What is E-E-A-T from Google quality rater guidlines?
Well here we go ladies and gentlemen, a significant change to the Quality Rater Guidelines and this change is the introduction of the letter “E” to the start of the acronym E-A-T.
Google updates its QRG several times throughout the year but the most recent version comes with a lot of of new content which is well worth a read. You can find read the document here: Quality Rater Guildelines (QRG).
So what is E-E-A-T?
This stands for the following:
- Experience.
- Expertise.
- Authoritativeness.
- Trustworthiness.
Now that “Experience” has been added into the mix, I can see this as content quality can now be looked at and taken into consideration from the understanding and knowledge of the content creators first-hand experience within his or hers niche.
What is the purpose of E-E-A-T?
E-E-A-T is a concept used by Google’s search algorithms to evaluate the quality and credibility of a website. Google’s search algorithms are designed to provide users with the most relevant and trustworthy results for their search queries. Google uses various signals, including E-E-A-T, to help determine the quality and relevance of a website.
Google uses E-E-A-T to assess the experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a website, web page and its content. They look at a variety of factors to determine a website’s E-E-A-T, including the content of the website, the qualifications of the person who create and publish the content, and the website’s reputation.
E-E-A-T is especially important for websites that provide information on topics or niches that could have an impact on a person’s health, wealth, or well-being, such as medical or financial advice. Google wants to ensure that users are getting accurate and reliable information from trustworthy sources, so it gives higher rankings to websites with strong E-E-A-T.
To improve your website’s E-E-A-T, it is important to create high-quality content that is written by experts in your given field and to make sure that your website is authoritative and trustworthy.
How does Google use E-E-A-T?
Google’s search quality evaluators, numbering over 10,000, apply 380,000+ assessments annually based upon the E-E-A-T parameters. Google then trains these raters on distinguishing excellent or inferior content against the E-E-A-T principles.
The comments and evaluations given by the raters are used by Google to refine its Algorithms accordingly. It is necessary to understand that the raters’ scores do not immediately modify Google’s results; instead, when taken as a whole, Google uses their assessments as evidence that the material provided by their applications is in agreement with what people would expect from top search results.
Google wants to know who is responsible for the website and who created the content on the page
Google has made it very clear that the websote owner shoudl make it clear who owns the website and identify clearly who created the content on any given page. In previous guidelines Google asked raters to look for which company, individual, business etc is responsible for the website. In this new version Google has replaced foundation with organization and government agency.
What is clear, Google is focusing on distinguishing the website owner fro mthe content writer or contributor on a given website.
Below is a table from the guidelines which helps raters identify who is responsible for the content on various sites. This is sometimes hard to identify as some sites have complete control of their wesbite and content where others use content generated by users or contributions from guest authors.
Table taken from Page 17 -Section 2.5.2 -Google Quality Rater Guidelines
Conclusion about E-E-A-T?
I have always been an advocate for when this was E-A-T and this is something I have always emphasised the importance of showing search engines but more importantly your website visitors that you are an expert, trustworthy and an authortity in your niche. Now we have the added addtion of experience, I see this being even more important when creating content for the future.