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For a second time in the last six months, Google has updated its search quality rating guidelines. What was once known as E-A-T is now E-E-A-T, adding “experience” to the already existing “expertise”, “authoritativeness”, and “trustworthiness”.
What Does “Experience” Add?
The new ‘E’ adds another level to Google’s quality rater guidelines. Raters are looking for content that shows that it was created with some degree of experience, whether it’s reviews of a product, destination, or service.
Google’s explanation of the update was the following: “There are some situations where really what you value most is content produced by someone who has first-hand, life experience on the topic at hand.”
Still with the added “E”, Google insists that “T” for trust remains the most crucial letter in E-E-A-T. Untrustworthy pages will have a low E-E-A-T score, no matter how experienced, expert, or authoritative the page may seem. The addition of “Experienced” is not the only change that has been made. A more in-depth breakdown of the complete list of changes can be read here.
Why We Care
Google has been hinting at adding “Experience” to its formula for some time. Even though quality evaluator’s ratings do not directly affect rankings, there is a lot we can learn about Google’s intentions by spending time reading this document. We can learn what web pages Google prefers to rank and adjust our strategies to conform to these updated guidelines.
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