The Role of E-E-A-T in Google's Algorithm and Content Creation  

The search engine optimization space has gone through major and expansive modifications in the last couple of years. The unprecedented rise of Artificial Intelligence, and the ongoing adjustments in the preferences of customers has taken its toll on the marketing methods utilized by legacy websites and changed the algorithmic differentiations utilized by search engine’s crawling bots. The search engine medium, in 2025, is different than it was two or three years ago. However, one thing that has remained pretty much unchanged is the importance of the E-E-A-T guidelines in establishing the authority score of indexable websites.

In fact, one can say that these guidelines are now more important for Google’s crawling systems than ever before. Why is that? Well, for one thing, the digital space is currently going through a veritable content-creation revolution, and search engines, whether we are talking about Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo or Yandex are facing increased difficulties in purging low-quality AI-based content, created only to manipulate SERP rankings or propagate misinformation. Google does not penalize content just because it’s created with the help of AI. However, it does so with content that presents complex topics without providing signals of real-world experience.

The generation of AI content has gone through several major breakthroughs in the last couple of years. Yet, for the most part, it is still imperfect, and can often get flagged by Google’s helpful content framework. Google, for the most part, relies on strong human experience signals to establish the authority signals of indexable content, and prioritizes topical knowledge over broad, less in-depth content. It’s a matter of perspective. AI content is often generic, so Google, through the E-E-A-T guidelines established basically a framework to investigate the trustworthiness and authoritative score of its indexable websites.

What Does E-E-A-T Even Stand For?

Since December 2022, the E-E-A-T guidelines stand for Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. However, the “Experience” topic was only introduced 8 years after the first launch of the concept, in 2014. The Experience guidelines refers to the author’s personal experience with the subject debated in the indexable content, and it can be demonstrated through personal accounts or in-depth descriptions of the products/services/subjects talked about in the written texts.

Are you for example a blog owner and do you occasionally post reviews of random tech products you’ve found online? If so, in order to respect the Experience topic of the E-E-A-T guidelines, a good idea would be to take personal photos of the products you showcase and write in-depth reviews that present your experience with them. The expertise factor, on the other hand, relates to the qualifications of the person that talks about the subjects debated in the indexable content. For example: Are you writing an article about quantum physics? Then, you should at least have some sort of professional or educational background that allows yourself to classify as knowledgeable about the topic.

Authoritativeness is related to the overall reputation of the author or website that publishes the indexable content, while Trustworthiness encompasses everything from the overall security certificate of the website, to the privacy policies of the written content and the transparency of the author. Trustworthiness, in 2025, is perhaps the most important ranking factor in the E-E-A-T guidelines. So, to increase it, a good idea would be to be transparent with your credentials as an author, and showcase your editorial policies, right under the articles or content you want to promote.

How Can You Make Your Content E-E-A-T Compatible?

For starters, you must show first hand involvements with the topical subjects present in the content available on your website. It’s not enough to write posts about general topics that can be generated using AI-tools. What Google is looking for is niche topicality and specific subject matter depth that’s intertwined with the personal experience of the author. Personal stories about subject matters related to the ones presented in the posts, being open with your credentials as an author, utilizing media tools to showcase your experience with the subjects debated in the articles or promoting open discussions in the comment sections of your indexable content, are all factors that can improve your E-E-A-T compatibility.

On top of that, a good idea would be providing ample external resources for the affirmations presented in the written content and improve the overall security of your website while also being transparent with your content policy, the bio of your site’s authors and the feedback you received from target audiences. In other words, you should aim to make in-depth content that looks clearly written by a human author. And if everything goes right, and your site gets promoted in Google’s knowledge panel, your content’s long-form E-E-A-T SEO compatibility will go hand-in-hand with your site’s SERP rankings.

Are the E-E-A-T Guidelines a Direct SERP Ranking Factor?

No, not really. The E-A-A-T guidelines are not a direct ranking factor utilized by Google’s AI-based algorithms to dictate the SERP position of indexable websites. However, they are a conceptual network that gives Google the indirect signals required to understand the topicality of the texts it analyses and the authoritativeness of the authors of the aforementioned texts. There is no direct E-A-A-T score for the pages analyzed by Google’s crawling bots. But, there are algorithmic signals that are used by crawling agents to identify the overall quality of the analyzed posts.

These bots will look for everything, from multimedia elements and author schema markup, to high-quality external links or the utilization of the HTTPS extension. In reality, it’s a complex situation that’s not that easy to explain, as even Google sometimes gives contradicting answers about this topic. Yes, technically, E-A-A-T is not a direct ranking factor for Google’s crawling agents, but at the same time, the websites that respect these guidelines automatically are rewarded with a push in the SERPS. In a way, it’s a bit of a contradiction. Plus, the significance of the E-A-A-T guidelines is greater for websites that deal with YMYL-type content.