EEAT SEO

Google’s updated search rater guidelines offers insights into how a content creator’s first-hand experience is evaluated.

Previously E-A-T in SEO stood for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.

Google has upgraded the concept of E-A-T with an additional ‘E’ for experience.

EAT has been superceded by Google E-E-A-T which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

In Google Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG) they have recently superceded EAT withE-E-A-T which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.

Many believe E-A-T is an SEO myth, but the truth is “It is only a problem, when it is a problem – and then it is too late”.

Let me tell you from rigorous testing Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness is 100% important for your SEO strategy in 2023.

Do not listen to some SEOs spreading misinformation it is not important like they say about disavowing links also.

For comprehensive information check out the up-to-date Google Search Quality Raters Guidelines.

In our EEAT SEO guide, we explain everything you need to cover to be proactive in covering the required trusted signals algorithmically in December 2024.

EEAT SEO Signals

Here are a list of Google e-e-a-t signals we believe to help with your Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.

About Us Page

Having an ‘About Us’ page on your website is as clear as day when it comes to creating a trustworthy site that follows EEAT SEO procedures.

Usually one of the most-visited pages on any website, especially B2B and B2C service websites. Quite simply users want to know about the people they will be dealing with. If it’s a trade website, they want to know who will be turning up on their doorstep.

About Us tells website users and Google that your company is real and trustworthy and they aren’t just reading from a website. This page usually explains the company’s morals and experience. It discusses why the company is successful and how long it has been trading.

Explaining a little about your company is also a great way of actually winning jobs as a huge amount of website users want to read about a company before wanting their services.

Contact Us Page

The ‘Contact Us’ page is essential for any businesses wanting to be contacted through their website.

A great number of people go straight to the contact page of a website without reading any of the content on the landing page. This means that just by having a contact page available in the nav menu of your site can lead to quick and easy enquiries that you may not have received before.

The contact us page also shows Google that you are happy to be contacted and that you are offering a service to anyone who lands on your website – another great trust signal to have.

Meet the Team Page

A ‘Meet The Team’ page is the perfect trust signal for EEAT SEO. This page explains that you have a full team working for the company.

Why is this good? Because it shows Google that you are not just a website trying to rank in their SERP’s and that you are actually a real business with a full team of employees behind you. This gives Google much more of an incentive to rank your content as it proves you are a trustworthy source.

We don’t mean fake photos of women wearing headsets. We mean real, professionally shot photos of the actual team members at their place of work.

Meet the team pages also provide so much EEAT SEO topical authority for any of your team that are listed as authors. As Google will be able to clearly see that they are knowledgable on the subject of your website.

Testimonials Page

Displaying testimonials on a dedicated testimonials page is recommended for any website. Testimonials are read by so many uncertain website users that are still unsure on which company to choose for their requirements.

REAL testimonials are important, from real people!

A site without any testimonials is much less likely to receive an enquiry than a site with customer feedback. Website users often want reassurance and testimonials provide them with just that.

FAQ Page

An FAQ page allows website users to find answers to all of their questions in one place. Not only will it save your business time and resources as you won’t need to respond to as many questions, but it is a great trust signal for Google as it shows you are wanting to help potential customers.

FAQ pages are an essential part of many websites as customers will use this page to find out more about your services and can help swing their decision of choosing you for their requirements.

Blog Posts

There are many websites that don’t do any blog posts and expect their business and website to do amazingly just by having money pages.

Blog posts not only keep your website fresh and updated with new content, but also show Google that you are an expert on your topic. By having relevant blog pages, you can also generate traffic that can turn into sales by targeting informational and money keywords that you aren’t going after for in your main content.

Author Bio

Google want to attach a piece of information to an individual and ideally the person has some degree of trust on the subject matter.

By attaching authors to articles, you will be building up topical authority around their name and eventually Google will see this person’s name as an authoritative source of your website topic’s information.

Telephone Number

Having a real phone number is amazing for your website’s trust as you are proving to Google that you are happy to accept phonecalls and are willing to take time to help website users through the phone.

You can also link your phone number to other platforms such as social media and Google My Business which also lets Google know that your services are connected and that you are in fact a real business.

Email Address

The main giveaway of a spam site is the email address. Spam sites rarely attach an email address as they don’t want to be contacted by anyone who lands on their website.

Email addresses are often spammed so it’s important to have the correct spam filters set up. On the other hand however, many people just wanting to get quotes or responses search for an email address as soon as they land on your page. So it can also lead to quick enquiries whilst providing another great trust signal for your EEAT SEO profile.

Address

Having a real, physical address on your site is as good as it gets for your trust profile. There is no better way of proving that your website is trustworthy and authentic than stating your real postcode, which is available to anyone.

Addresses are important too as they allow you to rank higher around your location and connect your Google My Business profile to build some great authority near you.

Favicon

Although a website favicon is a pretty obvious course of action for most, it’s actually quite an important trust signal for Google.

This is because it’s really common for spam sites to not have a favicon as these sites are made to generate quick traffic. Your site should definitely have a favicon as it is an essential practice of all forms of SEO.

Sitemap

Linking to your sitemap is a brilliant addition for your EEAT SEO trust profile as it really helps website users and Google navigate your website.

Clearly showing your sitemap implies that you are happy with your website silo and you want Google to crawl multiple pages. It also helps website users navigate your site as they can click through from one page to another.

Company Number

From comprehensive testing, we found a big trust in the United Kingdom is linking a real business from companies house to the website.

Companies House is the best source for proving if a company is real or not and by connecting a real companies house business page to your site allows website users to check out the deeper information of your company.

Google see a company number as a brilliant trust signal and it is becoming more and more common to see company numbers listed in footers of authoritative websites.

Privacy Policy

A Privacy Policy on your website is needed for legal compliance, customer experience and SEO ranking.

An up-to-date privacy policy can help boost your TrustRank and get you a higher search engine ranking.

From analysing raterhub google quality raters guidelines privacy is an essential part of Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.

Terms and Conditions

Terms and conditions are a trust signal because they show the company is professional, cares about its relationship with the user and wants it to be clear and legal.

Having an up-to-date t+c’s gives the trusted signs that real businesses take for legal requirements.

Cookie Policy

Including a cookie policy on your website is another TrustRank signal to Google.

Although it is not deemed a ranking factor forsearch engine optimization or as a ranking signal by Google or Bing, it is what real businesses include for legal compliance purposes.

Being proactive with SEO efforts and having preventative strategies like including a cookie policy is only going to future proof your SEO strategy in December 2024.

Accessibility Policy

Websites should be committed to ensuring accessibility (and any associated offerings) to all people.

The Accessibility Policy means the site will be accessible to all, despite any variance in the range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive ability.

Following best practices from W3C should be implemented and if any time you find the site inaccessible you want to provide a valid email address or telephone number to raise any issues.

Copyright ©

Copyright protects your work and stops others from using it without your permission.

Real businesses want to protect their content from being copied and the “Copyright ©” in the footer is a trust signal.

You can mark your work with the copyright symbol (©), your name and the year of creation. Whether you mark the work or not doesn’t affect the level of protection you have.

On all our websites to improve EEAT signals we make sure to add this wording in the footer:

• Copyright © {BUSINESS NAME} {YEAR}

Users are sometimes unconsciously looking for trust signals that will build their trust in a company when they visit a website. Websites can build or destroy trust through the presence or lack of trust signals and the Copyright © gives additional trust in the user and is certainly part of the EEAT algorithm from testing.

Links to Active Social Media Channels

Users are looking for evidence that they are not alone in trusting this new company they’ve just stumbled on.

Links to active, responsive social media channels will be checked by users.

Google quality raters check social media profiles for regular updates and use trust signals from social channels like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

Non-stock photography

Use your own, professionally taken photographs.

The presence of generic, stock photography makes a website look fake and destroys trust.

Unique photography is some of the best EEAT signals a website can create.

Both branded photographs and videos are a great way to build trust in Google algorithms.

SSL certificate

Google is already identifying insecure websites.

SSL certificates cost as little as £50 per year and are an absolute must in today’s online environment.

Is EEAT Actually a Thing?

E-E-A-T in SEO stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.

Many search engine optimisation specialists question whether E-E-A-T is actually a thing in SEO.

From our data and research E-E-A-T is only part of Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines and is a huge part of when raterhub traffic source hits your site.

As Google employees hit your site via raterhub.com they are checking all aspects of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.

This might cause controversy but we do not see E-E-A-T within the algorithms and the Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness are only calculated from manual actions.

Raterhub Referrer

If you have a source of referral traffic from raterhub.com then be worried in December 2024 with Google’s E-A-T signals.

In most cases, within 10-14 days after raterhub visits your website, the sites get hit big with E-A-T related problems.

Raterhub is the software used by Google Quality Raters to give feedback to the algorithms. Google employees visit your website to check the E-A-T scores. Raterhub.com is triggered when your domain starts to rank for big keywords and predominantly your website gets HIT by the next Google Core Update.

No single vote from a Google Quality Rater can influence rankings, but usually, the tasks are sent out via RaterTracker to over 30 Google employees.

In our analysis, there are SEO case studies in 2024 that have seen domains see huge traffic increases but in 93% of our studies, a domain gets heavily penalised with sudden drops in Google SERP rankings.

Why Has RaterHub Visited My Site?

Raterhub has visited your website because it has started to rank nicely for some high search volume keywords and algorithmically Google sees a lack of E-A-T signals.

Google employees (aka Google Quality Raters) are checking the E-A-T signals of your domain.

Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines have been recently updated in December 2024 so get in touch if you want the latest updates on how a Google employee rates your domain.

What is a Google Author Transparency Manual Action?

A Google Author Transparency Manual Action refers to a site that has been hit with a penalty for not being clear with its author information.

This can include information such as author bio, about page, contact details, branded author SERP and much more.

Web pages subjected to manual penalties may experience diminished display functionalities, a decrease in their rankings, or they might even be entirely excluded from Google Search Results.

If you see a message to see if your website violates Google’s transparency policy, you need to improve your ensure author information is listed clearly on your site.

How Power Posts Can Improve EEAT Signals?

Power Posts can significantly enhance EEAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) signals by publishing high-quality, well-researched articles that demonstrate deep expertise.

These power post articles attract authoritative backlinks from reputable sites, boosting your site’s credibility.

By featuring testimonials, case studies, reviews, and awards, Power Posts build trust with users and search engines.

Highlighting the credentials of content authors improves their credibility and authorship rank.

As numerous third-party websites showcase your expertise and experience, they collectively build trust and authoritativeness, enhancing your overall EEAT signals.

How to Monitor EEAT Score?

The best tool to monitor your EEAT signals is Page Optimizer Pro EEAT Analysis.

PageOptimizer Pro will crawl your website for certain E-A-T signals and then will crawl your competitor sites.

PageOptimizer.Pro will pull out the things that you have which are part of our E-E-A-T guidelines and things that your competitors have and you can see the things that you miss.

Improving your Expertise, Authority, and Trust is important when Google Quality Raters are looking at your domain.

Bing Webmaster Guidelines

Bing are a competitor search engine to Google and have their own equiavalent EEAT guidelines which are called the Quality and Credibility guidelines.

The Bing Webmaster Guidelines areintended to help you understand how Bing finds, indexes, and ranks websites.

The Bing equivalent to EEAT is QC which stands for Quality & Credibility. Determining the quality and credibility (QC) of a website includes evaluating the clarity of purpose of the site, its usability, and presentation.

QC also consists of an evaluation of the page’s authoritativeness, which includes such factors as the author’s or site’s reputation.

In the Quality and Credibility guidelines they specifically talk about the importance of linking out with citations and references to data sources.

The biggest factors within the Quality and Credibility (QC) guidelines is thecompleteness of the content (aka topical authority) and transparency of authorship, as bing wants to know two things:

• The author who has written the article
• The business behind the website

If search engines do not know the authorship or business it instantly loses all trust and hinders rankings.

Final Thoughts

The majority of websites that have received a sitewide penalty are generally lacking E-E-A-T signals.

Moving forward you need to pay close attention to E-E-A-T search engine optimisatione-e-a-t signals and try to improve the trust and ownership of the brand.

The eeat algorithm work out your eat score seo and ideally you want your Google e-e-a-t signals score to be better than your competition.

All Related EEAT Posts

Check out the in-depth list of EEAT posts.

• EEAT Quality Rater Guidelines

  

• EEAT SEO

  

• Google Author Rank

  

• Link Building For Author Bio

  

• Link Building For Awards Won

  

• Raterhub

  

• Reputation Management Agencies

  

What The Experts Say About Google EEAT

Here are what some of the SEO experts say about Google E-E-A-T signals.

Kyle Roof

It’s never one thing with EEAT. It’s ticking enough boxes so that when Google swings by to look at the site it gets enough signals to be happy.

Kasra Dash

Many of the SEO community believe EEAT is a myth but we have seen hundreds of websites recover when DOING ALL THINGS related to Google E-E-A-T signals.

Scott Calland

In December 2024 you should be building websites like real businesses and a real company will have an about us page, meet the team, contact us, telephone number, email address and all the legal documentation related to their industry. If you treat websites like real companies you will easily pass all Google E-E-A-T signals.

James Gregory

The problem is huge when you don’t optimize for all Google E-E-A-T signals and it should form part of your foundations when building out any website in 2024