E-E-A-T Is Made Up
E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor. It's a concept from Google's Quality Rater Guidelines - a document that has no direct impact on algorithms. You've been chasing a ghost.
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. E-E-A-T. The SEO industry's favorite buzzword.
Every conference has E-E-A-T sessions. Every audit mentions E-E-A-T deficiencies. Every agency promises to improve your E-E-A-T. (It fits nicely alongside the 200 ranking factors myth.)
It's not a ranking factor.
What E-E-A-T Actually Is
E-E-A-T comes from Google's Quality Rater Guidelines. This is a document Google gives to human contractors who manually evaluate search results.
Key word: manually.
These raters don't affect your rankings directly. They rate results to help Google evaluate whether their algorithms are working. It's a feedback loop for algorithm development, not a ranking signal itself.
Google has explicitly said this. Multiple times. John Mueller has said this. The documentation says this.
The SEO industry ignores it because E-E-A-T is good for business.
The E-E-A-T Industrial Complex
E-E-A-T is perfect for selling services:
It's vague. What exactly is "expertise"? How do you measure "trust"? No clear answers means endless consulting hours.
It's unfalsifiable. Rankings went up? E-E-A-T improvements worked! Rankings went down? Not enough E-E-A-T yet!
It sounds important. "We need to improve your E-E-A-T signals" sounds more sophisticated than "you need better content."
Agencies love E-E-A-T because it creates problems only they can solve.
What Google Can Actually Measure
Google can't read your author's LinkedIn profile and assess their expertise. They can't evaluate whether your CEO is trustworthy.
What they can measure:
User behavior. Do people click? Do they stay? Do they come back?
Content patterns. Does the content match what typically ranks for this query?
Link patterns. Do authoritative sites link to this?
Brand signals. Do people search for this site by name?
These are concrete, measurable signals. "Expertise" and "trustworthiness" are human judgments that algorithms can only approximate through proxies.
The Author Bio Myth
The most common E-E-A-T advice: "Add detailed author bios!"
Think about this logically. You can write anything in an author bio. "Dr. John Smith, 20 years experience, Harvard graduate, trusted by millions."
Is Google going to fact-check that? Call Harvard? Verify the credentials?
No. They're not.
Author bios might help users trust content. That's fine. But the idea that Google is algorithmically verifying expertise through bio text is fantasy.
What Actually Matters
Instead of chasing E-E-A-T ghosts:
Make content that genuinely helps people. If it's useful, people engage. Engagement is measurable.
Build a real brand. Get people to search for you by name. That's an authority signal Google can actually measure.
Earn real links. From sites that actually matter in your space. Not manufactured "E-E-A-T links."
Be consistent. Publish regularly on your topic. Topical depth is measurable.
These are things that matter. Not author bios and "trust signals."
E-E-A-T is what Google wishes their algorithms could measure. It's not what they actually rank on. Stop optimizing for aspirations.