E-E-A-T
Google's framework for assessing content quality: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — the criteria Google's search quality evaluators use to assess content. Introduced in 2022 as E-A-T; the extra 'E' (Experience) was added in December 2022 to specifically reward first-hand content.
Context
E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking algorithm input; it's a set of guidelines used to train the algorithms. Pages that demonstrate genuine experience (screenshots from real usage, not stock photos), expertise (author credentials), authoritativeness (citations and inbound links from other authorities), and trustworthiness (accurate information, transparent sourcing) tend to rank better.
For YMYL topics (Your Money, Your Life — finance, health, legal), E-E-A-T bar is much higher. Medical content by a credentialed author with institutional backing ranks vastly better than the same content from an anonymous blog.
A blog post titled 'How to invest your first $10,000' written by a CFA with byline, bio, and citations performs structurally better than the same content written by 'Admin' with no sourcing — regardless of keyword targeting.
E-E-A-T especially favors named authors with verifiable credentials. Ghostwritten content published under a generic 'Team' byline is handicapped in categories where authorship matters.
Related terms
Services that apply this
More SEO terms
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
The percentage of people who clicked after seeing your link, ad, or snippet.
SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
The page Google shows after a search — far more than just ten blue links.
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
How fast the main content becomes visible on a page.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)
How much the page jumps around during load.