The Importance of E-A-T for SEO

E-A-T stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. The concept comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines—a detailed, 168-page document used by human evaluators to judge the quality of search results. Google first made this guide public in 2013 to give website owners insight into what it considers important in a high-quality web page. And it is still a concept that is important to any SEO campaign today and a factor here for the professional SEO writers at MSEDP. Looking for SEO content writing? Turn to the SEO professionals at MSEDP today. Please contact us to learn more about our SEO services and how we can help build your website.

How Important is E-A-T?

E-A-T is important for all queries, but some more so than others. For example, if you are just searching for pictures of cute puppies, then E-A-T probably doesn’t matter too much. The topic is subjective and it is not vital information.

However, if you are searching for how to install a gate, then the importance of E-A-T raises. If Google were to surface content on this topic written by a clueless writer, published on an untrustworthy website that lacks authority, then the probability of that content being inaccurate or misleading is high. Due to the nature of the information being searched, it is important to get that information right as it impacts the work being done. Or the information that is needed.

E-A-T is also important for queries like “how to improve credit score.” With this search, the advice from the clueless and unauthoritative is unlikely to be legit and shouldn’t be trusted. Google refers to these kinds of topics as YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics. This includes types of pages or topics that may impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.  For websites built around this subject matter, then demonstrating E-A-T is vital to its success. At MSEDP, we will tailor content that fits the narrative and purpose of the given website. Ensuring full authority is met on the matter, as we work on a wide range of websites. So our researching and content writing ability meets high standards across the board.

Is E-A-T a Ranking Factor?

Probably, maybe? In a nutshell, it is a nuanced topic. For something to be a "ranking factor" for a website, it has to be tangible. An aspect a computer can understand and evaluate. A great example is the number of backlinks to a page. This can be counted and quantified, since Google crawls the web far and wide, so they know how many backlinks point to most pages. Google can easily create a computer program that ranks pages with the most high-quality backlinks.

Which brings us to the problem with expertise, authoritativeness, and trust. These factors are desirable qualities of content, but they are fundamentally human concepts. You cannot tell a computer to rank pages with E-A-T higher because it only understands bits and bytes. It doesn't understand and cannot quantify the expertise on the matter. But Google has a way to solve this problem.

How Google Solves This Problem

Here are three steps Google uses to solve this problem

1. Google's search engineers think of algorithm tweaks that might improve search result quality.
2. The engineers show search results to Quality Raters with and without the proposed change implemented. Their job is to provide feedback to Google, and they aren’t told which set of results is which.
3. Google uses this feedback to determine whether a proposed change improves or worsens search results. If the impact is positive, the update is rolled out.

With this process in their hands, Google engineers are able to understand the tangible signals that align with E-A-T and adjust the ranking algorithms accordingly.

E-A-T Evaluation Criteria

When it comes down to it, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are pretty similar concepts. However, they are not identical and some differences can be parsed as each get evaluated independently using a different set of criteria. Let's take a closer look at these factors.

Expertise

Expertise refers to having a strong depth of knowledge or skill in a specific area. It’s assessed mainly at the individual content level, rather than across the entire website or organization. Google aims to prioritize content created by someone with genuine subject matter expertise. In general, this is about the formal expertise, qualifications, and education of the content creator. Formal expertise is important as it demonstrates to Google the value of the content and the website as a whole. So when creating the content, that expertise needs to come through. Demonstrating "everyday expertise" and relevant life experience is one way to get that done.

At MSEDP, when we create SEO content, we engage with the clients to ensure the content meets their standards of expertise. Whether it is with a law office, a contracting company, or a retailer, we do the research to make sure the expertise on the subject comes through. Learn more about our SEO content writing.

Authoritativeness

Authority relates to reputation—especially how a person or website is regarded by other experts and influential voices in the field. In simple terms, it’s achieved when others consistently recognize that source as a trusted reference on a given topic. In order to evaluate authority, raters search the web for insights into the reputation of the website or individual. These raters will use reputation research to find out what real users, as well as experts, think about a website. And ultimately, they will look for reviews, references, recommendations by experts, news articles, and other credible information created/written by individuals about the website. At MSEDP, these are the standards we hold for our SEO team and the content writing. Our staff prides itself on the research completed and how that research gets translated into high-quality and informative content.

However, it is important to remember that authority is a relative concept. It is also the case that some people and websites are uniquely authoritative when it comes to certain topics. When someone lands on a landscaping website, the user will likely believe they are an authority on those matters. They wouldn't look to them for legal advice, but rather advice on how to trim hedges or mow a lawn.

Trustworthiness

Trust focuses on how legitimate, transparent, and accurate a website and its content appear. To assess this, raters consider several factors—such as whether the site clearly identifies who is responsible for the information it publishes. Many websites demand a high degree of trust, so they generally need satisfying information about who is responsible for the content of the site. Here are three factors that improve the trustworthiness of a website.

• Sufficient contact information: If a store or retail website simply has an email address and physical address, then it may be difficult to get help if there are issues with the transaction. And overall, many websites simply require a high degree of user trust in order to succeed.
• Content accuracy: For news pieces and informational content, high quality means being factually correct and aligned with established expert consensus. Of course, when such agreement is available.
• Citing trustworthy sources: When possible, citing a trustworthy source with a satisfying amount of accurate information and trustworthy external references can usually be rated in the High range.

In the end though, trustworthiness, like authoritativeness, is a subjective idea. Websites and, subsequently, people, cannot be perceived as trustworthy all the time. MSEDP is a trustworthy source for SEO and web services as the professionals here work on this daily. However, we would not be trustworthy about dog adoption on Long Island. So it is important for any user or client to understand the limits of trust and how it impacts a website.