracy a ranking factor. He said because of YMYL, he would consider the accuracy of content a ranking factor. This comes a month after Danny Sullivan from Google said Google cannot determine the accuracy of content.

Here are the tweets covering what Gary Illyes from Google said on stage:

RT: Q: is content accuracy a ranking factor?
A: YMYL it is#Pubcon

— LAPITH (@bhumharit) October 10, 2019

Q: Is content accuracy a ranking factor?
A: "YMYL so yes. We go to great lengths to surface reputable and trustworthy sources, so yes."@methode @jenstar #Pubcon

— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) October 10, 2019

Does Google look at content accuracy? Because of YMYL I will say yes. @methode #Pubcon

— Patrick Stox (@patrickstox) October 10, 2019

Here is what Danny said about a month ago:

Machines can't tell the "accuracy" of content. Our systems rely instead on signals we find align with relevancy of topic and authority. See: https://t.co/O65v1PTehr and https://t.co/cTveD8XNxp

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 9, 2019

Of course, Gary and Danny are probably talking and referring to two different things but hey...

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Update:

Here is Danny Sullivan's response:

Also I didn't say accuracy wasn't ranking factor. Wasn't what I was asked. Asked if we could tell content is accurate. No, we can't. But again, signals, we look for things we believe correspond to accuracy. In that regard, damn right having accurate content is ranking factor....

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) October 11, 2019

Um, so how can content accuracy be a ranking factor if Google cannot tell if content is accurate?

Danny explains how Gary and he are speaking differently:

Is E-A-T a ranking factor? Not if you mean there's some technical thing like with speed that we can measure directly.

We do use a variety of signals as a proxy to tell if content seems to match E-A-T as humans would assess it.

In that regard, yeah, it's a ranking factor.

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) October 11, 2019