With AI-generated content on the rise, it's more critical than ever to ensure online content is of a high quality, to support an effective SEO strategy. Here, I discuss how Google’s E-E-A-T framework ensures search results prioritise reliable, accurate, and helpful information, and how you can use it to your best advantage.
What is E-E-A-T?
No, it’s not yet another food delivery app, E-E-A-T in fact stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, a framework Google uses to assess website content quality.
It ensures search results prioritise reliable, accurate, and helpful information, particularly for industries where misinformation can have serious consequences such as health, finance, and legal matters. However, strong E-E-A-T signals benefit websites in any niche, as high-quality content builds credibility with both users and search engines.
With the explosion of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and DeepSeek, AI-generated content has flooded the web, making it harder to distinguish between authoritative, human-created content and mass-produced AI copy. Google has made it clear that AI-generated content isn’t inherently bad for SEO but must meet the same quality standards as human-authored material. By implementing E-E-A-T best practices, site owners can improve search visibility and maintain trust while ensuring their content stands out in an AI-dominated digital landscape.
A history of E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T originated from Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, first introduced in 2014 as E-A-T. The “Experience” factor was added in 2022, acknowledging that content demonstrating real-world experience often provides more value than purely theoretical expertise.
Initially, E-E-A-T was critical for Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) industries and sectors where misinformation can have financial, legal, or health-related consequences. Over time, as AI content and misinformation surged, its importance expanded across all online content. Google continues to refine its ranking systems to surface the most reliable, well-researched, and human-vetted content.
Why is E-E-A-T important?
E-E-A-T plays a critical role in Google’s ranking process, helping to determine content credibility. With AI-generated content becoming more prevalent, ensuring authenticity and trust has never been more essential. Google prioritises content that demonstrates real expertise, firsthand experience, and authoritativeness, ensuring users receive the most accurate and useful information.
Beyond rankings, E-E-A-T influences user trust. High-quality, expert-driven content fosters engagement, reduces bounce rates, and builds a strong brand reputation. In sectors where misinformation can be damaging, such as medical, legal, and financial services, demonstrating clear expertise and transparency is crucial to maintaining both user trust and search visibility.
The rise of LLMs and AI content
The rapid advancement of large language models (LLMs) has transformed content creation. OpenAI’s ChatGPT (2022) was the first major AI tool to gain mainstream popularity, but initially, it had a knowledge cut-off (nothing interesting happened in the world after September 2021 anyway…). Today, all credible LLM’s have real-time web access, making AI-generated content more dynamic and up to date.
While these tools offer efficiency, they also raise concerns about quality, originality, and trustworthiness. Google has responded by reinforcing E-E-A-T, ensuring content that lacks credibility or real-world expertise struggles to rank. Businesses must adapt by incorporating human insight, expert validation and editorial oversight.
“If you’re not adding any first-hand, real-world experience or knowledge to a subject or adding anything new then essentially you’re just writing the same stuff an LLM could regurgitate. Originality and insight is essential.”
Additionally, AI detection tools like Originality.ai and GPTZero are being used to differentiate human-vetted content from purely AI-generated material. However, AI has got so good, even https://www.edweek.org/technology/more-teachers-are-using-ai-detection-tools-heres-why-that-might-be-a-problem/2024/04https://www.edweek.org/technology/more-teachers-are-using-ai-detection-tools-heres-why-that-might-be-a-problem/2024/04. Google isn’t banning AI content from their SERPs outright, but it’s clear that content demonstrating expertise and authenticity will perform best in search results.
The importance of backlinks
Where do backlinks come into all this? Backlinks have always been a core SEO ranking factor, serving as a trust signal that helps Google assess a website’s authority (think of them as a handshake between two website owners). Since the early days of Google’s algorithm, high-quality links from reputable sources have played a crucial role in rankings. However, as AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, we expect backlinks to become even more important.
Search engines now rely even more on trusted sites linking to credible sources as a way to distinguish reliable, human-vetted content from AI-generated noise. A strong backlink profile, gained through digital PR, and other link building methods, will be key to standing out in AI-driven search results. Additionally, brand mentions (even without links) and positive social signals help reinforce trust and authority.
What is YMYL?
YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) sounds like something a highwayman might shout at you as you travelled through the Wild West, but it actually refers to content that could significantly impact a person’s health, finances, safety, or overall well-being. Google holds YMYL pages to higher standards, as misinformation in these areas can have serious consequences.
Industries like medical advice, financial planning, legal guidance, and news media are strictly evaluated under E-E-A-T principles. Google is particularly cautious with AI-generated content in these sectors, reinforcing the need for expert authorship, verifiable sources, and transparent editorial oversight to maintain visibility and credibility in search results.
How to achieve E-E-A-T
One of the best ways to demonstrate expertise and authority is by showcasing real experts behind the content. We’ve implemented this for our client Coach Hire Comparison by setting up author pages with detailed bios and a list of articles they’ve written which provide transparency and reinforce credibility for both users and search engines.
Beyond author pages, businesses should focus on expert-written content, high-authority backlinks, user reviews, and clear website transparency. Real-world business legitimacy, such as Google Business Profile verification, industry certifications, and professional endorsements, further strengthens E-E-A-T signals.
Using structured data to support E-E-A-T
Structured data enhances E-E-A-T by helping search engines better understand and display critical website information. Implementing schema markup allows businesses to reinforce credibility and improve search visibility.
Key schema types include:
- Author schema – Links content to expert credentials and bios.
- Organisation Schema – Displays trust signals such as company name, contact details, and awards.
- Review schema – Showcases customer feedback to enhance credibility.
- FAQ and ‘how to’ schema – Helps structure information for rich results.
- Article schema – Ensures Google understands content type, publication date, and author details.
As AI-generated content increases, structured data provides another layer of credibility, making it an essential SEO strategy.
Measuring and tracking E-E-A-T
Although E-E-A-T isn’t a direct ranking factor, its impact can be measured through key indicators. Monitoring organic rankings and engagement metrics (particularly on news and blog articles) as well as brand mentions helps to assess whether a website is perceived as authoritative.
Since Google’s approach to E-E-A-T is evolving, businesses should regularly review and refine their strategies. The key to long-term success is maintaining content quality, trust signals, and transparency, ensuring that both search engines and users recognise true authority and expertise as we move further into an AI-assisted digital world.
Inherently, humans prefer to read and engage with content primarily produced by humans not solely AI. Google understands this and will continue to reward those offering real insight into topic areas, whether or not that’s with the aid of AI tools.