YMYL
YMYL, Your Money or Your Life, is Google’s term for topics that can affect a person’s health, finances, safety or welfare. Raters hold these to the highest E-E-A-T standard, and Google’s systems weigh trust signals more on them. A product site is rarely YMYL, except on pages that handle money or personal data, where trust signals matter more.
By Théophile Louvart, founder of Porteur · Updated 14 September 2026 · Markdown
What YMYL means for a small product site
YMYL covers medical and legal advice, financial products, safety information, and news on civic matters. These are high stakes for users.
Your product site is not YMYL by default. Pages that take payments, collect personal data, explain refunds, or claim security practices get closer to it. Examples: "/pricing", "/checkout", "/privacy", "/security", "/help/refunds".
If you publish advice near YMYL topics, scrutiny rises. A post like "yourproduct.com/blog/how-to-treat-back-pain" drifts into medical advice, which needs strong expertise and trust signals you likely lack.
How to tell if a page is YMYL or YMYL-adjacent
- Would wrong advice here harm health, finances, safety or civic participation
- Does the page sell, store or process money or personal data
- Does it compare or recommend financial, medical or legal products or actions
- Does it publish safety-critical instructions, like "evacuation" or "dosage"
- Is it news that could affect public policy or voting
Check Search Console queries for the page. If queries contain terms like "treatment", "loan", "tax", "side effects", "is it safe", you are in YMYL territory. Keep an eye on pages like "/blog/" posts that attract such queries by accident.
Signals that matter more on YMYL-like pages
- Clear ownership: company name, address, contact routes on every page
- HTTPS everywhere, with no mixed content or certificate errors
- Security and privacy pages that say what you do in plain words, kept current
- Refunds, billing terms and customer support details that match the product
- Author names and roles on advice pages, with credentials if you claim expertise
- Citations to primary sources when you state facts, and dates on updates
- No aggressive claims, no guarantees you cannot back up, no dark patterns
A fixed "/checkout" shows the padlock, loads fast, explains totals and terms, and links to "/privacy" and "/refunds" that match the flow.
Audit steps for a product site
List candidate pages
Add "/pricing", "/checkout", "/privacy", "/security", "/terms", "/help/refunds", and any advice pages.
Pull queries per page
Use the Search Console performance report. Flag pages that earn health, finance, legal, safety or civic queries.
Review trust elements
Check contact info, company details, policy links, author bylines, citations, update dates, and claims.
Fix high-risk gaps first
Prioritise payment and data handling pages. Remove or rewrite any advice that crosses into YMYL without expertise.
Reassess after changes
Recheck queries and click-through rate. Ensure your snippets reflect the safer, clearer copy.
On "/blog/how-we-secure-data", add your role-based access model, the data in scope, and a dated change log. Link it from "/security".
Common traps
- Blog posts that drift into health or money advice without credentials
- Thin policy pages copied from a template, not matching your product
- Security badges, trust seals or logos you do not actually hold
- Unclear authorship and no way to contact you quickly
- Stale pricing or refund terms that contradict the checkout
- Support content that gives safety advice instead of product help
If you need to cover a YMYL topic, keep it about the product. For example, "How we store passwords" beats "How to choose an investment app".
Questions
YMYL stands for Your Money or Your Life. It is Google’s term for topics that can affect health, finances, safety or welfare, like medical advice or financial products.
Content is YMYL when wrong advice could harm a person’s health, finances, safety or civic life. These pages are held to the highest E-E-A-T standard, and trust signals carry more weight.
Not usually. Pages that take payments, handle personal data, or touch refunds, security, or terms are closer to YMYL. Treat them with extra care and clarity.
On YMYL topics, Google’s systems give more weight to signals of trust and expertise. Clear ownership, secure handling of data, accurate and maintained content, and credible authors matter more.
Check the topic and the queries it earns. If it covers health, finance, legal or safety, or processes money or personal data, treat it as YMYL or adjacent and strengthen trust signals.
Avoid them if you cannot meet the standards. If you must cover them, keep to your product’s scope, cite primary sources, and show real expertise and accountability.
Check my site, free
Not sure which pages on your site look YMYL to Google, run the free check from your homepage URL and see three findings in about thirty seconds.
- Free check, no card
- Read-only, your own accounts
- Readable by your agent