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Google recently updated its Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG), officially incorporating experience as a key factor. Outlined in a 176-page document, the guidelines provide instructions for how their search raters will examine the quality of websites. These suggestions are meant to enhance Google’s search algorithms and provide users with a better overall experience.

What is E-E-A-T?

Google updated the search quality rating acronym E-A-T to E-E-A-T, adding an additional E for experience. This acronym now stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

Experience

Does the content creator have first-hand experience with the subject? This could mean having real-world experience with a product, service, place, topic, or more. An example of this could be a lawyer or law firm with experience handling personal injury cases.

Expertise

Is the author an expert in the subject area? Google wants to see the needed credentials to back up the information presented.

Authoritativeness

Is the creator a good source of information? Google wants to see a positive reputation in the industry and ensure the author, content, and website have real authority.

Trustworthiness

Can the author, content, and website be trusted? Is the information factual and worthy of being shared? Google wants to verify that the information is accurate and can be trusted by visitors.

What Do These Changes Mean?

Although these guidelines do not affect Google’s search algorithms directly, it’s essential to see what evaluators are looking at when examining content. Search rankings may not directly change because of these updates, but we can see what Google’s quality raters intend to base the rankings algorithm on. Google altered the QRG and added experience to E-E-A-T for a reason and with genuine intention.

With the addition of experience to the Quality Rater Guidelines, creators should focus on publishing content they have first-hand experience with. This could mean a law firm creating content on cases they have worked on or medical professionals generating content on specific procedures they have done. With this update, experienced businesses may find an opportunity to gain an edge in their SEO tactics.

Learn More Today

At BluShark Digital, our team is dedicated to staying informed on the newest Google guideline changes and leading SEO tactics to advance our clients’ online presences. Let us take your business to the next level with our cutting-edge SEO strategies. Reach out to BluShark Digital today to learn how we can help.