Search Engine Land has an interesting write up on the possibility of Google’s quality ratings being released to the public. These are the guidelines they’ve come up with through using human testers to figure out what a ‘Quality’ site looks like.
Although they say that these human testers don’t influence rankings ‘directly’, it’s clear that the findings produced from these groups are used in ranking updates and algorithms, including the big Panda update.
It would be interesting to see exactly what they’ve designated as communicating Quality for a website, though much is probably already out there. We know what they want through different pronouncements, answers they’ve given to direct questions and, of course, common knowledge.
Still, the horse’s mouth is the most authoritative one. You can read the article here:
Google May Go Public With Its Human Search Quality Rater Guidelines