E-E-A-T is a set of content quality signals used in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines. It helps check if a page shows first-hand experience, strong subject knowledge, real-world authority, and clear user trust.

Google uses this to improve how it ranks sensitive content, like health, finance, and safety pages. These signals are most important for topics that affect real lives, often called Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) content.

First launched as E-A-T in 2014, the model was updated in 2022 to include Experience, highlighting the value of personal, real-world insight.

How E-E-A-T changed over time

Google introduced the concept of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) in its 2014 Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. These guidelines were created to help human raters judge the quality of search results using consistent standards. At that time, Experience was not part of the model.

The idea behind E-A-T was to raise the visibility of content made by credible, informed, and reliable sources. It focused on three core traits:

• Expertise: Does the author have clear subject knowledge?
• Authoritativeness: Is the content recognized or referenced by others in the field?
• Trustworthiness: Can users rely on the information presented?

Influence of the Medic update

The E-A-T model gained widespread attention in 2018 after Google’s core algorithm update on August 1, which the SEO community nicknamed the Medic update. This update had a noticeable impact on health and wellness websites, especially those without clear credentials or expert authorship. Pages that lacked visible authority or had weak trust signals dropped in rankings, while trusted sources saw gains.

Although Google did not officially call this an E-A-T update, it confirmed that the update reflected a growing focus on content quality, especially for Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics.

Shift to E-E-A-T in 2022

In December 2022, Google revised its guidelines to add a fourth quality signal—Experience—expanding the model to E-E-A-T. This update recognized that first-hand involvement could enhance the value of content. Examples include:

• Writing a review after using a product
• Describing a visit to a location
• Sharing knowledge from hands-on work

This change highlighted that personal experience can be as useful, or even more relevant, than formal expertise in certain types of content—like product reviews, local guides, or user forums.

Trust as the core of E-E-A-T

With the expansion to E-E-A-T, Google emphasized that Trust is the most important element. Even if content shows strong experience, expertise, or authority, it will still be rated poorly if it lacks trustworthiness.

Each of the first three factors supports trust, but trust itself stands as the key driver of content quality. This shift reflects Google’s larger mission to fight misinformation and promote safe, accurate, and helpful content in its search results.

What E-E-A-T means and how it works

E-E-A-T is a content quality model used by Google to assess how much trust users can place in a page or its author. The acronym stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, which work together to guide quality raters in their evaluations.

• Experience was added in 2022 to reflect the growing value of content built from direct, personal involvement. For example, a product review written by someone who has actually used the product or a guide based on a real visit to a place demonstrates this dimension.

Google considers such first-hand knowledge useful, especially for reviews, travel blogs, or forum discussions where practical insight matters more than formal training.

• Expertise refers to the depth of subject knowledge shown by the author. It can come from formal education or practical experience. A page discussing medical, legal, or financial topics is expected to be written or reviewed by someone with verified qualifications.

For less sensitive content, like hobby-related pages, informal experience may be enough as long as the information is correct and well explained.

• Authoritativeness looks at the reputation of the content creator or the website. It is based on recognition from others in the same field. For example, medical articles published on sites such as Mayo Clinic or WebMD are considered authoritative because of those platforms’ strong reputation in health information.

Google raters also look at credentials, biographies, and independent references to judge this factor.

• Trustworthiness is considered the most important among all four. Even if a page shows clear experience, subject knowledge, and a good reputation, it will still be rated low if it lacks trust.

Trust depends on the accuracy of the content, the safety of the site, and clear author disclosure. Pages that contain misleading claims, hoaxes, or scams are rated poorly, regardless of who wrote them.

Putting E-E-A-T into context

These four factors are not judged one by one. They are looked at as a group, based on what the page is about. For serious topics like medical advice, a page needs more expertise and strong authority. For a simple recipe blog, experience and honest sharing may be enough.

If a page is about Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics, the standards are higher. A health article should be written or checked by a trained doctor. But a cooking guide can score well based on the author’s cooking skills and good reviews, even without a nutrition degree.

In the end, trust is the key link across all four. A page may look expert and come from a big name, but if users cannot trust it, it will still rank low in quality checks.

How E-E-A-T affects Google Search results

Google uses E-E-A-T as a guide for checking the quality of content, but it is not a direct ranking factor. There is no score or number called an E-E-A-T score. Instead, Google’s systems look for signs that match what E-E-A-T stands for. These signs help Google figure out if a page is written by someone with real experience, subject knowledge, a known reputation, and trustworthy details.

These checks are based on how people judge quality. Google uses Search Quality Raters to test if top pages show good E-E-A-T. These raters do not control rankings. They only give feedback. If raters give higher scores to results after a new update, Google sees that as a good sign.

So, while raters do not change search rankings, their reviews help improve how the search algorithm works. This makes E-E-A-T more like a compass. It helps Google aim for better quality in its top results.

What signals Google looks at

Google uses many clues to check if a page fits E-E-A-T standards. Some of these are:

• Strong inbound links from trusted websites
• Accurate writing with good topic depth
• Mentions of the site or writer on outside sources
• Secure pages, clear author names, and regular updates

All these signs help the system measure trust, authority, and expertise, even though they are not called E-E-A-T directly. Google uses them as proxies—indirect signs that help guess how real people would judge the page.

Older systems like PageRank still play a part. If many trusted pages link to a website, that site is more likely to rank well. This is a key way Google reads authoritativeness.

Google also advises all content creators to read the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. Writers should clearly show:

• Who created the content
• How the content was made
• Why it was published

This matches the E-E-A-T idea of being open, useful, and focused on the reader’s needs.

Extra weight for YMYL topics

Google gives more attention to Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics. These are pages that deal with health, safety, money, or major life choices. If low-quality content ranks for these topics, it can hurt people. So, Google applies a higher standard of E-E-A-T for such cases.

For example, if someone searches for medical advice, Google is more likely to show content from a hospital, public health agency, or peer-reviewed journal. A personal blog with no medical background will not rank as high, no matter how well it is written.

The same rule applies to topics like legal tips or financial planning. The author must have real credentials, and the content must be accurate and safe.

Raters are told to apply the strictest checks for these kinds of topics. A page with poor trust signals or no proof of knowledge is rated very low. But if the topic is light—like a hobby or a joke—then the E-E-A-T need not be as strong.

Google uses this process to make sure people find content they can trust, especially when the topic is serious. The aim is simple: show the most helpful and credible results, every time.

How E-E-A-T changed SEO and content strategy

E-E-A-T gained industry attention after the 2018 Medic update, which affected sites lacking trust or expertise. SEO strategies shifted to focus on author credentials, source reliability, and transparency, especially for health, finance, and other YMYL topics.

Early response

The idea of E-A-T gained attention in 2018, after Google’s Medic core update caused ranking drops for many health and wellness sites. These pages often lacked clear author expertise, strong reputation, or user trust signals. In contrast, content from hospitals, publishers, or expert-led platforms gained visibility.

The SEO industry began treating E-A-T as a key part of content quality. Site owners focused on showing:

• Author qualifications
• Credible references
• Updated, trustworthy content
• Clear ownership and security

Use as a framework

Google clarified that E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor or score. There is no specific E-E-A-T metric in the algorithm. Instead, it guides many small systems that assess quality.

Google engineer Gary Illyes described it as a set of “baby algorithms” that look at things like link authority, page safety, and topic depth. Google’s Search Liaison Danny Sullivan also stated that E-E-A-T works when content matches what real people would trust.

In 2022, Google VP Hyung-Jin Kim said E-E-A-T is applied across all queries and results, and is more important for Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics, where bad content may cause harm.

Adoption in SEO practice

Standard optimisation steps

Since 2019, E-E-A-T checks have become part of most SEO audits. Common improvements include:

• Writing About pages
• Listing content creators and reviewers
• Earning trusted mentions
• Using structured data for author info

In YMYL fields like finance and health, expert-reviewed content is now common. Some sites also mark author roles using schema markup or fact-check labels.

Not a shortcut

SEO professionals agree that E-E-A-T helps indirectly, but it is not a shortcut. Good E-E-A-T signals cannot replace basic SEO, technical setup, or strong content structure. A trusted writer on a slow or poorly built site may still fail to rank.

Long-term role in content quality

E-E-A-T has grown from an internal guideline to a core idea in web content evaluation. It promotes safe, useful, and credible content, written by people with real experience or recognised knowledge.

While not a scoring tool, E-E-A-T shapes how Google aligns search with user needs, especially in fields where trust matters most. As search continues to evolve, it remains central to how Google filters and ranks helpful information.