Rating the Helpfulness of the Supplementary Content

Supplementary Content can be a large part of what makes a High or Highest quality page very satisfying for its purpose. Features designed to help shoppers find other products they might also like can sometimes be as helpful as the MC of a shopping page. Ways to find other cool stuff on entertainment websites can keep users happily browsing. Sometimes, the comments on a blog post are the most interesting part.

Take a look at the SC and rate it on this scale:

• no supplementary content

• distracting/not helpful

• so-so

• helpful

• very helpful

So-so or Unhelpful Supplementary Content Examples


Low or Lowest quality pages frequently have SC which is unhelpful or distracting for the purpose of the page.

SC Rating

SC Example

Explanation

distracting/unhelpful

SC - Distracting/Unhelpful

This page has a lot of text at the bottom and the sides which is not actually helpful to users. See the content in green towards the bottom. (Note: This page also has no MC and is overall Lowest quality.)

distracting/unhelpful

SC - Distracting/Unhelpful

Some pages have way, way too many links, obscuring the page and distracting from the MC. This example is cropped to make it easier to view. The full webpage has even more links than are shown in this image.

no supplementary content

No SC

The only links on this page are the buttons saying "Click Here." These are affiliate links to merchant sites, which allow the website owner to monetize the page. On the surface, this page seems to be a product review, but closer inspection shows that the page is designed to get users to click on the "click here" links: there is no other way off this page. This page is deliberately created to make money by trying to get users to click on the monetized links. This page has no SC by design, in order to increase the chances of a click on the monetized links. (This is an example of a deceptive page and is considered overall Lowest quality.)

Helpful or Very Helpful Supplementary Content Examples

SC Rating

SC Example

Explanation

very helpful

SC Video - Very Helpful

The MC of this video page is a "Saturday Night Live" episode. Below the main video, there are many other videos that users may be interested in. This SC is very helpful.

helpful

SC Shopping - Helpful

This shopping page has helpful navigation features at the left to move around to different categories of shopping items. This SC is helpful.

Here are some recipe pages which range from very helpful to so-so in SC:

SC Rating

Recipe SC Example

Explanation

very helpful

Very Helpful

This recipe page has helpful features, such as the ability to print out a list of ingredients. Behind the tabs, there are reviews, nutritional information, a video on how to knead bread dough, etc. The SC is very helpful for a recipe page.

very helpful

Very Helpful

This page has reviews, a video, preparation time information, a "recipe box" feature, etc. This SC is very helpful for a recipe page.

so-so

So-So

While there is a lot of helpful Main Content on this page (including both text and images), there is little helpful recipe-specific Supplementary Content. There are no reviews, there is no shopping list, there is no recipe printing feature, etc. This SC is just so-so for a recipe page.

You must consider the purpose of the page to decide whether SC is helpful or distracting. Helpful SC for recipe pages (e.g., features to print lists of ingredients or videos on cooking techniques mentioned in the recipe) may be very different than helpful SC for encyclopedia pages (e.g., a list of other resources for the topic).

Reminder: These Page Quality guidelines are specific to "regular" webpages. Occasionally you may be asked to rate a landing page that is not a webpage. For example, you may be asked to rate a PDF file, a Microsoft Word Document, a PNG or JPEG image file, etc. PDF files and other non-webpages may not have any SC. For these types of pages, the absence of SC is expected and is not a sign of low quality. Please rate these types of pages using your best judgment.

Here is an example of a high quality PDF file, which we display here as an image (just like all other examples in these guidelines). There is no SC, but none would be expected for this type of file: High Quality PDF
.

Of course, not all PDF files are high quality. Here is an example of a gibberish PDF which should be rated overall

Lowest quality: Lowest Quality PDF
.
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