What Google says
We read Google's page on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content on 9 October 2026. It was last updated on 5 October 2026.
- Google's systems use a mix of factors to find content that shows experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust.
- Google says E-E-A-T itself is not a specific ranking factor.
- Of the four, Google says trust is the most important. The others help build it.
- A page does not need to show all four. Some content is helpful mainly for the experience it shows, other content for the expertise.
- For topics that could affect health, money, safety or the welfare of society, Google says its systems give even more weight to content that shows strong E-E-A-T. These are often called YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics.
Who, how and why
The same Google page gives three questions to ask about your own content.
- Who made it? Make it clear who wrote the page. Google suggests author information that readers can check, and warns against made-up creator profiles.
- How was it made? Readers may want to know the method, including if automation or AI (artificial intelligence) helped.
- Why was it made? Google calls this perhaps the most important question. The aim should be to help people, not mainly to attract search visits.
The rater guidelines
Google also publishes guidelines for its search quality raters. Google says raters are people who give feedback on whether its algorithms seem to be giving good results. It says raters have no control over how pages rank, and that the guidelines are where the E-E-A-T criteria for raters are described. We have not read the rater guidelines themselves, so we do not quote them.
A made-up example
An electrical shop in Nagpur writes a page on how to choose a home inverter.
- Weak version: no author, general text copied from other sites, and no real photos.
- Stronger version: the page names the technician who wrote it, shows photos of installations the shop did, explains the cost of each option in ₹, and says when an inverter is not needed. A contact number and address sit on the page.
The second version shows experience, since it comes from real work. It is also easier for a reader to trust. Whether Google ranks it higher is not something we can promise.
Common mistakes
- Treating E-E-A-T as a tag or a score you can add.
- Inventing an author, a degree or a review.
- Copying text from other sites and calling it your own.
- Hiding who runs the business, with no address or contact details.
- Publishing on money or safety topics with no source for the facts.
- Writing to attract searches, not to help the reader.
Related terms
- Topical authority: an SEO (search engine optimisation) idea about covering one subject well.
- Backlink: a link to your site from another site.
- Schema markup: code that labels details on a page for search engines.
- On-page SEO: the changes you make on the page itself.
- Search intent: what a person wants when they type a search.
To check how trust shows on your pages, begin with an SEO audit, or read about on-page SEO.
Sources
- Google Search Central, "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content" (developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content), last updated 5 October 2026, read 9 October 2026. The statements on search quality raters and the rater guidelines are taken from this page, not from the guidelines.
