EAT

What does EAT stand for?

Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness

When talking about web content and SEO, you might come across the slang term ‘EAT’. It’s an acronym that stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These are the key principles that Google uses to determine the quality of webpages. It’s a crucial term for anyone who creates web content or works in SEO.

Google introduced the EAT acronym as a guide for those who want their websites to perform well and rank high in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). In 2018, Google updated its search algorithm with the so-called ‘medic update’, which made the EAT principles even more important. This triggered a frenzy among SEO specialists who wanted to understand and apply these principles.

So, what do these principles mean? Expertise refers to the author’s knowledge about the topic they’re writing about. Google wants to see that the person who wrote the content is an expert in that area.

Authoritativeness is about the credibility of the website where the content is published. Google wants to rank content from trustworthy sources high in the search results.

Finally, Trustworthiness takes into account the overall quality of the website. This includes the security of the site and whether users can trust the information provided to be accurate.

Example for using ‘EAT’ in a conversation

Hey, have you heard of EAT?

Yeah, it stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, right? It’s all about Google’s ranking criteria.

Exactly! It’s what they look for in web content to determine its quality and credibility.

So, expertise means how knowledgeable the content creator is, right?

Yes, that’s correct! It’s about the level of knowledge they have on the subject they’re writing about.

And authoritativeness is about how trustworthy the website is, right?

Absolutely! It’s all about the credibility of the website publishing the content.

Got it! And what about trustworthiness?

Trustworthiness is about the overall quality of the website, including security and users’ trust that the information is accurate.