What is E-E-A-T?

Not directly. Google says "E-E-A-T itself isn't a specific ranking factor," but its systems use "a mix of factors that can identify content with good E-E-A-T." So no single tag, badge or author box raises your rankings. What counts is the overall picture your site and your reputation give of who you are and whether you can be trusted.

The criteria are spelled out in Google's search quality rater guidelines, which added the extra "E," for experience, in December 2022. Raters are people who check whether Google's results look right. Google says "Search raters have no control over how pages rank" and that "Rater data is not used directly in our ranking algorithms."

Each letter asks a plain question about the person or company behind a page. Experience: have you actually done this work? Expertise: do you know the trade? Authoritativeness: are you a known source for it? Trust: is the information accurate and the business honest? Google's rater guidelines call trust "the most important member of the E-E-A-T family."

The guidelines even use a trade example for expertise: "which would you trust: home electrical rewiring advice from a skilled electrician or from an antique homes enthusiast who has no knowledge of electrical wiring?" For a business, they also treat customer reviews as reputation evidence, and tell raters to read them because "the content of the reviews matter, not just the number or star rating."

It can. Google gives "even more weight to content that aligns with strong E-E-A-T" for topics that "could significantly impact the health, financial stability, or safety of people." It calls these "Your Money or Your Life" topics. Google doesn't publish a list of trades, but advice on wiring, gas lines or a roof can touch safety and money.

So a page about whether a homeowner can safely reset a tripped breaker, or what a sagging roofline means, should come from someone who does the work and say so. Thin, unsigned advice on those topics is the hardest kind of page to trust.

Show who did the work, and let outside records back it up. Google suggests asking "Is it self-evident to your visitors who authored your content?" For a contractor, that means named owners or technicians, real job photos and details, license numbers, accurate contact details, and honest reviews you never filter.

Outside records matter as well. When we asked ChatGPT whether named contractors were legit, it cited BBB in 10,582 of 11,982 answers and a government or licensing site in 10,288 (what ChatGPT checks before recommending a contractor). That's ChatGPT, not Google, but it shows the same kinds of trust evidence get checked.

Related terms: Review gating · Google Verified · Schema markup · AI Overviews · All glossary terms

Where to go next: The home-service SEO handbook covers the pages and listings that carry this evidence. For reviews, see our review program.

• Google Search Central, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content (last updated October 5, 2026; read October 28, 2026)
• Google, Search Quality Rater Guidelines (version dated September 11, 2025; read October 28, 2026)
• Google Search Central Blog, Our latest update to the quality rater guidelines: E-A-T gets an extra E for Experience (December 15, 2022; read October 28, 2026)
• Mindflow, What ChatGPT checks before recommending a contractor (11,982 answers)

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