Term · Search & content
E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trust)
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. It comes from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines — the document that tells human evaluators how to assess the quality of search results. It is not a single ranking factor, but it describes the qualities Google's systems aim to reward.
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Explained
The four elements
- Experience: the content reflects first-hand experience — someone who actually did the work, used the product, visited the place.
- Expertise: the author has relevant knowledge or qualifications.
- Authoritativeness: the site or author is recognised as a go-to source on the topic.
- Trust: the most important — the content is accurate, honest, and the site is transparent and safe.
Trust matters most for topics that affect health, finances, safety or legal rights ("Your Money or Your Life" topics).
How businesses demonstrate it
- Named authors with real experience, and author pages describing it.
- Clear information about the company: legal name, address, contacts, team.
- Real evidence: projects, case studies and reviews you are allowed to publish.
- Accurate content with sources for facts and figures, and dates of updates.
- Transparent policies: privacy, terms, returns, pricing principles.
- Reputation elsewhere: reviews, mentions and links from trusted sources. See backlink.
- Security: HTTPS, no deceptive design.
What it is not
A checklist to game. Adding author boxes to thin content does not create expertise. The underlying substance — real knowledge and honesty — is what matters.
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FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Does E-E-A-T affect AI search?
AI systems also favour reliable, well-sourced content from recognisable entities, so the same qualities help.
Do small businesses need named authors?
It helps, especially for advice content. Specialists who actually do the work are the most credible authors.