E-E-A-T: what Google means by it

What Google's own documents say

The Search Quality Rater Guidelines, in their September 11, 2025 version, define each letter as a question the rater asks about the page:

• Experience: does the creator have first-hand or life experience of the topic? A product review from someone who used the product, rather than from someone who never held it.
• Expertise: do they have the knowledge or skill the topic requires? For rewiring a house, you trust an electrician over an antique homes enthusiast.
• Authoritativeness: is the creator or the site known as a go-to source for the topic? For renewing a passport, the official government page is, and it is the only one.
• Trust: is the page accurate, honest, safe and reliable? The guidelines put it at the center: an untrustworthy page has low E-E-A-T, however much expertise it displays.

Experience was added in December 2022; before that, the term was E-A-T. How much trust a page needs depends on the page: an online store needs secure payment and reachable customer service, a page about health or money needs to be accurate.

Google's page on helpful, reliable, people-first content adds two points. Raters have no control over how pages rank, and their ratings are not used directly in the ranking algorithms. And these qualities weigh more on topics that could affect people's health, financial stability or safety, which Google calls "YMYL" (your money or your life).

Who, how, why: what the page should show

Google suggests three questions to ask about any piece of content. Each one turns into something a reader can see:

• Who wrote it. A byline where readers expect one, leading to what the author does and the topics they cover.
• How it was made. For a comparison, what was tested and how. When part of the text comes from an automated tool and a reader might wonder, say so.
• Why it exists. To help a reader who came to the site directly, not to attract search traffic. Google calls this perhaps the most important of the three.
• Who runs the site. A clear identity, a legal notice that can be reached from any page, an About page and a way to get in touch. The guidelines call contact and customer service information extremely important for sites that handle money.
• Where the facts come from. Cited sources, figures that can be checked, customer reviews whose collection is explained.

Real freshness versus a changed date

An "updated" date reassures readers when it is true. Among the signs of content written for search engines rather than people, Google lists this question: "Are you changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed?" It adds that adding or removing lots of content to make a site seem fresh does not work.

A date should change when the content changes. A legal notice written five years ago can be fully current; a price comparison of the same age is not.

Unfinished text sends readers the same message, louder: a site that was never finished, or is no longer looked after. That goes for placeholder text left on a live website, and for passages left in the wrong language on a multilingual site.

What we find on the websites we audit

These percentages cover about 10 to 20 websites we audited between August 14, 2026 and September 24, 2026. Each one counts only the sites where the point could be checked. Many were audited because a defect showed up quickly, so these figures describe our audits, not websites in general.

What the audit looks at

The audit does not try to reproduce Google's judgment. Page by page, it records what a reader can see and check:

• bylines and publication or update dates, where readers expect them;
• the About, Contact, legal notice and terms pages: that they respond, and that navigation or the footer leads to them. Contact details shown elsewhere on the site are enough for contact;
• the facts on display, such as opening hours, address, prices, qualifications or testimonials: whether anything visible backs them, and whether they say the same thing from one page to the next;
• the date of the main content: editorial content left without an update for more than two years is reported, a page that has no reason to change is not;
• the structured data that describes the organization, the author and the dates, for machines that read the page.

How much each item weighs depends on the site. For a blog, a media site or a topic that touches health or money, bylines and dates are central. For a business website, a clear identity, a reachable contact and verifiable proof count for more than an author bio.

Each finding cites the page and the excerpt it rests on. The same pillar also looks at what an automated system can take from your pages, including the llms.txt file.

On this site

Every guide on this site ends with its author's name and the date of its last update. The byline points to the legal notice, which says who runs the site, and the page's structured data carries the same dates as the ones displayed.

What this check doesn't tell you

By Quentin Mathis, Z29K · updated September 28, 2026