That’s because Google looks for more than just “great content” these days.<\/p>\n
Google wants expert<\/span>, authoritative<\/span> content written by trustworthy<\/span> sources with experience<\/i> on the topic. In this guide, we’ll show you exactly how to do that.<\/p>\n We’ll start by looking at what E-E-A-T is and where it all started: as one of the biggest shake-ups the SEO world has seen in the past 10 years. <\/p>\n Looking for something in particular? Click a link below to jump straight to a specific section.<\/p>\n In SEO, E-E-A-T stands for Experience<\/b>, Expertise<\/span>, Authoritativeness<\/span>, and Trustworthiness<\/span>. Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness have been a key part of Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines ever since August 2018, with Experience being added in December of 2022.<\/p>\n The Quality Rater Guidelines are a 176-page guidebook to everything Google looks for in high-ranking search results.<\/p>\n At Google, a team of approximately ten thousand search quality raters uses the guidelines to carry out spot checks that evaluate the performance of the ranking algorithms in evaluating page quality.<\/p>\n In a meeting with CNBC, Ben Gomes explained the role of the Quality Raters’ Guidelines<\/a> in Google’s search algorithms:<\/p>\n \u201cYou can view the raters\u2019 guidelines as where we want the search algorithm to go. They don\u2019t tell you how the algorithm is ranking results, but they fundamentally show what the algorithm should do.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Following Google\u2019s Quality Rater Guidelines is simply your best bet for improving your performance in search. And that’s where E-E-A-T comes into play.<\/p>\n As Google puts it in the QRG, search results should help people. Google wants to steer people away from misleading content, slipshod advice, or fraudulent websites. Google’s goal is to show people the results that will give them the most reliable, accurate, and helpful information.<\/p>\n Think about it from your perspective as a user. You want information you can trust — information written by experts who are an authority in their field. And that’s what E-E-A-T is all about.<\/p>\n Google factors in E-E-A-T when evaluating pages that could impact a user’s happiness, health, financial well-being, or safety. Google calls these pages Your Money or Your Life<\/span> pages, or YMYL for short.<\/p>\n It’s easy to think that this means E-E-A-T affects mainly finance and health-related websites. But that’s far from the truth.<\/p>\n In fact, YMYL sites include virtually any <\/span>site that helps readers make an important decision, including:<\/p>\n Clearly, a very broad range of sites are considered YMYL sites in Google’s eyes. If you’re wondering what non-YMYL content looks like, check out this BuzzFeed list<\/a>.<\/p>\n The truth is that if your site helps readers make an important decision that affects their health, wealth, happiness, or safety in any<\/span> way, it’s a YMYL site. And even if your site doesn’t fall into this category, the principles of E-E-A-T are still important to consider.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve likely heard of E-A-T before, which is the original acronym used for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It was first introduced as part of Google\u2019s quality rater guidelines in 2014 and has since become a way for SEOs and webmasters to gauge the quality of their websites. <\/p>\n However, it wasn\u2019t until 2018 when SEOs and webmasters really started paying attention to E-A-T.<\/p>\n In August 2018, Google released a major update to its broad core algorithm. Across the web, major sites saw jaw-dropping reductions in organic search traffic, almost overnight:<\/p>\n SEOs quickly spotted a trend. Health-related sites in particular suffered from this update, leading SEO ninja Barry Schwartz to call it the Medic update.<\/p>\n Needless to say, the blowback from the marketing community was fierce. But in an online discussion on Twitter, Google’s Danny Sullivan gave a clue to understanding the changes:<\/p>\n Want to do better with a broad change? Have great content. Yeah, the same boring answer. But if you want a better idea of what we consider great content, read our raters guidelines. That's like almost 200 pages of things to consider: https:\/\/t.co\/pO3AHxFVrV<\/a><\/p>\n — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) August 1, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
What is E-E-A-T?<\/h2>\n
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The history of E-E-A-T<\/h2>\n
How the 2018 medic update changed the SEO game<\/h3>\n
![\"traffic](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/1-losses.png\")
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