In August 2018, after a series of YMYL websites suffered a serious drop in traffic and rankings, E-A-T began to be mentioned in hundreds of articles on Search Engine Optimization.
To date, the term is more popular than ever; even the basis for Google to rely on to evaluate the quality of the website / business.
Some argue that E-A-T is an important ranking factor. Others argue that E-A-T, which belongs only to human perception, is not qualified to be a direct ranking factor.
So, what is the truth?
How important is E-A-T for SEO? and how to improve E-A-T?
All will be answered in the article below! Let’s find out with me!
What is Google EAT?
E‑A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
This concept is enshrined in the Google Search Quality Guidelines — a 168-page document written by leading experts in measuring the quality of Google’s search results.
Google published this document on online channels in 2013 with the aim of “helping webmasters understand what Google searches for in a website”.
How important is E-A-T?
E-A-T is important for all queries, but importance varies from query to query.
Eg:
- If you’re just looking for pictures of cute cats, E-A-T probably doesn’t matter much. This topic is subjective, so it doesn’t matter if you find the cat appearing in the search list is not cute at all ☺.
- In turn, if you are looking for information on the exact dose of aspirin during pregnancy then E-A-T is definitely important in this case. If Google shows content on this topic written by an ignorant author, published on an unreliable and non-authoritative website, there is a high chance that the content is inaccurate or misleading. wrong. Worse yet is potentially life-threatening to the reader.
Google calls these pages YMYL – Your Money Your Life pages, meaning they are specialized and have an impact on happiness, health, financial stability, or security. in the future of mankind.
So, if your website is built around the YMYL theme, then proving E-A-T is very important.
How is E-A-T assessed?
In the Expertise, authority, and reliability are similar – but not identical
Each factor is evaluated independently using a different set of criteria.
Ingredients in E.A.T
Specialize
Expertise means having a high level of knowledge or skill in a particular field. Knowledge here is defined primarily around the content, not through the website or the entire organization.
That is, the person who writes the content should be an expert with extensive knowledge of that field or topic. This is also something that Google usually checks.
For YMYL topics, like medical, financial or legal advice, the content creator’s formal expertise, qualifications, and education are required.
For non-YMYL topics, the writer only needs to be able to express his/her personal life experience and point of view.
In some YMYL-related cases or issues, Google considers that everyday experience is more important than technical knowledge.
Example: For queries like “What does cancer feel like” it is clear that someone living with the disease will provide a more practical answer than a qualified doctor with years of experience. industry experience.
The Authorization
Authority is a matter of reputation, especially among experts and other influencers in the industry.
To put it simply like this, if your website is the first source of traffic that users visit when searching for a certain topic, then, with Google, your website has high authority.
To assess the authority of a website, people often find out what real users, as well as experts, think about that website through data such as: reviews, references, recommendations of experts , articles and other reliable information created/written by individuals about the website.
Wikipedia is a good source of information that Google always mentions.
However, authority is a relative concept. There are some cases where certain people and websites have sole authority when it comes to certain topics
For example: The most authoritative source of lyrics for Coldplay songs is their official website. And the most authoritative source of information for beef grades in the US is the USDA.
Reliability
Reliability is a concept related to the legitimacy, transparency and accuracy of a website and its content.
Website quality raters often rate a website’s trustworthiness based on whether it has state who is responsible for published content.
This is especially important for YMYL queries and also for non-YMYL queries. Especially with YMYL websites requiring a high degree of trust, they often need satisfying information about who is responsible for the content of the site.
Eg:
Providing complete contact information is also important, especially for YMYL websites and online stores.
If a financial transaction store or website only has an email address and store address, it can be difficult for customers to get help if there is a problem with the transaction.
In addition, reviewers also take into account the accuracy of the content posted on the site, especially for articles and news sites, high quality MCs must be factually accurate with respect to the topic being discussed. mentioned and must be agreed by industry experts
Finally, for added persuasion, be sure to cite reliable sources as part of this.
An article with accurate information that satisfies the reader’s needs and reliable external references can often earn a high rating.
Reliability, like authority, is a relative concept as people and websites cannot be considered trustworthy in all respects.
Is E-A-T a ranking factor?
For something to be a “rating factor,” it has to be something tangible that a computer can understand and evaluate.
Perhaps the best example of this is the number of backlinks to a page.
Specifically, Google crawls websites extensively to understand how many backlinks point to most pages. Then, they created a computer program that ranked the pages with the most high-quality backlinks.
The problem with E-A-T is that although expertise, authority, and reliability are the three most essential elements for content, they are essentially concepts that belong to human perception.
You can’t tell the computer to rank pages with higher E-A-T because it only understands bits and bytes.
Here’s how Google solved this problem:
First, search engineers should think of ways to tweak the algorithm to improve the quality of search results.
Then, they send those search results to those who have authority to evaluate the quality of the website for these people to review and give feedback to Google.
Ultimately, Google uses that feedback to decide whether suggested algorithmic adjustments have a positive or negative impact on search results. If the result is positive, the change is made.
Using this process, Google engineers were able to understand the tangible signals that are relevant for E-A-T and adjust the ranking algorithms accordingly.
Is there a scale specifically for E-A-T?
No! Google does not have any scale to calculate the E-A-T of a website.
This answer should come as no surprise if you already understand how Google evaluates E-A-T and the role of the Website Quality Rater.
Also because there is no definite scale, you can freely enhance the expertise, authority, and credibility of your website in the eyes of Quality Raters.
How to Improve & Prove the E-A-T
The first thing you need to understand is that proving and improving E-A-T are two different things.
You can’t prove your website’s E-A-T functionality if you don’t have it – and this is the first hurdle to overcome.
Lack of E-A-T is believed to be the reason why many YMYL sites dropped heavily in August 2018 when Google rolled out the “medic” update.
Because many of these sites have virtually no E-A-T in the first place, traffic will drop immediately when Google releases a core update and as Google’s algorithmic E-A-T detection also improves. benevolent.
If you unfortunately fall into a situation like the 2 websites above and want to fix those unfortunate errors, try to improve and better show your E-A-T to Google.
Here are some ways to improve efficiency
Build more links
Build more links
Although the document “Google Search Quality Guidelines” does not mention link building, Gary Illyes, Google webmaster trends analyst, said that E-A-T is largely based on links and mentions from authoritative websites.
He also said that Google is really good at understanding which links are worth considering, so make building high-quality links a priority over low-quality ones.
Regularly update new content
If you specialize in writing about YMYL topics like medical or financial advice, regularly updating with fresh content is crucial to improving E-A-T.
Financial advice, legal advice, tax advice,… Having a high E-A-T level also means that they are all reliable sources of information that need to be maintained and updated regularly.
What about non-YMYL websites?
Google’s website reviewers do not specifically talk about these pages, but I believe that any website needs to be updated with new content every day.
After all, no website can easily fool its readers into believing that they are trustworthy with outdated information.
Check the authenticity of the article information
In the Google Quality Guidelines document it says:
The information provided in an article must be factually accurate to demonstrate a high level of E-A-T.
Similar to course content, knowledge must be factually accurate and receive consensus from professionals in the community.
Check the authenticity
What about other topics?
Again, QRG doesn’t elaborate on accuracy in the context of E-A-T, but we still believe it’s a must-have as the document covers it more than 50 times.
So, in my opinion, you should always check the authenticity of the information before posting based on reputable sources like Wikipedia and Wikidata.
You should also make sure that the sources you cite in the article are legitimate.
Get positive reviews from reputable websites
Google requires the Website Quality Rater to use online reviews as a source of information to gauge the credibility and authority of a business.
A lot of people don’t like this and often try to simplify things by focusing on a particular review site. However, this is not very effective.
Instead, focus on getting more positive online reviews across all reputable sites – i.e. sites that people use and trust in your industry.
For a restaurant, for example, you might collect reviews from TripAdvisor or even a popular local food blog.
Hire the industry’s experts
Industry experts are always available and even in abundance, so why not hire them to write for your website? especially for websites written on the subject of YMYL, this is even more imperative.
In contrast, for non-YMYL websites, this is not necessary. Instead, you can hire people with a proven track record in the industry, or who already have a reputation for creating high-quality content on your site’s topic.
In case you can’t afford to hire people, you can choose to interview an expert or ask them to write a guest post for the website.
Notable achievement update
Sometimes, to prove E-A-T to Google, you should brag a little about your achievements to everyone, such as: PhD degree, speaking at famous industry conferences or has won prestigious industry awards,…
The second page is your “About” or “Group” page:
The “About” or “Group” page
Remember, the purpose of this is to demonstrate your expertise, authority, and credibility with Google. Do not exaggerate or fabricate facts.
You might also consider using schema markup to provide achievement and expertise information in the following structure:
<script type=”application/ld+json”>
{
“@context”:”http://www.schema.org”,
“@type”:”Person”,
“name”:”Mark Zuckerberg”,
“alumniOf”:[
{
“@type”:”CollegeOrUniversity”,
“name”:”Harvard University”,
“sameAs”:”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University”
}
]
}
</script>
Show contact information
Businesses that do not provide visitors with adequate contact information and customer support may be seen as unreliable. This is especially important for YMYL . pages
Legitimate businesses should at least post their address, phone number, email address and contact information on their website.
In case you are a freelance blogger or work from home, you don’t need to worry about this.
Rest assured that the Google Quality Raters will not penalize you for not displaying your home address or providing 24/7 customer support, but only for the content of the website you are working on.
Create business articles on Wikipedia
Website quality raters are often asked to scrutinize Wikipedia to gauge the reputation of a business through information such as: awards, achievements, even “fake” or problems they are dealing with. encountered.
However, it is a fact that appearing on the Wikipedia page is not easy, unless you are already an authority in your industry, which means there is a considerable amount of coverage in the sources of information. Independent and trustworthy.
Even a popular website like Ahrefs can’t update information on Wikipedia
Ahrefs cannot update information on Wikipedia
However, if you feel like your business already has the authority to secure a Wikipedia page and you don’t have it yet, then you should definitely try creating one.
Get more mentions
Mentions on well-known industry sites can help boost your website’s authority, but those should be positive mentions, of course.
Website quality raters often rely on information in reviews, references, expert recommendations, articles and other reliable information written by individuals about the website to evaluate the website’s reputation. language of that website.
The problem is that getting authoritative mentions is a bit of a pain. Mentions increase site authority, but in return you need authority to receive mentions.
However, it is not without a way. You can apply one of the following two ways to increase the likelihood of appearing on famous websites in the industry
- Method 1: Post unique insights and data that others in your industry are likely to reference.
- Method 2: Use affiliate services like HARO to connect with journalists to help you cover the media.
Conclude
Through the article, I hope you have understood the importance of E-A-T for SEO.
What you need to do now is try to improve the expertise – authority – reliability indicators of the website so that it meets the needs of Google as well as users.
Especially, for websites specializing in YMYL topics (medical, financial, legal, etc.), improving E-A-T is even more important.
The process of perfecting E-A-T is not too difficult, it mainly requires you to be really patient, to invest your time and effort.
Furthermore, Google’s algorithm as well as their Ranking Guidelines change frequently, so E-A-T criteria are likely to change and evolve over time. Your task is to update regularly and align in time!
Good luck!
