Thursday, December 15, 2022
Many creators are familiar with the concept of E-A-T, which is used in how we evaluate if our
search ranking systems are providing helpful, relevant information. Would ordinary people feel
the results they get demonstrate E-A-T, that is: expertise, authoritativeness, and
trustworthiness?
Now to better assess our results, E-A-T is gaining an E: experience. Does content also demonstrate
that it was produced with some degree of experience, such as with actual use of a product, having
actually visited a place or communicating what a person experienced? 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.
For example, if you’re looking for information on how to correctly fill out your tax returns,
that’s probably a situation where you want to see content produced by an expert in the field of
accounting. But if you’re looking for reviews of a tax preparation software, you might be looking
for a different kind of information—maybe it’s a forum discussion from people who have
experience with different services.
E-E-A-T — or “Double-E-A-T,” if you prefer, is now part of the updated
search rater guidelines
we’ve just released. You’ll also see clearer guidance throughout the guidelines underscoring the
importance of content created to be original and helpful for people, and explaining that helpful
information can come in a variety of different formats and from a range of sources.
These are not fundamentally new ideas. And we’re by no means abandoning the fundamental principle
that Search seeks to surface reliable information, especially on topics where information quality
is critically important. Rather, we hope these updates better capture the nuances of how people
look for information and the diversity of quality information that exists in the world.
As a reminder, these guidelines are what are used by our
search raters to help evaluate
the performance of our various
search ranking systems, and they don’t
directly influence ranking. They can also be useful to creators seeking to understand how to
self-assess their own content to be successful in Google Search. Our page on how to
create helpful, people-first content has a section
that explains this more.