EAT, the Google Special Sauce
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In case you missed it, a leaked internal document from Google has provided some extremely valuable information related to what their Quality Rating Program looks for when determining how close it will place your website to number one in a search related to you.
'E-A-T' as it's abbreviated, is a major part of Google's Quality Page Ranking Guidelines. It illustrates the study of topic-relevant expertise to evaluate the authority and trustworthiness of a given website, and ranks them according to these metrics. Think of the E-A-T guidelines as an officially documented breakdown of information that has already been widely acknowledged by web developers and ranking specialists. None the less, a specific map of Google's ranking methodology, direct from the source, should not be overlooked!
Expertise, authority, and trustworthiness make up the E-A-T principles that in summary highlight web content generated by creators with topic-specific experience, naturally crafting an authoritative and honest experience. Google wants to direct you to these sources, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Analysts look at all three of these E-A-T elements in unison, and the absence of one can see the entire website take a hit in terms of quality ranking. For example, a blog post written by a personality with a clear authority and a history that lends them experience might be meaningful, worthwhile content to readers. However, if that content contains sales pitches, isn’t supported by external links or is absent evidence, then it hasn’t fulfilled the trustworthiness factor of E-A-T and will achieve a lesser ranking.
Continuing with their developing focus on authorship, the expertise designation will depend wholly on the author writing the content. While the leaked documentation doesn’t mention Google’s Authorship specifically, it does stress determining an author’s credentials and if they are applicable to the subject. Despite the recent removal of headshots from Authorship Rich Snippets, Google’s focus on trust continues to emphasize the importance of claiming your content.
Don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions regarding formal credentials as a designation of expertise, either. Google has redirected the focus to first-person experience as a form of expertness, such as informed reviews of products or places. In other words, ‘everyday expertise’ may be equally or more valuable than credentials achieved in other conventional ways. Topics that inherently demand less expertise achieve a stronger ranking by having a consistently positive reputation, an active community, and are focused on enabling users.
E-A-T designations can occur on both individual pages and websites, where page-level classifications are valuable on sites who host different authors by page, and where website-level classifications are useful in multiple situations, including the following:
- All content on a website is produced by the same author or organization
- The content of a website is produced by different authors or organizations, but has highly active editorial standards. An example of this is a science journal with very high publication quality standards.
- A website has a highly positive reputation from topic-specific experts.
This is another clear step away from keywords, links, and objectively measurable factors, and toward the subjective experience of users visiting a website. Custom, in-depth content should therefore be the priority of all marketers, rather than the micromanagement of metrics and keyword usage. Those elements continue to play a role in SEO, but as far as Google is now concerned, they are no longer the focus of quality page rankings. Naturally, this shift will be good news for some, and bad for others. What’s important is to adapt your methods to accommodate these changes - there is typically little wiggle room where Google is concerned.
Businesses and digital marketers are already investing time, energy, and passion into building great brands online. They publish information that a great deal of thought has gone into, and optimize their sites for search engines and users. Ultimately, these practices will always be in line with that Google believes is ‘quality’, and will carry authentically interesting content creators forward as the web and its ranking systems evolve.
We’ll refrain from directing you to any unsavoury download sources, but for more information on Google’s Quality Page Ranking Guidelines or to read the document in its entirety, a quick search should serve you well.
What are your thoughts on Google’s page ranking practices? Leave us a comment below, or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ and share your thoughts. As always, you can fill out the submission field below to have new content from Headspace delivered directly to your inbox!
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