What is E-E-A-T?
Key Takeaways
- The four qualities describe what makes a source worth trusting, not a single setting you can switch on.
- It is a quality idea used in search quality guidelines. It is not a direct ranking score.
- Trust is the center of the idea, and the other three qualities support it.
- Evidence on the page, such as named authors, sources and clear contact details, helps a reader judge reliability.
Understanding E-E-A-T
Experience asks whether the author has firsthand knowledge of the subject. Expertise asks whether they have the skill or training to speak on it. Authoritativeness is about being recognized as a go-to source, and trustworthiness is about being accurate, honest and safe to rely on.
Search quality guidelines use these ideas to help human reviewers judge pages. They are a way to think about quality, and no single number or score is attached to a page.
Higher stakes raise the bar. Advice about health, money or safety needs stronger evidence of reliability than a page about a hobby.
In practice the signals are ordinary. Named authors with real backgrounds, clear sources, accurate facts, honest descriptions of the business and easy ways to make contact all help a reader trust a page.
Related Terms
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is E-E-A-T a ranking factor?
It is not a direct ranking score. It is a quality idea from search quality guidelines that describes what reliable content looks like.
Which of the four qualities matters most?
Trustworthiness sits at the center. The other three qualities support it.
How can a business show it?
By publishing accurate content under named authors, citing sources, describing the business honestly and making contact details easy to find.
This term is treated at length in E-E-A-T, What It Means and How to Show It on Your Pages.