5 Essential Insights to Master the Google E-E-A-T for Powerful SEO Success

Understanding Google E-E-A-T is essential for anyone looking to make a successful website. It stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. It is a crucial factor in Google’s algorithms that can significantly impact a website’s ranking.

Google E-E-A-T is a concept we often overlook but a powerful tool for anyone looking to make sure the right people see their website.

In this blog post, we’ll look at what Google E-E-A-T is and how it can help improve your website’s visibility in search engine results.

Introducing E-E-A-T

Let’s break this down. What exactly is Google E-E-A-T or Double-E-A-T? How does it benefit us to educate ourselves about this tool? 

The Moz e-a-t blog describes it as Google’s way of protecting searchers from low-quality content that can potentially be detrimental. Google E-E-A-T is how Google rates your content’s level of conduct.

This concept especially applies to Google YMYL pages: “Your Money Your Life.” It represents pages that have an impact on your current or future well-being. Some examples of Google YMYL pages include news, legal advice, finance, medical advice, and online shopping.

Experience

Let’s start with the first E. Formerly Google E-A-T, on December 15, 2022, Google announced that E-A-T was gaining an E: experience. It is now Google E-E-A-T or “Double-E-A-T.” Google wants to ensure the content consumed demonstrates some degree of familiarity, as readers find value in content written by someone with personal experience.

Expertise

The second E stands for expertise. Google considers the extent to which the content creator has the necessary knowledge or skill for the particular topic. The Moz e-a-t blog explains that Google wants to be as confident as possible that they are recommending sites with high expertise. Google’s explanation of how search engines work clearly states that sources’ expertise is among the ranking factors.

Authority

Did you know that you can only publish a page on Wikipedia if you are an authority in that space? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say that anyone can post anything on Wikipedia. That is simply not true. According to Marie Haynes (2018), sites ranking one, two, and three have Wikipedia pages.

Google considers an authoritative site a go-to source for the information provided. A website or content creator with the most reliable and trustworthy sources is authoritative. When other creators link to your website because of the value it provides, Google deems that authoritative.

Trustworthiness

Google considers trust to be the extent to which a page is accurate, honest, safe, and reliable. A good example is online stores that must secure online payments and have customer service representatives who handle sensitive financial information. A site that is not trustworthy can tank your ratings on Google.

There are several ways to reassure your audience that you’re running a trustworthy website. Having your contact information available and accurate is a must. When I worked in property insurance as an adjuster, we were only allowed to use a website if it had a physical address, phone number, and email address. A term of business or T&Cs page and privacy policy are easily accessible to users is necessary for a trustworthy website. In addition, a clear refund and return policy are essential if accepting transactions. These are all ways to help rank on Google.

Google E-E-A-T Checklist

• The first-hand experience of the creator
• The expertise of the creator 
• The authority of the creator, the main content itself, and the website
• And trust: the extent to which the page is accurate, honest, safe, and reliable

Evaluating Google’s Quality Raters E-E-A-T

Now, let’s talk about Google’s search quality rater guidelines. Google wants your website to succeed. They want to provide their consumers with high-quality E-E-A-T content. 

One way of achieving that goal is by providing 36 pages of search Quality Rater Guidelines. These guidelines are accessible to everyone and offer valuable information to support the success of your website. They cover three main topics:

1. How Search Works
2. Improving Search
3. The Search Quality Rating Process

Google employees use the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines to manually check and rate website quality, and they outline what Google Raters look for. These guidelines are also available to the public.

Google has a team of approximately 16,000 Search Quality Raters from different regions across the globe who speak 80+ different languages and represent the cultural standards of their rating locale. Search Quality Raters are required to conduct a page quality rating task, which assesses the reliability of their search results using E-E-A-T criteria. Google has very high page quality rating standards for pages on YMYL topics because low-quality pages could potentially negatively impact the health, financial stability, or safety of people or the welfare or well-being of society. 

How to Improve Google E-E-A-T in SEO?

Marie Haynes (2018) points out that the Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines use E-E-A-T 186 times. I think it’s safe to say that E-E-A-T has a very significant role in SEO. If you’re unsure what SEO means, check out the article “6 SEO Basics for Local Health Businesses.”

An excellent way to improve your site’s SEO, abiding by Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines, is to search for other websites that are authorities in your space and find ways to get them to mention you. Guest blogging on a website that Google ranks as trustworthy and authoritative is a way to boost SEO. Additionally, having someone write a review on your website and link back to their high-ranking website can validate expertise, trustworthiness, and authoritativeness. Consistent and high-quality content, such as a daily newsletter, may be helpful. Using internal links can also help SEO results. How long does SEO take?

The days of popping up overnight and taking over Google’s results pages are over. Consistency is vital when it comes to seeing SEO results. Researching and implementing Google’s high-quality E-E-A-T standards is a great way to support the success of your website and business.

Resources

Booth, I. (2019, June 4). Google E-A-T SEO: How to Create Content Google Wants. Moz. Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://moz.com/blog/google-e-a-t
Edwards, M. (2023, January 6). How to Determine If Your SEO Efforts are Yielding Results. Write RN Content Agency. Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://writern.net/how-do-i-know-my-seo-efforts-are-successful-or/
Google. (2022, December 15). Search Quality Rater Guidelines: An Overview. https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/hsw-sqrg.pdf
Google Search. (n.d.). How Search Works. Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/ranking-results/Kelbach, J. (2021, May 11). 6 SEO Basics for Local Health Businesses. Write RN Content Agency. Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://writern.net/seo-basics-for-local-health-businesses/
Kelbach, J. (2021, February 2). 8 SEO Strategies to Boost Your Content on Google’s Search Results. Write RN Content Agency. Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://writern.net/8-seo-strategies-to-boost-your-content-on-googles-search-results/
Tucker, E. (2022, December 15). Our latest update to the quality rater guidelines: E-A-T gets an extra E for Experience. Google Search Central. Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/12/google-raters-guidelines-e-e-a-t
WordStream. (2022, August 13). 7 Truths About Google E-A-T to Help Increase Your Content Authority. Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2021/03/12/google-e-a-t
Authoritas. [Username]. (2018, October 3). Marie Haynes Conference – BSEO ’18 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azdsc1K1HIE