E-E-A-T and credibility in practice

E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. As the fundamentals module explained, Google says it is not a ranking factor in itself, but its systems look for signals that align with it, and give them more weight on YMYL topics. This lesson is about showing those qualities on real pages.

Trust comes first

Basic trust signals for any business site:

• Who is responsible: company name, registration details where relevant, address, phone and email. The rater guidelines ask raters to find who is responsible for the site and how to contact them.
• About page: real people, real history, real photos.
• Customer service information: returns, guarantees, delivery and privacy, especially for shops.
• Accurate, current information: prices, hours and policies that match reality.

Experience and expertise

• Experience means doing the thing: using the product, doing the repair, visiting the place. Show it with original photos, measurements, case studies and specific details only someone who did it would know.
• Expertise means knowing the subject. Show it with author credentials, explanations of why, and accurate detail. For YMYL topics, formal expertise matters more. The rater guidelines discuss when experience is enough and when expertise is needed.

Authors

Google's guidance asks you to make clear who created content where readers would expect it, with bylines that link to author information.

• Give each author a page with their real name, role, background and photo.
• Link bylines to that page.
• Never invent authors. Google calls fake authors, such as made-up names or AI-generated headshots, deceptive.

Article author markup, following Google's best practices:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "BlogPosting",
  "headline": "Kodėl kompiuteris neįsijungia: 7 priežastys",
  "datePublished": "2026-10-20",
  "dateModified": "2026-11-05",
  "author": [{
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Jonas Jonaitis",
    "url": "https://example.com/apie/jonas-jonaitis/"
  }]
}

Include every author shown on the page, each as its own object. Put only the name in name, and use url (or sameAs) to link to a page that identifies the author.

Reputation

What others say counts for more than what you say about yourself. The rater guidelines tell raters to look for independent reputation information, such as reviews, news coverage and recommendations from experts.

For a small business this means:

• Collecting genuine reviews on Google Business Profile and relevant platforms, and replying to them.
• Getting mentioned by local media, partners and industry associations. The off-page module covers this.
• Never buying or faking reviews.

YMYL topics

If your content affects people's health, money, safety or legal situation, standards are higher. Have content written or reviewed by qualified people, cite primary sources, keep it current, and state clearly who reviewed it and when.

AI-assisted content

Google's position is that it rewards helpful content however it is produced, and that AI content gets no special advantage or penalty. Where readers would reasonably ask how content was made, explain it. Google says listing AI as the author is probably not the best way to disclose this. Keep a real person accountable for every published page.