E-E-A-T: Why the Extra E Is Important

Google made SEO headlines when they added an extra E to their well-known E-A-T guidelines, so the acronym is now E-E-A-T, or Double E-A-T.

The new E stands for Experience, meaning the full phrase is Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. But what does Google really mean by its addition of Experience to one of SEO’s most well-known principles?

First, we need to understand what E-A-T is and why it is important to the way Google ranks websites and views pages.

What’s E-A-T all about?

Google’s E-A-T guidelines have been a part of the algorithm for a long time. They were created by Google to help evaluate the quality of a website’s content and ensure that it provides a positive user experience. E-A-T was a fundamental part of Google’s algorithm and used to evaluate the quality and trustworthiness of a website’s content.

Expertise requires a website to demonstrate that it knows what it is talking about with regard to the subject matter. Google looks at whether the page author has qualifications and credentials to write on the subject.

Authoritativeness is a measure of how you are regarded in your industry or niche – do you speak with authority? Google is especially interested in how experts and influencers in your sector consider your content.

Trustworthiness measures the level of trust Google applies to your site. Citing trustworthy sources, being open about who wrote the content, and avoiding hiding content behind ads can all be ways of improving trustworthiness.

How does the new E fit in?

The new E – Experience – asks if the content was produced with real-life experience. In other words, has the writer actually used the product or service that they are talking about? First-hand experience is considered an important metric affecting the potential quality of a piece of content.

Google’s own blog provides the examples: “If you’re looking for information on how to correctly fill out your tax return, that’s probably a situation where you want to see content produced by an expert in the field of accounting. But if you’re looking for reviews of a tax preparation software, you might be looking for a different kind of information—maybe it’s a forum discussion from people who have experience with different services.”

Why is it important?

Any time that Google updates its guidelines, it provides us with more of an idea of what the algorithm is looking for. This is extremely valuable for creating content that ranks better and provides more to potential customers.

As a part of its guidelines, Google has provided insight into the kind of content that would be lacking under the new E-E-A-T principles. For example, if the “content creator lacks adequate experience, e.g. a restaurant review written by someone who has never eaten at the restaurant.”

But Google has also shown what it takes to have high level of E-E-A-T, explaining: “Experience is valuable for almost any topic. Social media posts and forum discussions are often high quality when they involve people sharing their experience.”

At Artemis, we stay up-to-date with Google’s latest recommendations and suggestions around content quality. This ensures that all the content we create for our clients is of the highest standard. If you are interested in working with Artemis to apply E-E-A-T principles to your website, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.