Google's E-E-A-T: a complete guide

Is E-E-A-T a ranking factor?

The above pillars are not a direct ranking factor. However, they do indirectly influence the performance of a website. If you meet these pillars, Google sees your website as valuable and you will appear in the search results more quickly. In addition, the quality of content has of course been important for performing well in the SERP for years, and the E-E-A-T principle enables high-quality content to be assessed even more effectively.

How does Google assess these pillars?

Google assesses the quality of a page (PQ rating) based on the following scale:

This takes the purpose of a website or page into account. If a page is misleading or could cause harm, this is considered the lowest possible PQ rating. Google therefore looks at how a page achieves its purpose to determine whether it is user-friendly.

The most important factor with the greatest influence on page quality is the ‘Main Content’. Google sees this as the content on the page that directly influences the communication of the purpose of that specific page. In addition to text, ‘Main Content’ also includes images, videos and audio (such as a podcast).

By writing good, clear and original content that has had time and effort invested in it,  you can communicate your expertise more effectively and Google will therefore give your page a higher rating on the above scale.

E-E-A-T and AI

Today, content has a new leading role, with a major effect on the online content landscape: AI. ChatGPT and other language models can produce texts at record speed, and nowadays there are few people who do not use them. However, AI models are not copywriters but generative prediction models. What does that mean? They generate their texts based on all the content already available on the internet, and the output is a prediction of what you, as a user, probably want to see. This has several consequences:

• The content is never unique, as it is based on all the content available somewhere on the internet.
• The output lacks real experience and tangible examples that demonstrate expertise.
• They also lack human nuance, for example in persuasiveness, puns and other things that make a text appealing.
• The texts also often remain superficial and lack genuine depth.

Logically, this affects the unique value and helpfulness of a text for a user, which is an important factor for Google in determining whether or not a page will appear high in the search results. Google itself writes extensively about the use of AI in content and says the following: ‘When it comes to automatically generated content, our guidance has been consistent for years. Using automation, including AI, to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of our spam policies‘ (source ).

Does this mean that AI is completely useless when it comes to meeting the E-E-A-T principle? Certainly not.

What does Google say?

In fact, AI can absolutely contribute to the creation of high-quality content, provided it is used in the right way. In that same article, Google also says: ‘Appropriate use of AI or automation is not against our guidelines. (…) Our focus on the quality of content, rather than how content is produced, is a useful guide that has helped us deliver reliable, high quality results to users for years.’ (source ). In short: Google does not penalise the use of AI. In fact, it encourages the creation of high-quality content, regardless of the tools used. As long as the E-E-A-T principle is satisfied, it does not matter whether AI is used. If you want to meet the E-E-A-T principle and use AI, consider the following points:

• Always check the information provided by AI, for example by asking for sources. You may also include a source citation on the website itself.
• Always supplement the content yourself, for example with your own experience and elements such as tables and images.
• Make the content concrete: AI tends to be superficial, so supplement it with concrete examples and explanations.
• Good prompts: experiment with prompts and use clear instructions to get as much as possible from AI.

Checklist for E-E-A-T optimisation

The checklist below summarises the E-E-A-T story. You can use this checklist to check whether there are still opportunities within your website to optimise further, so that your website is E-E-A-T-worthy.