Searching on Google has gone far beyond keyword matching. Is your content strategy lagging behind?
When Google started, its only job was to match a keyword search in a web document and return the list of all matches to a user.
This is when a method of ‘keyword research and optimization’ was born.
Surprisingly, this method is still the main method publishers use in hopes of ranking higher on Google.
The truth is, Google has gone way beyond that concept.
It no longer simply matches searches with keywords.
It understands search intent and context, and it now understands the concept of ‘content quality’ much better.
It’s been a long path. Teaching a machine to surface “high quality” content is not easy.
After all, that concept is hardly definable because “quality” varies based on the needs of the seeker.
This is why EEAT was born: people manually reviewed auto-generated search results and taught the algorithm what “quality” results looked like every time.
What does EEAT mean according to Google?
EEAT stands for “Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Reliability” of one website and content creator (yes, both. This is important to note).
The EEAT concept is discussed in Google’s “Guidelines for quality assessors”, a comprehensive document describing how human reviewers should rate pages they find through Google Search.
- Experience implies first hand ‘life experience’ related to the subject of the page.
- Expertise component assesses skills and knowledge for the subject
- Authoritativeness refers to whether the site is considered a “go-to” resource on the topic.
- Reliability includes accuracy, truthfulness and lack of bias.
The concept has been around for many years. I covered it first eight years ago. The second “E” for “Experience” has been added to the guidelines later.
How quality assessors assess EEAT
- They research the reputation of the website/creator through independent sources such as articles, reviews, expert recommendations, awards, etc.
- They look for first-hand accounts and indicators of expertise.
- They consider whether the page comes from an expert source that users can trust for that specific topic.
A website may have a high EEAT for one topic, but not for another.
Here are the key points about EEAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) from the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines document…
EEAT signals are not the same for everyone
High EEAT is important for topics where inaccurate or misleading information has the potential to cause harm (Your Money Your Life or “YMYL” topics).
This includes medical, financialor safety information.
Here are some examples of site topics that should have a higher EEAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness):
Reference By: buzzsumo.com
