What is EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness)? Why It’s Important for SEO?

Do you want to feel left out and ignored in the digital world? You will feel uncomfortable if you remain uninterested in online and internet/digital activities because the world is fast-paced and the business field is moving ahead at lightning speed. So, the best alternative is to be equipped with all the solutions for your esteemed customers and if they demand digital solutions then get ready to provide them with the required answers. Let us discuss SEO here, especially EAT and its importance in connection with SEO.

What is EAT?

The full form of EAT is Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. The concept is existing since 2014 but, recently it has gathered momentum. It erupts from the Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines. The notorious Medic update in 2018 made EAT more popular. Google employs EAT to evaluate the quality of the web page. The quality of the page is vital as it is a determinant factor for page ranking in Google.

Following are the important guidelines or factors that Google considers important for the web page to hold ranking:

• What is the purpose of the page?
• EAT Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
• Content quality and length
• Information of source (website or content creator)
• The reputation of the source

What are the factors that help Google to determine EAT?

Google constantly has to filter good and bad content. The process intensified in recent years. Trusting content is a trivial factor, and Google has to train its system to access quality, factual, and credible content. Hence the need to have to EAT comes to the fore.
Now let’s move to the factors that aid in determining EAT.

• The expertise of the source, i.e., content creator helps to determine to EAT for Google.
• The website and the main content are the authoritativeness of the creator.
• The trustworthiness of the content or the creator.

Why is EAT importantly?

Let’s analyse a simple example.

Suppose, I want to buy stuff toy online. I can buy it from an online store without researching the product. But if I want to buy medicine, then I will have to find a site that provides me with factual information about the med. If the site has content written by an ill-informed writer, then the credibility of the content is nil. Hence, the important decision of buying a medicine can go astray.

EAT is an important determinant to remove such imperfections.

Queries about improving credit score require assistance from an expert. Hence, credible and trustworthy content is the need of the user. She/he will search for information that provides them with information that is based on facts. But a clueless source cannot provide the user with the right information.

Such topics, as per Google, are called Your Money Your Life (YMYL). Such web pages have an impact upon user’s health, finance, and well-being. The sites that fall in this category are News, Health, Finance and Wealth Management, Shopping, Government and Law. Hence, these sites need extra scrutiny. So, such sites identify the crucial role of EAT.

How is EAT evaluated?

Though expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness sound similar, yet these are not identical terms. Let us take each one by one.

• ExpertiseThe dictionary meaning of expertise is to have solid knowledge about a particular subject, topic, or field. Here, expertise is synonym with content quality. Google looks to content that is created by a credible source who knows the topic.
  Subject matter experts know the YMYL topics. They are qualified and informed about the respective topics to furnish factual information. Financial advisors have adequate knowledge to upload to wealth management sites.
  On the other hand, some sites require information that content writer with experience can also provide, with or without the respective qualification. Forums that support Cancer discussion welcome the opinion of Cancer-stricken or cancer survivors as such people can provide better insights.
• AuthoritativenessThe reputation of the content creators among peers is authoritativeness. The website that has the reputation of providing factual content is most revered by the users. Indulge in reputation research to get information about expert’s opinion of such websites. Reviews and recommendations for such sites play a vital role in gaining reputation or authority.
  The best example in such a case is Wikipedia. Companies like Tesla may have authoritativeness related to vehicles but they have little or nil authority about its SEO.
• TrustworthinessWebsites should be legitimate and accurate in providing information to gain the trust of users. This quotient applies to all websites, whether YMYL or non-YMYL. The contact information in the sites should be clear to increase trust value among the visitors.

EAT and SEO importance

A bad source of content information can have a life-threatening impact on the reader. Such is the power of digital content, and hence, the need to have credible and factual information is an essential concept. Hence, the need to have EAT is more than ever. SEO and EAT are directly linked. The higher the credibility of the content, the higher is the potential to getting ranked in top-ranking pages of search engines.

EAT is directly proportionate to SEO.

Now, consider the other side of the coin. EAT is a human concept as humans are engaged in providing the metrics. But when we talk in terms of computer language, bits and bytes are relevant. So, telling the computer to rank pages on the pretext of EAT is not a useful thought.

Here comes the solution by Google:

• Search engineers can tweak algorithms to align with EAT results.
• Google checks on the proposed tweak to settle with results that are either positive or negative. If the results are found positive, then Google goes for the tweak and implements it.

Mind Digital is one of the premier digital marketing companies in India that can provide its customers with the best guidance about EAT to boost the SEO of the websites and blogs.

Final Thoughts

Undoubtedly, EAT is important for SEO. It is more than ever essential for YMYL sites. To attract SEO, the credibility and reality of content matters. EAT is one of the best ways to assure that websites feature quality content that can stand better chances of getting featured in the high-ranking pages of Google.