Snoika
Glossary·Content strategy

What is E-E-A-T

Definition

The two Es in E-E-A-T stand for Experience and Expertise; A and T stand for Authoritativeness and Trust.

Google uses these four qualities to judge whether content and the people behind it deserve belief. The framework comes from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines, the manual its human raters follow when they grade search results. E-E-A-T is a quality standard. Google doesn't give your page an E-E-A-T score.

TermE-E-A-T3 min read · reviewed by the Snoika team

E-E-A-T defined for marketers

For SEO content marketers, E-E-A-T is the evidence on and around a page that its author knows the subject and can be believed. That evidence shows up in bylines and in content marketing with cited sources and first-hand detail. It also shows up in what other sites say about you. Raters judge what you publish.

What E-E-A-T stands for

Each of the four letters asks its own question about the content and its creator. Google added the first E for Experience in the December 2022 update to its rater guidelines.

Experience

Has the creator actually used the product or lived through the situation? A hotel review from a guest who stayed there is worth more than one pieced together from photos.

Expertise

Does the creator have the knowledge the topic needs? A tax guide calls for formal training. For a sourdough recipe, years of baking can be enough.

Authoritativeness

Do people treat the creator or site as a go-to source on the subject? Reputation decides this through reviews from others and their citations or mentions.

Trust

Is the page accurate and honest? Google's guidelines put trust at the center and warn that "untrustworthy pages have low E-E-A-T" no matter how strong the other three look.

Why E-E-A-T affects visibility

E-E-A-T affects visibility because Google designs its ranking systems to reward the pages raters judge high quality. Raters' scores show Google whether an algorithm change surfaces better pages. The stakes go up for "Your Money or Your Life" (YMYL) topics such as health or finance. For those topics, Google says its systems give even more weight to strong E-E-A-T.

Is E-E-A-T a ranking factor

E-E-A-T isn't a confirmed ranking factor in the sense of one measured signal. Google Search Central says "E-E-A-T itself isn't a specific ranking factor", and adds that "using a mix of factors that can identify content with good E-E-A-T is useful." In 2019, Danny Sullivan of Google described it as working through "a variety of signals as a proxy". You can strengthen those signals.

E-E-A-T in AI search results

E-E-A-T carries into AI search because answer engines pull from sources that already look credible. Google's AI Overviews sit on top of the same index and quality systems as its regular results. ChatGPT and Perplexity don't publish their selection rules. Even so, a page with a named author and cited sources gives any system more facts it can check.

How Google evaluates E-E-A-T

Google evaluates E-E-A-T through human raters who score sample results against the guidelines and algorithms that look for signals that match those human judgments. Raters read the main content and look up who runs the site. Then they search for independent reviews and news about the creator. Algorithms rely on proxies such as links and brand mentions. Check whether your author's name leads to a real profile elsewhere.

A real-world E-E-A-T example

Picture two pages on managing type 2 diabetes. The first has no author and offers generic tips with no sources. The second, written by a named endocrinologist, shows when it was last reviewed and cites clinical guidelines. Raters score the second page higher on every letter. Because the topic is YMYL, that gap counts for more.

Building E-E-A-T for your brand

You build E-E-A-T by showing real experience on the page and making it easy to check who's behind it. Start with these content planning steps:

Name your authors and add bios that link to their work elsewhere.
Add first-hand proof, such as your own photos or test results.
Cite primary sources and date every substantive update.
Publish an About page and an editorial policy.
Earn mentions from respected sites in your field.

Related SEO terms

These terms come up next to E-E-A-T, and each one covers a different part of search quality:

YMYLa category of topics that get stricter E-E-A-T scrutiny. It isn't a quality standard itself.
Search Quality Rater Guidelinesthe document that defines E-E-A-T and tells raters how to apply it.
Helpful contentGoogle's broader advice on people-first pages. E-E-A-T is one lens within it.
Topical authorityhow fully a site's content map covers a subject. It's narrower than E-E-A-T's view of reputation.

Once you know what E-E-A-T is, open one of your own pages and ask which of the four letters a stranger could verify from it.

Look up more AI search and SEO terms in our glossary.

Related terms

All terms
Content map in SEO content planningA content map is the plan of every page a website needs so that Google can find it and AI assistants can cite it. If you're asking what is a content map in SEO, that's the answer. It's one document that groups the pages you already have and the pages you still need by topic,Topical map in SEO site planningA topical map is a plan that lists every question a website must answer to cover one subject in full. It sorts those questions into pillar pages and cluster pages, then joins them with internal links. A topical map is a site plan built around subjects, while keyword lists are built around single seaKeyword mapping in SEO page planningKeyword mapping means assigning each target keyword, or each group of closely related keywords, to one page on a website. You build the map before anyone writes, so no two pages chase the same query. So the plain answer to what is keyword mapping is one search for one page, decided in advance.Content gap in SEO coverageA content gap is a question your audience searches for that requires a new answer on your site or a better one to match the pages ranking above you. In SEO, the term covers both topics you never wrote about and pages that exist but miss what the searcher wanted. Once you find your gaps, you know whiTopical relevanceTopical relevance is how closely a page, or a whole website, matches the subject behind a search. Search engines judge it by meaning, so matching words is not enough. They estimate it from the concepts a page covers and from the related pages around it. A site with strong topical relevance looks likYMYLYMYL stands for "Your Money or Your Life." Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines use the label for topics where a wrong answer could hurt a reader's health or money, or put people's safe

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