In December of 2022, a Google update added another E to the long-standing SEO principles E-A-T. Now it’s E-E-A-T and here we’ve explained what they are and why they matter going forward. If you’re entering the SEO arena this year, you want to know how to use the E-E-A-T criteria to deliver high-quality, ranking content.
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Why E-A-T Is Important
The original E-A-T guidelines first hit the scene in 2014, with the goal to avoid misleading, poor-quality content from hitting the top of a Google search. Since then, they have guided the field of SEO and allowed valuable, accurate content to dominate search rankings for the most part. Standing for Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness, E-A-T became especially important for online businesses that handle money over the internet.
Sectors like iGaming have been the biggest beneficiaries of E-A-T since it ensures that legitimate businesses top SERPs. When a website offers real cash slot games, it’s more important that users are served high quality service providers that stay above the law. The same can be said for fields concerning health and finance. E-A-T has ensured that searches return high-value results when it matters, improving the internet as a whole.
The Original E-A-T Explained
Let’s delve into what the original E-A-T criteria means. First, expertise prizes exactly what you’d expect when ranking a topic. Does the author demonstrate the necessary credentials and qualifications? It’s basic sourcing, mixed into the search algorithm soup so that bad actors who speak from an unqualified perspective are given less priority than those that are qualified.
That brings us to authoritativeness. This is essentially an individual or business’ wider reputation in an industry. Imagine you are buying a product – you are much more likely to buy from a trusted household name company than a smaller, lesser-known company, right? That’s the principle behind authoritativeness, where well-known sources with a record of good content are prioritized. These bigger influencers and operations often need to be more accurate and informative because more eyes are on them. An authoritative reputation typically comes from a record of serving content backed by, you guessed it, expertise.
Lastly, trustworthiness is the most important part of the puzzle, even today. It’s the combination of author, their work, and the publication website, which are all then reviewed and rated for quality by Google’s very own quality raters. This also catches any technical concerns – think dodgy payment processing infrastructure on a website. Even with expertise and authoritativeness, a site without trustworthy payment processing will fail in SEO ranking.
The New E – Experience
So, what is experience? It goes at the start – Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. So, while trustworthiness was the last hurdle when a site is ranked by these metrics, experience is the new first hurdle. It dovetails well with expertise but comes with an important clarification. Sometimes, expertise isn’t enough to speak on a subject if you don’t have direct experience.
It was brought in mainly for the benefit of reviews, where first-hand experience with the thing being reviewed should be necessary. After all, you cannot trust a review of a product if the author never used or even saw said product, right? That’s where experience comes in. When a site demonstrates all four of the new E-E-A-T principles, it’s good to go and shouldn’t face any unnecessary SEO setbacks.