E-E-A-T
Google's name for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, aspects of content its ranking systems look for signs of, with trust the most important.
Google’s automated systems use many different factors to rank content. Once they’ve found relevant content, they aim to put first what seems most helpful. To do that, they identify a mix of factors that can help determine which content shows experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, “or what we call E-E-A-T” (Google Search Central).
Google adds: “Of these aspects, trust is most important.” The other three contribute to trust, and content doesn’t have to show all of them: some is helpful for the experience it shows, some for the expertise it shares.
Is it a ranking factor?
In Google’s words: “While E-E-A-T itself isn’t a specific ranking factor, using a mix of factors that can identify content with good E-E-A-T is useful.” Its systems give even more weight to content with strong E-E-A-T on topics that could significantly affect people’s health, financial stability or safety, or the welfare or well-being of society. Google calls these “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) topics.
Google’s search quality raters are trained to judge whether content has strong E-E-A-T, using its search quality rater guidelines. Their feedback helps Google know whether its systems seem to be working, but “Search raters have no control over how pages rank,” and their data isn’t used directly in its ranking algorithms. Google says reading the guidelines may help you assess your own content.
What you can do
- Make it clear who created your content. Google strongly encourages accurate authorship information, such as bylines where readers might expect them, and calls fabricated creator profiles, such as ones using AI-generated headshots, made-up names or false credentials, a form of deception.
- For product reviews, Google says it can build trust when readers know how many products were tested, what the results were and how the tests were done, with evidence such as photographs.
- Write primarily to help people. Content made mainly to attract visits from search engines isn’t what Google’s systems seek to reward.
Related terms
Tools for it
Sources
Updated Oct 12, 2026.