Google E-E-A-T more than a ranking factor

Find out how to leverage your website's expertise, experience, authority and reliability to improve your SEO.

The term E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness) has long been a key onder part of Google's quality rating for websites. Since 2024, however, it has become clearer that although E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, it does play a crucial role in determining the overall quality of content on a website. This offers website owners, marketers and SEO experts valuable insight into how to improve their content to rank better in search results.

In this article, we explore the latest developments around E-E-A-T, how Google applies this quality measurement and what you can do to strengthen your website's expertise, experience, authority and reliability.

What is E-E-A-T?

E-E-A-T stands for expertise, experience, authority and trustworthiness. These are four fundamental principles that Google uses to determine whether a website and the content published on it are of high quality. The idea behind E-E-A-T is that websites that score well on these four aspects are generally more reliable and informative for users. This helps Google better respond to users' search intentions by directing them to the most relevant and reliable sources.

• Expertise: This refers to the extent to which the content on a website demonstrates that the author or organisation has in-depth knowledge of the onderopic. For example, a website offering medical information must contain contributions from medical professionals to be considered expert.
• Experience: Users value an author's experience with a particular onderwerp. In many cases, personal experience or practical experience gives more value to information. This is important, for example, in product reviews or health advice.
• Authority: Authority goes beyond expertise and refers to the broader recognition of a website or author as a leading source of information within a particular field. This can be measured by external signals, such as backlinks from respected websites.
• Reliability: This is perhaps the most important aspect of E-E-A-T. Trustworthy websites provide information that is accurate, up-to-date and well onderbuilt. This is essential to build trust with both users and Google.

E-E-A-T in 2024: the latest developments

In 2024, Google provided some clarifications and updates on how they E-E-A-T apply when reviewing websites. Although E-E-A-T is still not a direct ranking factor, it has gained increasing influence on how Google judges the overall quality of websites.

One of the key developments is that Google E-E-A-T is now more closely involved in assessing content in the so-called YMYL (your money or your life) categories. These are onderopics that can have a direct impact on a user's well-being, health or finances, such as health advice, financial advice, and legal information. Google has clarified that E-E-A-T is given an even heavier weighting in these categories because the potential harm from misleading or inaccurate information is greater here.

In addition, the role of experience in E-E-A-T will play a bigger role in 2024. Google is increasingly looking at authors' personal experience when assessing content quality. This means that practical or relevant professional experience now counts more heavily, especially in onderopics where personal experience can directly affect the value of the information.

How to improve your website's E-E-A-T

Optimising the E-E-A-T of your website requires a systematic approach. Hereonder are some steps you can take to improve the expertise, experience, authority and reliability of your content:

1. Ensure well onderbuilt content: Publish content written by experts or in collaboration with experts in the relevant field. Make sure your information is up-to-date and well 1TP15Built with facts and sources. This enhances the expertise of your site.
2. Share practical experiences: Add personal experiences to your content where relevant. This can range from customer reviews to case studies, or even stories from professionals within your team. This helps to enhance the experience and trustworthiness of your website.
3. Build authority: Make sure your website is mentioned by other reputable websites in your field. You can do this through link building, but also through collaborations and partnerships with other reliable sources.
4. Be transparent about your sources: Always clearly state the sources of your information, especially when it comes to medical, legal or financial content. This helps increase the reliability and transparency of your website.
5. Use clear author pages: Another way to E-E-A-T to improve, is by adding detailed author pages to your website. These pages should include information about your authors' qualifications, experience and expertise, so that visitors know who is responsible for the information they read.

The influence of E-E-A-T on your SEO strategy

Although E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, it plays an essential role in the wider SEO context. Google's algorithms have gotten better and better at onder separating quality content and are increasingly able to judge whether a website meets the E-E-A-T-criteria. This means focusing not only on technical SEO, but also on the quality of your content.

When you invest in improving the E-E-A-T of your website, you indirectly improve your chances of higher rankings. Websites with high-quality content that meet the E-E-A-T-criteria will rank better, especially in searches where reliability is crucial, such as in healthcare, finance and other YMYL categories.

E-E-A-T is essential for long-term success

Improving the E-E-A-T of your website is not something you can achieve overnight, but it is an essential onder part of a sustainable SEO strategy. By investing in expertise, experience, authority and reliability, you ensure that your website performs better in search results and that users trust the information you provide.

With the updates and clarifications provided by Google in 2024 on E-E-A-T, the importance of quality content only increases. So, the better you capitalise on these four pillars, the better your SEO results will be.