What Is Google EAT?
Learning how to optimize your site for Google EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) can mean the difference between having an informative and well-written site that ranks in the top ten or being completely left behind. In this article, we’ll explain what it means to be high on Google EAT, how to determine where you stand, and why it’s so important in the modern SEO landscape.
How does Google evaluate EAT? The Google search quality evaluation guidelines mention the following three parameters to assign rank to the content:
- The expertise of the content creator
- The authoritativeness of the website, the content, and the content creator
- The trustworthiness of the website, the content, and the content creator
At its core, EAT is how Google ensures that its SERPs return accurate, truthful, useful information to search queries. Google is only as good as the quality of its search results. If Google starts returning data that is irrelevant to their searches, they’ll head over to… Bing(?) and start performing searches there. With all the DIY website platforms, creating a website and publishing content on it is relatively easy. As has been the topic of many social debates, you don’t have to be a lawyer to start a legal blog or have a successful career in finance to write investment blogs.
For better or worse, information can now be pushed out in a matter of moments without any real verification or fact-checking. Since people like to make informed decisions based on the information they get from search results, Google ensures it provides only the right information to help searchers make the right decision.
Google considers the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of the website, the content, and the page content creator. In the eyes of Google, a medical article written by a certified medical professional on the website of Mayo Clinic takes precedence over random, unverified medical advice written by a person with questionable qualifications. For instance, my medical advice might say: “that a glass of wine per day will keep the doctor away,” but that does not make it true.
Google does recognize that EAT varies from site to site. Here is a snippet of info that Google has provided on the topic:
Google Quality Rater Guidelines:
“Some topics require less formal expertise. Many people write extremely detailed, helpful reviews of products or restaurants. Many people share tips and personal experiences on forums, blogs, etc. These ordinary people may be considered experts in topics where they have life experience. If it seems as if the person creating the content has the type and amount of life experience to make him or her an “expert” on the topic, we will value this “everyday expertise” and not penalize the person/webpage/website for not having “formal” education or training in the field.“
Your chances of ranking high in the organic search results are directly proportional to how efficiently your content follows and applies the E-A-T standards.
While Google never tells people outright what goes into the ranking algorithm, one thing has been consistent in every major update – What is good for the user (enhancing user experience) is good for Google.
Google started penalizing websites for keyword stuffing many years ago. The main reason for this step was to maintain a good reading experience for the end-users. Eventually, the advent of mobile browsing made mobile responsiveness a major ranking factor. Over the course of time, secure web browsing came into the foreground and Google prioritized HTTPS over HTTP.
When you come to think about it, E-A-T is one more way for Google to ensure users find what they are searching for.
If being found in the search engines is important to your business, it’s time to EAT.
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