Definition
Also written: experience expertise authoritativeness trustworthiness, EEAT
E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness — the framework Google’s human quality raters use to assess page and site quality. Google states it is not itself a ranking factor; it describes what the systems are being tuned to approximate, and it matters most on topics that affect money or wellbeing.
In practice it turns into visible, checkable things: a named author or a clear organisational voice, a published and reviewed date, links to primary sources, and claims that survive being checked.
The "experience" addition matters for reviews and first-hand accounts specifically — whether the writer has actually used the thing they are describing.
The usual error
Where this goes wrong in practice
Manufacturing the signals. Invented author biographies, fabricated first-hand experience and testimonials that cannot be attributed are a worse trust position than having none of them.
Related terms
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Definition