# E-E-A-T E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. It comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines, with Experience added in December 2022. For a small product site, it is a checklist of signals that show real people, real use and reliable facts. Updated 2026-09-14 · Source: https://porteur.ai/glossary/e-e-a-t ## What is E-E-A-T? E-E-A-T is a framework used by Google’s human raters to judge the quality of search results. It is not a direct ranking factor. Google uses rater feedback to test changes, and ranking systems look for signals that align with these qualities. Trust is the most important of the four. It matters most on Your Money or Your Life topics, like health, finance and safety. Product sites still benefit, especially on pricing, comparisons, guides and security pages. ## Is E-E-A-T a ranking factor? No. Google states E-E-A-T itself does not rank pages. The systems seek signals that correlate with experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Your job is to make those signals visible and consistent across your site. > Rule: optimise for the signals, not the acronym. ## What E-E-A-T looks like on a product site - An author line with a real name and role on “/blog/why-switch-to-ourproduct”. - An About page with company, team and a postal address on “/about”. - Contact details on “/contact”. A monitored inbox. A reply policy. - Dates on articles and docs. Updated dates when you edit. - Sources linked in how-to guides. Quote figures and cite where you got them. - First-hand screenshots, product telemetry and test results in “/guides/getting-started”. - Consistent facts across “/pricing”, docs and the footer. No mismatched plan names or terms. A fixed page looks like “/pricing” with plan names that match your docs, a support email, last updated date, and a link to security details. ## How to show it and measure progress 1. **Name accountable authors** Add bylines with role and a short bio. Use the same name across posts, docs and your LinkedIn page. 2. **Publish real experience** Add first-hand notes, screenshots and results. If you claim “faster than X”, show the test method and numbers. 3. **Make contact easy** Add email, form and address. Put them in the footer and on “/contact”. Monitor the inbox you publish. 4. **Show company details** Write a clear “/about”. Add legal name, registration details if relevant, and team profiles. 5. **Date and maintain content** Add published and updated dates. Review high-traffic posts each quarter for accuracy. 6. **Cite sources** Link to the original docs you rely on. Quote figures with context. Avoid vague “studies show” claims. 7. **Keep facts consistent** Audit plan names, limits and policies across pages. Fix mismatches before you publish new pricing. You cannot score E-E-A-T directly. Track proxy signals. Use the Search Console Performance report to see if pages with clear authorship and sources win more clicks on queries like “ourproduct pricing” or “ourproduct alternatives”. Watch branded queries grow and support tickets fall after trust fixes. For YMYL pages, ask a domain expert to review and sign content. ## Common traps - Treating E-E-A-T as a checkbox. Thin bios and fake personas reduce trust. - Copying claims without sources. One wrong stat on “/security” undermines the site. - Outdated dates. A 2021 “last updated” on “/status” signals neglect. - Inconsistent pricing. “Starter” on “/pricing” and “Basic” in docs confuses and harms trust. - Anonymous posts. “By Team” makes accountability unclear. - Stock screenshots. Show your own product and data, not a vendor mockup. ## Questions ### What does E-E-A-T stand for? Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. It is Google’s quality framework from the Search Quality Rater Guidelines, with Experience added in December 2022. Trust is the most important of the four. ### Is E-E-A-T a ranking factor? No. Google says E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor. Raters’ judgements help evaluate ranking systems, and those systems seek signals that align with these qualities. ### How do I improve E-E-A-T on a small product site? Show real people, real use and reliable facts. Add bylines and bios, dates, sources, contact details and company info. Use first-hand screenshots and keep pricing and docs consistent. ### How do I measure E-E-A-T? You cannot measure it directly. Track proxies: clicks and queries in Search Console, growth in branded search, higher acceptance of your claims, and fewer trust-related support tickets. ### Does E-E-A-T only matter for YMYL topics? It matters most for YMYL pages like health, finance and safety. Product sites still benefit on pages that handle money, security, comparisons or sensitive data. ### What are E-E-A-T signals in SEO? Signals are visible cues that suggest experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. Examples are named authors, accurate sources, dates, consistent facts, and real product evidence. ## Read next - [How to do SEO for a product site, in the order that pays](https://porteur.ai/guides/how-to-do-seo-for-a-product-site): Follow the order that pays: fix indexing, improve pages you rank on, win within-reach queries, ship comparisons, add new demand pages, then earn links. - [On-page SEO checklist: the twelve things on the page](https://porteur.ai/guides/on-page-seo-checklist): The twelve page elements that move clicks and rankings, with examples you can copy to your own product pages today. - [Internal linking for a small site: which pages link to which](https://porteur.ai/guides/internal-linking-for-seo): Decide which pages rank. Build hubs, write clear anchors, fix orphans, and crawl your site to map links you control. - [Structured data](https://porteur.ai/glossary/structured-data): Structured data is schema markup that names your page type. See why it changes results, how to add JSON-LD, and how to validate it. - [How to get backlinks for a small product site](https://porteur.ai/guides/how-to-get-backlinks-for-a-small-site): What to build, who to ask and how to measure. A founder’s plan to earn backlinks without spam or spend, with examples and a checklist. - [Topical authority](https://porteur.ai/glossary/topical-authority): What topical authority means, how to plan a topical map, link hubs, and read real signals without chasing third party scores. Paste your homepage URL to see three trust gaps on your key pages, found from your site and rivals in about thirty seconds, free. Free check: https://porteur.ai/