Full Definition
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It comes from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines — a document Google uses to train human contractors who evaluate search results. While E-E-A-T is not a direct algorithmic ranking signal (there's no 'E-E-A-T score'), it heavily influences what kinds of content Google's algorithms learn to reward over time. **Experience**: Has the author actually done the thing they're writing about? A travel guide written by someone who visited the destination carries more weight than one written by someone who only read about it. **Expertise**: Does the author have formal or demonstrated knowledge in the subject? Medical content should come from healthcare professionals. Financial content from qualified advisers. **Authoritativeness**: Is the website (and author) recognised as a go-to source by others in the field? This is largely built through backlinks, press mentions, and industry recognition. **Trustworthiness**: Is the page honest, accurate, and safe? This includes having clear author bylines, citing sources, showing transparent business information, and using HTTPS. E-E-A-T matters most for YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics — health, finance, legal advice — where bad information can cause real harm. But it increasingly matters for all content. Actionable tip: Add proper author bio pages to your blog, link them from every article, and include your author's credentials, real photo, and LinkedIn. This is one of the fastest E-E-A-T improvements for small business websites.