In 2023, Google made significant changes to its guidelines for search quality evaluators. One of the most important changes is the addition of an “E” to the beginning of the popular acronym E-A-T, which now stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.
The addition of “experience” indicates that content quality can also be evaluated through the lens of understanding how much the content creator has personal experience with the topic. Google also claims that “trust” is at the center of this concept and is “the most important member of the E-E-A-T family.”
A recent tweet by Gael Breton (co-founder of Authority Hacker) revealed how Google trains its assessors to determine a site’s trustworthiness in the context of E-E-A-T.
Assessors use the following search query: site.com -site:site.com. The first results at the top are used to determine the tone of the site – positive or negative. Information from Wikipedia also plays an important role in assessing trustworthiness.
This data can be useful for those looking to improve their confidence quotient. However, be careful: if your site looks like the one shown in the second screenshot in the tweet, Google may give it the lowest quality score.
The reasons may be as follows:
- Insufficient information about the site and the content creator
- Misleading page design
- The site looks like a scam site
Interesting fact: if you have a Google+ button, it might arouse suspicion! Obviously, everyone who has this button has something to hide.
