EEAT: what criteria does Google take into account?
EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google first introduced EEAT in its Search Quality Rater Guidelines in 2014 and added the "E" for experience in 2022.
EEAT signals enable Google to assess the overall quality of a web page, and therefore influence the ranking of pages in search results.
Since the introduction of EAT by Google, business owners and marketing professionals have become confused about what EAT is and how it affects search rankings. With the addition of the word "experience" to the beginning of the EAT acronym and the 2022 Helpful Content update, it's essential to understand how Google perceives and uses EAT to achieve and maintain good SERP rankings.
In this article, we'll answer the question "What is EEAT?" and explain exactly how and why it's important for your SEO. EEAT evaluations can be handled using simple, achievable methods. So we're going to focus in on the strategies you can use to create a positive experience, demonstrate your expertise, build your authority and establish trust for your website. But first, let's define EEAT.
What does EEAT stand for?
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
Google wants to offer Internet users the best possible experience. That's why it rewards content that meets the highest quality standards by giving it a more prominent place on search engine results pages (SERPs). Google evaluates the quality of web pages on the basis of its published standards for experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness, which it disseminates through its Search Quality Raters Guidelines.
One way to define EEAT is to think of it as a four-legged stool - your website needs all four parts to stand upright. Each of these four words represents a measure of a company's right to be considered a leader in its sector.
Here's what you need to know about experience, expertise, authority and reliability.
Experience
Google takes personal, first-hand experience into account when evaluating content.
It favors reviews from people with personal experience of a product or service over those who seem to have no connection with it.
Expertise
Google favors content created by an expert in the field. Google evaluates expertise at the content level, not at the site level. Your website must show that you have a high level of knowledge in a particular field. Google examines your content to see if it demonstrates a higher level of expertise than other pages with similar content.
The authority
Authority is a matter of reputation, especially with other industry experts and influencers. Authoritative sites are considered the first source of information on a subject. Authority is relative and specific to a field of expertise.
Confidence (or credibility or reliability)
Google considers trust to be the most important EEAT signal. A site that demonstrates experience, expertise and authority but is not trustworthy will be considered as having a low EEAT. Trustworthiness is a measure of your site's security.
- Is your web domain secure, or do you need to switch from HTTP to HTTPS?
- Does your site contain information such as your company name and contact details?
- Do you have a Google professional profile?
- Do you have privacy policies, refund and return policies, and a terms and conditions page?
- Do your online stores offer secure payment methods?
- Reliability is a measure of content legitimacy, accuracy and transparency.
- Who created the content?
- Is the author's contact information available?
- Is the information backed up by a consensus of experts?
Reliability is also linked to a specific area of expertise.
Where does EEAT come from?
The acronym EEAT comes from a set of guidelines published by Google for its quality assurance team or, as Google calls them, Search Quality Raters.
Research quality assessors
Search quality assessors are real people who check the quality of search results following any changes made by the engineers on the search engine and algorithm team.
According to the Quality Evaluator Guidelines, the EEAT score is "very important" for pages that have a beneficial purpose, and Google asks its evaluators to consider the following:
- The website as a whole
- The authors of the site content
- The EEAT of the main content of the page they analyze.
But what exactly does "core content" mean?
Google defines the concept of main content in its instructions. For quality assessment purposes, core content can be
- Page title
- The text
- Images
- Videos
- Page features
- It can also be user-generated content, such as videos, comments or articles that users have added or uploaded to the page.
Using the EEAT as a factor, search quality assessors judge page quality on a scale from lowest to highest.
Research quality assessor's guidelines
The Search Quality Evaluator guidelines are used by human quality evaluators to assess websites and SERPs. These guidelines consist of a 200-page document that explains, step by step, how to evaluate the quality of a page.
The work of search quality assessors has no direct impact on rankings, but Google applies their judgments to improve its search algorithm. That's why SEO strategists rely on the Google EEAT guidelines to identify the signals Google is trying to measure.
The EEAT guidelines are as follows:
- How to determine the author of the content or the owner of the website domain?
- How do I search for EEAT content creators?
- How do you assess the quality of a page and its content?
- What constitutes high-quality content and what constitutes low-quality content?
- What types of domains or pages require high levels of EEAT (such as "Your Money or Your Life" - YMYL - sites)?
- How do you compare a website's mobile experience with that of a desktop computer?
- What types of pages, page designs or page ergonomics could harm users?
- How do you evaluate domains and pages using an evaluation slider ranging from "fully meets user needs" to "does not meet user needs"?
With so many websites available on the Internet, you may be wondering why Google places so much importance on the experience, expertise, authority and trust that websites demonstrate.
In short, safety.
Why is the EEAT so important?
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. The EEAT is part of Google's ongoing efforts to prevent Internet users from gaming the system (for example, through keyword spam) and to reward useful, quality content that Internet users can trust.
The EEAT is important because it helps Google direct web users to the most useful and highest quality content possible in response to their query. The aim is to improve web content for human users.
Assessing the reliability of content also ensures safe browsing for Google users, especially those who are susceptible to scams or identity theft.
The more feedback search quality evaluators provide on the effectiveness of Google's algorithm, the better the search engine is able to interpret EEAT signals. The more sophisticated Google's algorithm becomes, the more it can "intuitively" reward high-quality content and relegate low-quality content to the bottom of the search results.
If you don't optimize your EEAT signals, you risk being ranked lower, getting less traffic, fewer leads and less revenue. If you can't prove your experience, expertise, authority and reliability, Google will give priority to your competitors' content and send potential customers in their direction rather than yours.
How is EEAT taken into account in algorithm updates?
The concept of EEAT has always been important, but Google's ability to measure it and include this information in its decisions to determine site rankings has changed over the years.
For example, in early August 2018, many sites were affected by Google's core algorithm update, known as the "Medic" update.
Although this has not been confirmed by Google, the wider SEO community has examined the data and concluded that this update has hurt YMYL sites that didn't meet EEAT expectations. On the other hand, it appears to have rewarded those YMYL sites that did meet high-quality standards.
The industry-wide conclusion is that YMYL sites need to do their due diligence to ensure that their EEAT signals are up to scratch.As Google becomes increasingly able to measure expertise, authority and trust, these signals will have a greater influence on page rankings. Expect EEAT to become increasingly important as future algorithm updates align the algorithm with human ability to "read" quality signals.
How does Google correlate ranking signals and EEAT?
Backlinks and mentions are important.
Well-placed backlinks from relevant, authoritative domains are the backbone of an effective SEO strategy, and one of the best ways to demonstrate your authority in your industry. Google knows which links are valuable.
It evaluates links by measuring their proximity to "source" pages. According to Google's algorithm patent, source pages "must be trustworthy, diverse to cover a wide range of areas of public interest, and well-connected to other pages (i.e. they must have a large number of outbound links)".
Other signals correlated with EEAT guidelines :
- Positive reviews
- Reputation
- Mentions in forums
Is the EEAT a grading factor?
There has been a lot of confusion and misinformation surrounding the question of whether the EEAT is a grading factor.
A "ranking factor" must be something objective and tangible that an algorithm can evaluate, like the volume of backlinks.
Experience, expertise, authority and reliability are subjective human concepts. That's why Google engineers need Quality Raters to tell them whether algorithm updates designed to measure objective signals that correspond to EEAT are doing so accurately.
With human help, Google engineers are getting closer to quantifying the signals that indicate EEAT. This means that, while not yet a direct ranking factor, EEAT influences rankings and will continue to do so.
By improving your signals of experience, expertise, authority and reliability, you increase your chances of ranking well in search results.
What happens when you ignore the EEAT?
Ignoring what Google shares about how it ranks quality websites is never a good idea. If you ignore the need to comply with the TEEE guidelines, there are two possible outcomes:
- Best case scenario: You'll lose ground to competitors who know all about EEAT.
- Worst case scenario: You'll be penalized for content that Google considers untrustworthy, especially if your website contains YMYL content.
How can you improve SEO by taking EEAT criteria into account?
To improve technical SEO by reinforcing the EEAT criteria (Experience, Expertise, Authority and Reliability), it's crucial to audit your brand and content. A good brand reputation is essential to outperforming your competitors in the search results. Use tools to monitor reviews and mentions on social networks. It's also important to regularly audit and update your site's content, attributing each article to a specific author with a detailed biography to reinforce credibility.
About" and "Contact" pages should contain clear, detailed information about your company and its team. Make sure that external quotes and references are up-to-date and from authoritative sources. Optimizing your social networking presence and managing your online reputation are also essential. Respond to reviews, even negative ones, to show that you're listening to your customers. By following these recommendations, you'll strengthen your technical SEO and improve search engines' perception of your site.
Do you need help to improve your EEAT metrics and rank well with Google?
Pivotal is an expert in SEO and can considerably improve your site's EEAT metrics. Thanks to an effective netlinking strategy, Pivotal increases the notoriety and popularity of your domain name by obtaining relevant inbound and external links. They optimize the user experience by reinforcing internal meshing and creating strategic internal links on every page of your site, especially the home page. By using directories and improving indexing, Pivotal ensures that your pages are well referenced for relevant queries. They also use WordPress for effective digital content management, maximizing clicks to your site. Their holistic approach to SEO includes regular audits to maintain and continually improve your site's performance.
