Google published the first edition of its Search Quality Guidelines back in 2014. Judged by the accelerated timeline of the digital marketing world, that was basically a lifetime ago. However, several of the concepts laid out in the original Search Quality Guidelines remain pertinent even today. At the top of the list is the E-A-T principle… or, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

If you’ve spent much time in the search marketing world then you’ve probably heard about E-A-T before. If not, here’s a quick overview: There are thousands of quality reviewers whose job is to manually assess webpages, submitting feedback to Google regarding the perceived quality of those webpages. This feedback is ostensibly used to shape search rankings. E-A-T provides the rubric by which these quality reviewers assess pages.

Or, to quote from Google’s own guidelines: “For all other pages that have a beneficial purpose, the amount of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) is very important.”

Again, it’s important to note that, though the E-A-T rubric has been around for a while, it remains fairly important to Google’s algorithms. In the most recent edition of the Search Quality Guidelines, E-A-T is mentioned 137 times (and the entire document is only 175 pages).

What is E-A-T?

For as significant as E-A-T is, there remains a lot of confusion about what it actually is. To better understand the nature and the purpose of E-A-T, it may first be helpful to explain what it’s not.

It’s Not an Algorithm

First of all, E-A-T is not an algorithm.

Here’s an explanation from Google’s Gary Illyes: “Google has a collection of millions of tiny algorithms that work in unison to spit out a ranking score. Many of those baby algorithms look for signals in pages or content [that can be understood in terms of E-A-T].”

In other words, E-A-T is not itself an algorithm, but it does reflect many of the important virtues and qualities that the algorithms look for.

It Doesn’t Come with a Score

Another misconception about E-A-T is that it can be precisely quantified, or reflected in terms of a numeric score.

Google does not assign any kind of E-A-T score to online content. In fact, the assessment of the E-A-T quality reviewers doesn’t even have a direct impact on a page’s rankings, though it may be taken into account as Google refines its algorithms and its ranking criteria.

It’s Not a Ranking Factor

To be extra clear about it, E-A-T is not a ranking factor. Expertise is not a ranking factor. Authoritativeness is not a ranking factor. And trustworthiness is not a ranking factor.

Google does have a long list of ranking factors (a little more than 200 of them), including things like page speed and page security.

Here’s what Google’s Danny Sullivan has to say: “Is E-A-T a ranking factor? Not if you mean there's some technical thing like with speed that we can measure directly. We do use a variety of signals as a proxy to tell if content seems to match E-A-T as humans would assess it.”

It’s Not Equally Relevant to All Site Owners

Not all website owners or content creators need to be equally concerned with E-A-T. Google has been very clear in saying that the E-A-T expectations vary according to the subject matter of the webpage. For instance, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness are especially important for content that involves medical guidance.

For a page about, say, how to bake chocolate chip cookies, formal expertise is less important, and thus E-A-T is less of an issue.

E-A-T Alone Cannot Improve SEO Success

It’s also important to understand that being intentional and proactive about improving E-A-T is not necessarily going to improve website rankings. It’s certainly not going to be helpful in a vacuum; things like page speed and on-site optimization remain critical. Addressing E-A-T is only going to be helpful when it’s done in conjunction with these other factors.

Why E-A-T Matters

It’s easy for website owners and content creators to get too bogged down in E-A-T, but we don’t want to give the wrong impression: Striving for content that is expert, authoritative, and trustworthy matters. Not only can it potentially help you enhance your search rankings (when considered in light of technical ranking factors), but it also provides a more valuable and informative user experience. This is doubly true for those who work in fields related to health, personal finance, etc.

The bottom line: E-A-T is not a magic formula or a silver bullet to mastermind better Google rankings, but it does provide a helpful metric for assessing the quality of your online content.

With any questions about E-A-T, about Google rankings, or about online marketing in general, we invite you to reach out. The enCOMPASS team is always here to chat with you about your marketing or SEO concerns.