E-E-A-T audit explained

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google added “Experience” in late 2022 and has explicitly said these signals are how their human raters evaluate content quality.

Why it matters

E-E-A-T isn't a single ranking factor. It's a bundle of signals Google's algorithms use to decide which sites to trust. Sites that lack E-E-A-T signals tend to lose visibility over time, especially in YMYL (Your Money Your Life) topics like finance, medicine, and law.

What we check

Experience

• Author bylines on content pages
• First-person experience indicators (“I used,” “we tested”)
• Original images and screenshots (not stock photos)
• Specific examples and case studies

Expertise

• Author bios linking to credentials
• Schema markup identifying authors
• Citations and references to authoritative sources
• Topic-cluster coverage (semantic depth)

Authoritativeness

• About page with company info
• External signals: backlinks from trusted sites (we detect but don't build)
• Wikipedia / Wikidata entity references
• Organization schema (sameAs links)

Trustworthiness

• Privacy policy + Terms pages exist and are linked
• HTTPS / valid SSL cert
• Contact information visible
• SSL labs grade ≥ A
• DNS CAA record set

Open the EEAT Audit page in your project to see your specific scores and the fixes you can apply.