Glossary
E-E-A-T is how Google’s raters judge quality, not a score your site holds
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. Where the term comes from, what each part looks like on a real page, the advice that gets it wrong, and what can be measured.
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Where E-E-A-T comes from
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. It comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines, the handbook for the people Google pays to assess sample search results. Their ratings do not move any individual page; Google uses them to check whether its ranking systems are surfacing good results.
The first E, Experience, was added in December 2022, to recognise that first-hand use of a product or a place can matter as much as formal expertise. In the same update Google said trust is the most important member of the family, and that the other three support it.
What each part looks like on a real page
Experience
The writer has done the thing: used the product, visited the place, run the process. It shows in specifics a desk researcher would not know.
Expertise
The writer knows the subject. For a medical or financial page that means formal qualifications; for a hobby, deep knowledge counts.
Authoritativeness
Others treat the site or author as a go-to source: citations, links and mentions from people who would know.
Trustworthiness
The page is accurate, honest and safe, and the business behind it is identifiable and reachable. Without this, the other three count for little.
Where E-E-A-T advice goes wrong
- Adding an author box and calling it done
- A byline is evidence only if it leads somewhere: a real person with a background the reader can check. A name with no history adds little, and it does nothing for a page that is thin or wrong.
- Treating it as a score to raise
- Tools that report an "E-E-A-T score" are measuring their own proxies. That can be useful, but the proxy is not the thing, and moving the proxy is not the same as becoming more trustworthy.
- Inventing the signals
- Stock-photo authors, borrowed credentials, testimonials nobody gave and "as seen in" logos without permission are exactly what raters are trained to look for. Faked trust is worse than a modest, honest page.
- Applying one standard to every page
- A recipe and a page about medication are not held to the same bar. The guidelines ask for the most evidence where a bad answer could hurt someone, and that is where the effort belongs.
What can be measured
Nobody outside Google can measure E-E-A-T itself. What can be observed is the evidence a rater would look for, and that is what BOOSTD’s Growth Score does in its E-E-A-T and Trust category: whether authors and their credentials are shown, how transparent the company is, whether claims are sourced, whether contact and legal information is published, whether the business is described consistently, and whether there is relevant proof.
The free scan checks the parts visible from outside a site, such as a linked contact route, legal pages, an about page and a published address. It reports them as evidence, not as a verdict on quality.
This site applies the same test to itself. One named person is accountable for it, there is no invented team, and the editorial policy says how pages are sourced and reviewed.
Questions about E-E-A-T
Is E-E-A-T a ranking factor?
Not as a single signal. Google has said E-E-A-T itself is not a ranking factor; its systems use a mix of signals intended to reward content that shows these qualities, and raters use the concept to judge whether those systems are working.
In practice that means you cannot optimise for E-E-A-T directly. You can only make the evidence of it real and easy to find.
Does every page need a named author?
No. Google cares about who is responsible for a page, which can be the business itself. A named author matters most where personal experience or expertise is the point of the page, such as advice, reviews and anything on health or money.
Where there is an author, it should be a real person with a real background the reader can check.
Which sites does E-E-A-T matter most for?
Sites on "your money or your life" topics: health, finance, safety and legal matters, where a poor page could harm the reader. The rater guidelines apply the highest standard there.
References
Sources
The primary documents and published research this page relies on. Platform rules change, so check the source before acting on a detail.
Last updated · Published by Zubair Afzal (responsible editor), on owner authorisation