All you can Google E-E-A-T – designing your website to demonstrate E-E-A-T to boost rankings
Google’s E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is a document that helps its human moderators assess the quality of websites. It’s useful to be aware of it because it gives us an insight into what criteria Google (and other search engines) might use to rate a website as better that another.
This has a bearing on where a website might rank in search results. Being aware of these criteria can help you design your website and website content so it ranks higher on search engines.
Google’s E-A-T-T criteria
E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) has been a cornerstone of Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines for years. Recently, Google added a new “E” to the mix – Experience so it is now E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
Google has a team of moderators that continually assess search results to ensure the algorithm is delivering the best search results that meet the
“At Google, we like to say that Search is not a solved problem: We’re constantly making improvements to make Search work better for our users. We put all proposed improvements to our Search product through a rigorous evaluation process. This process includes soliciting feedback from “Search Quality Raters”, who help us measure how people are likely to experience our results.”
It’s no secret as you can download the latest version of the search quality guidelines here: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf
Google recognized that first-hand experience is critical to expertise and credibility for many topics.
This is especially true for “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) topics, where the content can impact a person’s health, financial stability, safety, or well-being.
By expanding to E-E-A-T, Google is signaling that it values the content creator’s credentials, reputation, and direct, real-world experience with the topic.
For example the issue of vaccinations can be contentious where those with a particular political agenda, scam / grift (i.e. people saying things that aren’t true but they know will stir up their audience) or bias might result in advice that could endanger health.
If someone is making a claim that could affect health of the reader then Google Search Quality guidelines will look closely at the credentials of the author. Do they have real medical training or can they prove the quality their work by citing quality sources that back up what they are saying.
The same principle applies to financial advice where investment advice such as buy shares in X (if it’s actually ‘X’ then that would not be sound advice at the moment) then the person making that recommendation should know what they are talking about. They need to have a provable track record in financial advice that is unbiased and sound as well as no specific interest in the product or company they are recommending.
Demonstrating E-E-A-T
To demonstrate a high level of E-E-A-T, brands and content creators should focus on each of the four components:
- Experience: Show that your content is created by people with direct, first-hand experience with the topic. This could be through author bios, “behind the scenes” content, or by directly referencing personal experiences within the content itself.
- Expertise: Demonstrate your subject matter expertise through the depth and accuracy of your content and author credentials and by citing reputable sources and studies.
- Authoritativeness: Build your brand’s authority by consistently publishing high-quality content, earning coverage and mentions from other respected sites, and growing your reputation within your industry.
- Trustworthiness: Be transparent about who is behind your content, provide clear contact and customer service information, maintain a positive reputation, and follow ethical content practices.
Search results should help people. Search results should provide authoritative and trustworthy information, not lead people astray with misleading content. This will benefit your users and help your search engine rankings.
Get in touch with Dinesh on 07941 686113 or contact us if you need help on web design, web hosting, SEO services or domain names. For the purposes of Google E-A-T-T he has over 20 years’ of experience in web design, technical SEO and SEO.
Further reading
Google E-E-A-T: What Is It & How To Demonstrate It For SEO
Search Quality Rater Program Guidelines summary
