Google’s John Mueller answered a question about whether it’s true that adding a “contact page” and/or “about page” was a good idea because it’s important to Google. Mueller looked and said why the contact and about us pages were useful.
You need to convince the company to add contact and about us pages
@jaclynbrandt tweeted a question to John Mueller, explaining that they were trying to convince the company he worked for to add contacts and pages about us and needed a statement or information to show them why they should add those pages.
They he tweeted:
“@JohnMu I’m trying to convince my company to add a contact and/or about us page to our website. We are an online directory/blog for a niche sport (but run by an e-commerce company in that sport). Do you have any advice you can give them about why it’s important?”
John Mueller asked if it was because they wanted user feedback and suggested they check with their users.
The person who asked the question replied that they wanted to do this because they felt that it is important to Google for a company to have these pages.
They he tweeted:
“No! No need to comment (there are other ways to do this). I just heard it’s important to Google, but I can’t find any documentation about it.”
And he added:
“And yes, I know I shouldn’t do anything just because Google wants me to; I generally stay out of it and just try to be helpful. But I’ve heard that’s a make or break rule.”
Are contact and about pages important to Google?
It’s not an unreasonable question to ask if an about us or contact page is important. Google’s Quality Assessor Guidelines specifically tell assessors that it should be clear who is responsible for the website.
The guidelines (PDF) explain on page 25:
“To determine page quality, raters should consider EEAT:
The creator’s first-hand experience.
The experience of the creator.
The authority of the creator, the main content itself and the website.”
All of the above considerations cannot be confirmed by quality assessors if there is no documentation on the website about who is responsible for the website, which is information that can be found on an about page.
The page quality section continues:
Raters determine a Page Quality Score by:
…Reviewing available information about the website and its creator: It should be clear who is responsible for the website and who created the content on the page, even if it is through an alias or username “.
Identifying who is responsible for a website is easier when there is an information page that explains who is responsible for the website and why visitors to the site should trust them. This is information that, for website rating purposes, is directly linked to EEAT in the Quality Assessor Guidelines.
John Mueller answers the question
Mueller answered the question of whether having a contact and about page is a make-or-break rule at Google and that it is important to have such pages on a website.
he he tweeted your answer:
“I can think of good reasons for some sites to have these types of pages, but after checking, there’s nothing in our search developer documentation that suggests this is necessary.”
About us and contact pages
There are a lot of things that people think are “important to Google” that really aren’t. For example, recipe bloggers have long understood that having a lot of content is important to ranking on Google. Even recipe blogger SEOs insisted this to me, although there is no documentation or statement from Google to confirm this.
And the reality is that content length is not a ranking factor or influence on ranking, Google just doesn’t care. The only thing that matters is whether it is helpful or useful and provides a good and satisfying experience for users.
Similarly, the thing about contact and about us pages is that Google doesn’t care either, they’re not “important” to Google and they’re not required.
But they are important if you want to communicate to site visitors that the site owners are not inexperienced affiliates. Even for the sake of conversions, to get people to come back to your site to click ads or buy more, it’s important to earn their trust.
So if a business needs convincing, maybe the argument that it will help you make more money is as good an argument as any, because if people buy more stuff, click affiliate ads, or increase ad impressions , this is a sign that people trust the site as well.
User experience is a monetization thing and could have a downstream effect, but that’s not a direct thing, even if it’s important to quality raters.
Featured image by Shutterstock/Dean Drobot
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