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E-E-A-T: What It Means and How It Affects Your Rankings
Learn what Google's E-E-A-T framework means, why Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust affect your rankings, and how to improve your signals. Step by step for complete beginners.
What you will learn in this guide
- What E-E-A-T stands for and what each part means
- Why Google uses E-E-A-T as a quality signal
- Which types of sites are most affected by E-E-A-T
- How to demonstrate Experience on your site
- How to improve your Expertise and Authority signals
- How to build Trust signals that Google recognises
1 What is E-E-A-T?
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust. It is a framework Google uses to assess the quality of web pages — particularly for topics that affect people's health, finances, safety or wellbeing, which Google calls YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics.
| Letter | Meaning | Example signal |
|---|---|---|
| E — Experience | First-hand experience with the topic | Author bio mentioning real experience |
| E — Expertise | Knowledge and qualifications | Credentials, certifications, detailed content |
| A — Authoritativeness | Recognition from others in the field | Backlinks from trusted sites, press mentions |
| T — Trust | Accuracy, transparency, security | HTTPS, clear contact info, privacy policy, sources cited |
2 How to improve your E-E-A-T signals
- 1Add author bios to every articleInclude the author's name, credentials, experience and a link to their professional profile. Use Person schema markup so Google can identify the author explicitly.
- 2Add an About page with real informationExplain who runs the site, what your qualifications are, and why you are the right source for this information. Google's quality raters check About pages directly.
- 3Show your sourcesLink to external authoritative sources for any claims you make. Citing your sources is a direct Trust signal — it shows you are confident in your information and willing to be checked.
- 4Get reviews and press mentionsTrustpilot, Google reviews, press coverage and industry directory listings all contribute to your Authoritativeness signal from Google's perspective.