If you have spent years building your site around E-A-T, you probably saw the news and wondered what you now need to change. Here is the short answer. On December 15, 2022, Google updated its search quality rater guidelines and added a new letter. E-A-T is now E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
The new “E” asks a simple question: has the person who made this content actually done or used the thing they are writing about? Your rankings did not change overnight because of this. But it tells you clearly what kind of content Google wants its systems to reward.
In this article I explain what changed, what “experience” means in practice, how it differs from expertise, and the steps I would take on a site this week.
What Changed: E-A-T Is Now E-E-A-T
Google announced the change on the Search Central blog in a post titled “Our latest update to the quality rater guidelines: E-A-T gets an extra E for Experience”. The rater guidelines are the long document Google gives to the people who test its search results.
Since 2014, those guidelines have used E-A-T to judge page quality. The idea was simple: good pages come from people and sites that know the topic, are known for it, and can be trusted. The update keeps all three and adds a fourth:
- Experience: the creator has first-hand, real-life experience of the topic.
- Expertise: the creator has the knowledge or skill the topic needs.
- Authoritativeness: the creator or the site is a go-to source for the topic.
- Trustworthiness: the page is accurate, honest, safe and reliable.
Google itself says these are not fundamentally new ideas. Search has always tried to show reliable information. What is new is that first-hand experience now has its own name and its own place in how raters judge a page.
What “Experience” Means in Google’s Guidelines
In Google’s words, the question is whether content shows it was produced with some degree of experience. Google gives examples like actually using a product, actually visiting a place, or sharing what a person went through.
Think about how you search for a few everyday things:
- Before buying a vacuum cleaner, you want a review from someone who used it in a real home, not a list of specs copied from the box.
- Before booking a hotel, you want to hear from someone who stayed there.
- When you are dealing with a hard situation, like a health diagnosis, you often want to hear from people who have lived through it too.
That is the kind of value the new “E” is about. The updated guidelines include an example of a restaurant review written by someone who never ate at the restaurant. Raters are told this kind of page lacks experience.
Experience usually shows up in the details. A real user mentions the thing that annoyed them after two weeks. A real visitor knows which entrance to use. These are details you cannot get by rewriting other people’s articles.
Experience vs Expertise: What Is the Difference?
This is the question I expect most marketers to ask. The two can overlap, but they are not the same thing.
- Expertise is about knowledge and skill. A tax accountant, a doctor or a trained electrician has expertise.
- Experience is about having done it. Someone who has filed their own taxes with three different apps has experience of those apps, even if they are not an accountant.
Google used a tax example in its announcement. For a question like how to fill out a tax form, content from an accounting expert is probably most helpful. But for a comparison of tax software, a forum discussion from people who have used different services might be more useful.
So the right kind of E-E-A-T depends on the topic and the purpose of the page. The new guidelines include a table that shows when everyday experience is enough and when expertise is needed. In general, experience is valuable for reviews, travel, hobbies and personal stories. Expertise matters most when wrong advice could hurt someone.
In my view, the best content often has both. A plumber who writes about the tools they use on jobs every day brings expertise and experience together. That is hard for a competitor to copy.
Why Trust Sits at the Center of E-E-A-T
The update does not treat the four letters as equal. The guidelines say trust is the most important member of the E-E-A-T family. Experience, expertise and authoritativeness all feed into it.
The logic is simple. A page can come from a real expert and still be untrustworthy. For example, a product page written by the manufacturer, or a review by an influencer paid to promote the product, may know the product well but cannot be fully trusted as a neutral review. The guidelines call out both of these.
The guidelines also say that a page with weak trust can get a low rating no matter how strong its other qualities look. A shop that hides who runs it, has no clear returns policy, or makes claims it cannot back up has a trust problem first. Adding author bios will not fix that.
That is why, when I review a site, I look at trust signals before anything else. If the basics of honesty and accuracy are missing, the other letters do not matter much.
Is E-E-A-T a Ranking Factor?
Not in the direct sense. There is no E-E-A-T score in Google’s algorithm, and the rater guidelines do not change rankings by themselves.
Here is how it works, based on what Google has said:
- Google works with thousands of search quality raters around the world to review search results.
- Raters use the guidelines, including E-E-A-T, to rate how good the results are.
- Google uses those ratings to check whether its ranking systems and planned changes are working well.
- The ratings do not directly move any single page up or down.
Google’s guide to creating helpful, people-first content makes the same point. It says Google’s systems use a mix of signals to find content that shows good E-E-A-T, even though E-E-A-T itself is not one specific ranking factor. It also suggests you can use the rater guidelines to judge your own content.
My honest take: arguing about whether E-E-A-T is a “ranking factor” misses the point. Google is telling you what good looks like. If your content matches that description, you are lined up with where its systems are heading.
Other Changes in the December 2022 Guidelines
The extra “E” got the headlines, but the update changed more than one letter. These are the changes I think matter most for site owners:
- A clearer way to rate page quality. Raters now first look at the purpose of the page and whether it is harmful or deceptive. Harmful, untrustworthy or spammy pages get the lowest rating straight away.
- Who made the content. Raters are asked to find out who is responsible for the website and who created the content on the page. On forums and social media, a username or alias can be enough.
- Reputation of creators, not only sites. The guidelines now talk about the reputation of individual content creators, including influencers, alongside the reputation of the website.
- Originality. When judging the main content, the guidelines now mention originality as part of quality.
- More types of content. There is more about video, social media and user-generated content, not only classic web pages.
- Updated wording. For example, “webmaster” is replaced with “website owner”.
The common thread is people. Google wants raters to ask who is behind a page and whether they have a good reason to be talking about the topic.
What Stayed the Same for YMYL Pages
YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life”. It covers topics that can affect a person’s health, money, safety or society, like medical advice or retirement planning.
For these topics, accuracy and agreement with expert consensus still matter most. The new guidelines say first-hand experience can be valuable here too, for example someone sharing how they coped with an illness. But personal experience does not replace expert advice on what treatment to take. If you publish YMYL content, expertise is still the floor.
How E-E-A-T Connects to Google’s Recent Updates
This change did not come out of nowhere. Google has been pushing in this direction all year.
The product reviews updates asked review sites to show evidence that they had actually tested the products, such as their own photos, measurements or results. That is experience by another name.
Then in August, the helpful content update introduced a site-wide signal against content made mainly for search engines. One of the questions Google asked site owners was whether their content shows first-hand experience or deep knowledge. A new helpful content update started rolling out on December 5, so this is still very current.
Taken together, the message is consistent. Google wants content from people who have something real to add. The rater guidelines now give that idea a name.
It is also worth thinking about AI writing tools here. ChatGPT launched just two weeks ago, and many people are excited about producing articles at scale. A language model can write fluent text, but it has never held a product, visited a place or solved a client’s problem. Content that shows real experience is one thing those tools cannot fake well, which makes it more valuable, not less.
How to Show Experience in Your Content
You do not need to rebuild your site. In most cases, you need to bring out experience you already have and stop publishing content that has none. This is the process I would follow:
- List your most important pages. Start with pages that bring traffic or leads, plus any reviews, guides or YMYL pages.
- Ask “who wrote this, and have they done it?” For each page, check whether the author has real experience of the topic. If nobody does, that is your first gap.
- Add proof of first-hand use. Use your own photos, screenshots, test results, measurements and notes. Explain how you used or tested the thing and for how long.
- Add the details only a real user knows. Mention problems, surprises, trade-offs and who the product or service is not good for.
- Make the author visible. Add a byline and a short author bio that explains why this person is qualified to write the page. Link it to an author page.
- Fix or remove pages with no experience. Rewrite thin, copied or generic pages with real input, or remove them if they add nothing.
- Review trust basics. Check your About page, contact details, policies and any claims you make.
If you are not sure which pages are weak, my guide on how to audit your site for unhelpful content walks through it step by step.
Product and Review Content
This is where the new “E” matters most. A review should make it obvious that someone actually used the product. Show it in use, compare it with alternatives you have also tried, and be honest about the downsides.
The mistake I usually see is a “best of” list where every product gets the same glowing paragraph. That reads like no one touched any of them.
Local Businesses and Services
Service businesses have an advantage here because they do the work every day. A roofer can show photos from real jobs and explain common problems they see in local homes. An accountant can explain the questions clients ask most at tax time, without naming anyone.
Most small business sites I look at hide this experience behind generic service pages. Bringing it forward is often the easiest E-E-A-T win available.
Informational and YMYL Content
For health, money and legal topics, have a qualified person write or review the content, and say so on the page. Personal experience can add a helpful angle, but keep it clearly separate from advice.
How to Show Who Is Behind Your Site
The guidelines now ask raters to find out who runs a website and who created each page. If a rater cannot find that, it is hard for them to trust the page. A real visitor feels the same way.
These are the basics I check on every site:
- A clear About page that says who you are, what you do and why you are qualified to do it.
- Easy-to-find contact details, and a physical address if you are a local business.
- Bylines on articles, with author pages that list relevant experience and credentials.
- Customer service, returns and refund information for any site that sells things.
- Honest disclosure of affiliate links and sponsored content.
- Accurate, up-to-date information, with sources for any facts or figures you quote.
Your reputation outside your own site matters too. Raters are told to look for what others say about a site or creator, such as reviews, news articles and mentions from respected sources. You cannot write that yourself, but you can earn it by doing good work and being easy to find.
What I Would Not Do
Every time Google names a concept, people rush to “optimize” for it. A few things I would skip:
- Do not invent experience. Fake author personas, stock photos passed off as your own, or made-up “I tested this” claims damage trust, which is the most important part of E-E-A-T.
- Do not add bios just for show. An author box that says “John is a passionate writer” adds nothing. Say what the person has actually done.
- Do not stuff the word “experience” into pages. Raters and readers look for evidence, not keywords.
- Do not panic. This is an update to a rater handbook, not an algorithm update. There is no reason to change everything this week.
In my experience, sites that already write from real knowledge will barely need to change anything. The sites that should worry are those built on rewritten content with no real person behind it.
Conclusion: What E-E-A-T Means for You Now
E-E-A-T adds one clear idea to how Google describes quality: content from people who have actually done the thing is often the most helpful. Trust is still the center of it all, and the guidelines do not change rankings directly. But they show where Google’s systems are heading.
My suggestion for a next step is simple. Pick your ten most important pages and ask who wrote each one, whether they have real experience of the topic, and whether the page shows it. Fix the gaps you find, starting with your reviews and YMYL pages. If you want a wider list of what to work on, my SEO checklist for 2022 is a good place to start.
