E-E-A-T

What E-E-A-T means

E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. It comes from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines, which human testers use to assess search results. Raters don't directly change rankings. Their feedback helps Google evaluate its systems. Google's guidance on helpful, reliable content says trust is the most important part, and that the bar is higher for topics affecting health, money and safety.

Seen in practice

A heating engineer's blog post on heat pumps is generic and unsigned. He rewrites it with his name, his MCS certification, photos from installs he's done locally and an honest section on when heat pumps don't suit a house. The page now shows the experience that was always there.

Why it matters for your content

E-E-A-T isn't a score or a setting. It describes what makes content believable: who wrote it, what first-hand experience they have and whether the business behind it is real and accountable. Small businesses often have plenty of real experience but hide it behind anonymous pages.

Checking your own pages

Read your key pages as a sceptical stranger. Can you tell who runs the business, who wrote each guide and why they know what they're talking about? Is there a real address or service area, a phone number and clear policies? Do reviews and outside mentions back up what the site claims?

Traps to avoid

• Adding fake author bios or stock photos of "experts".
• Assuming a single "author box" fixes everything.
• Claiming qualifications or memberships you don't hold.
• Writing about topics you have no real experience of just because they get searched.

Related content terms

• Helpful content: Content created for people first, aligned with Google's helpful content guidance.
• Core update: A broad Google ranking update affecting many queries.
• Topical authority: Perceived depth and coherence of content on a subject.