Jennifer Slegg — What is E-A-T and Why is It So Very Important?

All About E-A-T
And Why It’s Important
in Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines
Jennifer Slegg

Jennifer Slegg @Jenstar
About Me
▰ Jennifer Slegg
▰ The SEM Post
▰ @Jenstar
2

What are the Quality Rater
Guidelines?
▰ Google’s guide to sites they want to
rank well… and those they do not
▰ Enables Google to test algos before
pushing them live
3

Quick Facts About the Raters
▰ They CANNOT cause your site’s
rankings to drop
▰ BUT… if they rate your site poorly,
Google is working on algos to
match ratings
4

Quick Facts About the Raters
▰ 2017
▰ 200,00 experiments
▰ Resulted in 2400 updates
▰ 2018
▰ 654,680 experiments
▰ Resulted in 3234 updates
▰ 10,000+ raters
5

Pro Tip!
All examples in the QRG can be
clicked on!
6

“
You can view the rater guidelines as
where we want the search algo to go.
They don’t tell you how the algorithm is
ranking results, but they fundamentally
show what the algorithm should do.
Ben Gomes, VP of Search, Google
7

What is E-A-T?
▰ Expertise
▰ Authoritativeness
▰ Trustworthiness
9

“
Expertise…
The expertise of the
creator of the main content
10

Expertise
▰ Why should I trust the author of
this content?
▰ What makes this author
knowledgeable?
▰ How well known is this author?
▰ Who else promotes this author?
11

“
Authoritativeness…
The authoritativeness of
the creator of the main
content, the main content
itself, and the website
12

Authoritativeness
▰ Is the author an authority?
▰ Is the website an authority?
▰ How well known and popular is the
website?
13

“
Trustworthiness
The trustworthiness of the
creator of the main
content, the main content
itself and the website
14

Trustworthiness
▰ Why should I trust this author?
▰ Why should I trust this website?
▰ Who else has vouched for, linked
to or otherwise supported this
author/website?
15

How Does E-A-T
Translate Into
Rankings?
16

There is no E-A-T score or metric
used in the SERPs
Gary Illyes
Pubcon Oct 2019
17

Improving E-A-T does not
necessarily increase rankings…
it depends, there’s many factors
at play.
Gary Illyes
Pubcon Oct 2019
18

If E-A-T is not a
ranking factor…
why bother?
19

Multiple “Baby Algorithms” work
together to conceptualize E-A-T
metrics.
Gary Illyes
Pubcon Oct 2019
21

E-A-T & YMYL are concepts for
humans to “dumb down” the algo.
Gary Illyes
Pubcon Oct 2019
22

You know what we value? It’s in the
Quality Rater Guidelines.
What is it? E-A-T.
We use it as our ground truth to figure
out what’s a good quality result for our
users.
Google Webmaster Summit Nov 2019
23

New to Core Updates Blog
Post
24
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/08/core-updates.html

Your Money
Your Life
& E-A-T
25

Your Money Your Life
▰ Topics that impact happiness,
health, financial stability or safety
of users
▰ YMYL sites and pages are held to a
much higher standard
26

YMYL Quick Look
▰ News & current events
▰ Civics, government & law
▰ Finance
▰ Shopping
▰ Health & Safety
▰ Groups of People
▰ “Other”
Do you…
▰ Sell anything?
▰ Products
▰ Services
▰ B2B
▰ B2C
You are YMYL
27

Dealing in…
▰ Unproven medical claims?
▰ Debunked conspiracy theories?
▰ Anything that contradicts well-
established expert consensus?
You will have a VERY hard time ranking
28

▰ E-A-T is crucial for all YMYL sites
▰ Google weights E-A-T factors much
higher for YMYL
▰ This includes links!
▰ Not as critical for non-YMYL
29

Increasing your E-A-T is
probably going to be a good thing
if you are in the YMYL space.
Gary Illyes
Pubcon Oct 2019
30

How Important
is E-A-T?
31

Important?
▰ E-A-T is relative to the market area
▰ Have similar E-A-T to your competitors
▰ Work to BE the “Big Brand”
▰ And again: YMYL? Absolutely
32

Important?
▰ BONUS – as you increase your
E-A-T, you will earn more
organically
33

What Makes High
Quality E-A-T?
34

▰ Well researched content
▰ Reputable authors known for
accuracy and high quality
▰ Consensus on health and other
controversial topics
▰ Evergreen or current
35

Ways to Show Off &
Create High Quality
E-A-T
36

Let’s Talk About Me
▰ Dual Biographies for all authors
▰ Condensed highlight version on
article
▰ Full length detailed bio on an
individual bio page
37

Dress to Impress
▰ Social media links
▰ Awards
▰ Quotes
▰ Accolades
▰ Showcase awesomeness!
38

Let’s Talk About Me
Use the same bio photo…
▰ Be recognizable wherever the
author is.
▰ May not know name, but know pic
40

Are You the Author?
▰ Active social media
▰ Engage with influencers
▰ Well placed collaborations or
contributions
▰ Personal or company website
41

Renting an Author for E-A-T
42

Benefits of Popular Authors
▰ Traffic from their shares
▰ Traffic from author searches
▰ Earned links because the author is an
authority
43

Author Entities
44

Very popular authors will have
entities. It is not the author but
the entity.
Gary Illyes
Pubcon Oct 2019
45

Website “Me”
▰ About Us (especially non-brands)
▰ Be transparent!
▰ Show off your history
▰ Show off your team
▰ Show off your spotlight authors
46

Website “Me”
▰ About Us
▰ Contact Us
▰ Customer Service
47

Reputation
Key for both authoritativeness and
trustworthiness
50

“
Use reputation research to find
what real users, as well as
experts, think about a website
51

“
Look for reviews, references,
recommendations by experts,
news articles and other credible
information created/written by
individuals about the website.
52

DYK?
All quality raters MUST do
reputation research for all
sites and pages they rate.
53

Reputation Health Check
▰ Company name / Product name
▰ Reviews
▰ Ratings
▰ Fake / scam (especially YMYL)
54

Reputation Health Check
▰ Content creators
▰ Name
▰ Handle
▰ Duplicate content
▰ Reverse image search avatar
55

Third Party Mentions
▰ Links not necessary (really)
▰ But links are algo signal for
E-A-T
▰ News stories
▰ Reviews
56

Third Party Mentions
▰ Any other mentions you can earn
▰ Sponsor a sports team
▰ Sponsor a community event
▰ Donations
57

Bonuses of Third Party
Mentions…
▰ Yay E-A-T
▰ Boost credibility
▰ Expand brand recognition
▰ Referrals
▰ “As seen in / on / at…”
58

And… Links
59

And… Links
Google trusts sites linked to by other
prominent sites for gauging quality content
60

And… Links
Note: SIMILAR QUERIES
AKA Don’t just focus on your money keywords
61

Ratings and Reviews
▰ Everyone has negative reviews
▰ Overwhelmingly negative
reviews is the problem
▰ Respond to negative reviews with
facts not passion
62

Be the Source
Google wants to promote:
▰ Original reporting the provides info that
would not have been known without the
article
▰ BUT that also cites sources and original
reporting within
63

Food for Thought…
64

Would you…
▰ Trust the author of your most
popular article?
▰ Trust the content of your most
important article – the article you
want to rank the most?
65

Would you…
▰ Like what the leaders in your
industry say about your site?
▰ Like what the leaders in your
industry say about your prominent
authors?
66

Would you…
▰ Like the search results if you
searched for your brand / product
and “scam” or “fake”
67

Sources for More Quality
Rater Guidelines Goodness
▰ Google Quality Rater Guidelines
▰ My QRG Update Notes at
TheSEMPost.com
▰ Multiple Q&As where I interviewed
Gary Illyes from Google
▰ My notes/Tweets from attending
Google Webmaster Product
Summit
▰ From Google:
▰ How Google Search Works
▰ How Google Fights
Misinformation
▰ How our Quality Raters Make
Search Results Better
▰ Google Webmaster Office
Hours
▰ Googler Tweets
68

Thank you!
▰ Jennifer Slegg
▰ The SEM Post
▰ @Jenstar
69

Jennifer Slegg — What is E-A-T and Why is It So Very Important?

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