# 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.

Updated 2026-09-14 · Source: https://porteur.ai/glossary/ymyl

## 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

1. **List candidate pages** Add "/pricing", "/checkout", "/privacy", "/security", "/terms", "/help/refunds", and any advice pages.
2. **Pull queries per page** Use the Search Console performance report. Flag pages that earn health, finance, legal, safety or civic queries.
3. **Review trust elements** Check contact info, company details, policy links, author bylines, citations, update dates, and claims.
4. **Fix high-risk gaps first** Prioritise payment and data handling pages. Remove or rewrite any advice that crosses into YMYL without expertise.
5. **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".

> Do not publish medical, legal or financial advice to chase traffic if you cannot meet the standards. You will waste time and invite risk.

## 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

### What does YMYL stand for

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.

### What does YMYL content mean

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.

### Are product sites YMYL

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.

### How does YMYL affect SEO

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.

### How do I know if my page is YMYL

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.

### Should I avoid YMYL topics

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.

## Read next

- [E-E-A-T](https://porteur.ai/glossary/e-e-a-t): E-E-A-T means Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. What it means for a small product site, and how to show it.
- [Trust signals on a product site: what a stranger checks before paying](https://porteur.ai/guides/trust-signals-on-a-product-site): What a stranger checks in the first minute, the pages that answer each doubt, how to show proof without noise, and a checklist you can ship today.
- [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.
- [The Search Console performance report, column by column](https://porteur.ai/guides/search-console-performance-report): Every column in the Google Search Console performance report explained with the traps that trip small sites, and how to act on each.
- [SEO for SaaS: a strategy for a team of one](https://porteur.ai/guides/seo-for-saas): What to rank and why for a SaaS site: the page families that work, pricing and comparisons, how to avoid thin content, and how to measure signups.
- [HTTPS](https://porteur.ai/glossary/https): HTTPS is a small ranking signal. Serve every page over HTTPS, one‑hop redirect HTTP to HTTPS, fix mixed content, keep canonicals and sitemaps on HTTPS.

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: https://porteur.ai/