New Search rating concept E-E-A-T | Your Experience will have more power on SEO

Google announced a helpful content update on December 7th and a spam update on December 15th. As you can see, Google Search Central is announcing big changes in the last few months.

Following this trend, Google mentioned E-E-A-T in its Tweet. If you are already working for SEO, you may have heard of E-A-T somewhere. They updated its search rater guideline and added a new E to the existing concept of E-A-T. The last update of the search rater guideline occurred in December 2022, so it’s been a year since the last update. Catching up with the search rater guideline is crucial for SEO analysts so let’s explore how Google changed its rating system.

To better assess our results, E-A-T is gaining an E: experience. In addition to expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, does content demonstrate some degree of experience? Learn more about how E-E-A-T is now part of our search rater guidelines https://t.co/8hCj1Gk49S

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 15, 2022

What is E-E-A-T?

E-E-A-T(Double-E-A-T) is a new concept to assess Google Search results. A new “E” was added to the concept of E-A-T. According to the quality rater guidelines, this new E stands for Experience. Therefore, E-E-A-T now means Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

How does Google use E-E-A-T?

E-E-A-T is used to evaluate the performance of Google’s search ranking systems. Their search raters use the concept of E-E-A-T when they assess the quality of pages and the reasonableness of SERP ranking.

How can we use E-E-A-T?

We can use this concept when we make content for Google. By creating content that follows this E-E-A-T guideline, it will more likely be ranked high on SERP. The reason is that the ranking algorithm learns to rank pages that are more in line with this concept higher. (*Google’s search raters don’t directly influence ranking.)

Among E-E-A-T, the most important character is “T(Trustworthiness)”. The first aspect Google checks is how trustworthy the page is. Without trust, even if the page has the experience, expertise, or authoritativeness, Google won’t judge that the page is worth ranking high. Therefore, who wrote the page is crucial to rank high on SERP.

How does Google evaluate trustworthiness?

Google search raters see the following information to check if the page is trustworthy:

・About Us page: What company or who is the writer of the page? What do they do?

・Review: What do others say about the writer or owner of the page? How do people see the writer?

・Main content: What is the main content of the writer?

・Conflict of interest: Does the writer promote his/her own product?

Which is more important: Experience or Expertise?

Okay, we understood trustworthiness is the most important in E-E-A-T. So what’s next? When you write a blog, you will wonder which is more important, experience or expertise. Google’s guideline shows us the answer to this question.

In the guideline, Google shows how they prioritize experience and expertise with specific examples. As you can see in this table, the order of importance depends on the topic. In case of the topic is about medical, political rules, or administrative procedures, expertise is prioritized. On the other hand, when it’s about a practical topic, experience is prioritized. Therefore, writers should be aware of which kind of content they are going to make. For example, it will be very difficult to rank high anymore for non-medical experts when they write about medical information.

Can we share our experience even if it’s about YMYL?

Indeed, sharing individual experiences about YMYL(Your Money, Your Life) seems dangerous at some points. However, Google says “Pages that share first-hand life experience on clear YMYL topics may be considered to have high E-E-A-T as long as the content is trustworthy, safe, and consistent with well-established expert consensus.“

They think it’s not always true that experts’ opinion is superior to individual experiences. It’s possible to get a high evaluation even if it’s a personal blog about YMYL.

Are you interested in SEO?

SEO(Search Engine Optimization) is essential for businesses to stand out on the internet. Even if your services or products are perfect, no one can purchase them from you without knowing. SEO helps you to increase brand awareness by optimizing your website.

Without exception, all businesses that rank highly in Google put a lot of effort into SEO. If you are interested in SEO but have not started SEO, you can get FREE SEO REPORT to understand what SEO is and how important it is. Or see how our SEO agency turns E-E-A-T signals into an actual ranking strategy, not just theory. Don’t miss this chance!

Reference: Search quality evaluator guidelines & Our latest update to the quality rater guidelines: E-A-T gets an extra E for Experience