How do you meet Google's E-E-A-T criteria?

E-E-A-T criteria refer to a number of indicators used by Google to assess the quality of content. They are defined as a "set of factors for determining which content exhibits expected levels of experience, expertise, legitimacy and trustworthiness."

Google points out that not all criteria are necessarily useful or used for all content. For example, expertise is a decisive criterion for an informative article. On the other hand, the E-E-A-T score is much more important when the theme of a piece of content is sensitive, and falls into what Google calls "YMYL", for "Your Money Your Life". 

What does "E-E-A-T" mean?

Google announces the arrival of E-A-T criteria in its Core Update in 2018. This is an acronym for "Expertise", "Authority" and "Confidence" (Trust).

Theexpertise criterion determines whether the author of a piece of content has the necessary skills and knowledge to tackle the subject.Authority refers to whether the website or content author is considered a reference in its field. Trust refers to whether a website is secure, for example, by checking that users' personal data is protected.

In 2022, a new update marks the arrival of the "Experience" criterion. This time, the aim is to verify that the author has actually experienced, tested or practiced what he or she is talking about in the content.

Even so, the trust criterion is the most important, since a site suspected of being a scam will automatically be downgraded in the SERP rankings.

All this information is recorded in Google's guide for content quality assessors.

What role do E-E-A-T criteria play in Google search?

First of all, let's remember that the E-E-A-T criteria are not a ranking system for search results. They are indicators monitored by search quality evaluators to ensure that algorithms are correctly prioritizing content on the SERP. They are therefore an indirect way of knowing how to optimize your content.

To fully understand where the E-E-A-T criteria come into play in Google search, you need to know how Google search works.

First, Google analyzes the meaning of a user's query. This step enables the search engine to "determine the nature of the information [searched for]" as well as the type of relevant content. Next, the search for relevant content consists of exploring the indexed content to suggest those that are most consistent with the meaning of the query. It's during the evaluation of content quality that E-E-A-T criteria come into play, since this is where "systems attempt to prioritize them according to their usefulness [...] [by identifying] signals capable of determining their level of expertise, reliability and official character." Theuser experience is also taken into account, as web pages that present the greatest ease of use are given greater prominence. Finally, some personalized elements are taken into account, namely the user's settings and search habits. Google will take into account geographic zone, SafeSearch activation and search history.

How can you optimize your content to meet E-E-A-T criteria?

Google's stated aim is to highlight content that is genuinely useful to users. By this we mean that it's best not to rely on mass content generation by AI to improve a website's SEO performance.

Google provides a set of questions to ask yourself in order to check whether content is useful, reliable and people-first. For example, the expertise criterion will be observed according to whether :

• Confidence-building information is present,
• If the website gives the impression of being reliable or authoritative in its field,
• The content is reviewed by an expert or enthusiast in the field,
• The content is wrong.

Finally, to meet the requirements of this criterion, Google encourages content creators to cite their sources, prove their expertise and verify the veracity of the information they provide.

👉 It's worth noting that respecting the E-E-A-T criteria is not only beneficial for appearing in the first SERP results. It also increases your chances of being cited in Google's AI Overviews.