E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness: the qualities Google trains its search quality raters to look for when judging whether content is reliable and helpful.
E-E-A-T is the lens Google uses to describe quality. It began as E-A-T, and on 15 December 2022 Google added a first E for experience: first-hand knowledge of the topic, such as having used the product or visited the place.
Google is explicit that E-E-A-T itself is not a specific ranking factor. Its systems use a mix of signals that tend to identify content with strong E-E-A-T, and trust is the most important of the four. Search quality raters assess E-E-A-T using Google’s rater guidelines, but their ratings are not used directly in ranking; they tell Google whether its systems are working.
Why it matters now: AI answers summarise what is common, so pages that offer only what everyone else says have little to add. First-hand experience is the part a summary cannot replace.
Practical note: make it easy to see who wrote a page, what they did to know it and where each claim comes from. Content does not need to show all four qualities at once.