What is E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)?
Google's framework for evaluating content quality. Originally E-A-T; extended to E-E-A-T in 2022 to emphasize first-hand experience.
Also known as: E-E-A-T, EEAT, E-A-T
E-E-A-T is the framework Google's quality raters use to evaluate content. The four pillars are Experience (have you actually done the thing you're writing about?), Expertise (do you have demonstrated skill?), Authoritativeness (do others recognize you as a source?), and Trustworthiness (is your content accurate, sourced, and safe?).
E-E-A-T isn't a direct ranking factor — there's no E-E-A-T score in Google's algorithm. But the algorithm is increasingly tuned to surface content that exhibits these qualities, and content from sites that visibly demonstrate them tends to outrank generic content.
For a small-business website, demonstrating E-E-A-T means: visible author bios with credentials, real photos of real people, links to LinkedIn and other authoritative profiles, case studies with specific numbers and named clients, recent activity (regular publishing, fresh reviews), and structured data marking up Person, Organization, and Review entities.
Sites that demonstrate E-E-A-T well outrank generic content of equal quality. For YMYL topics (Your Money or Your Life — health, finance, legal), it's effectively required.