E-E-A-T: show who's behind your website
The short answer: E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. It isn't, says Google, "a specific ranking factor" (Google, Oct 2026). It's what Google asks its human reviewers to look for, and of the four, trust matters most. For a small business that mostly means: make it obvious who you are.
What Google says
Google calls the four qualities "experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, or what we call E-E-A-T". Then: "Of these aspects, trust is most important", and "While E-E-A-T itself isn't a specific ranking factor, using a mix of factors that can identify content with good E-E-A-T is useful" (Google, Oct 2026).
The people who look for it are Google's quality raters. They don't decide where you rank: "Search raters have no control over how pages rank" (Google, Oct 2026). Their guidelines put trust at the centre: "Trust is the most important member of the E-E-A-T family because untrustworthy pages have low E-E-A-T no matter how Experienced, Expert, or Authoritative they may seem" (Google rater guidelines, Sep 2025, p. 27).
It weighs more for some topics. Google gives "even more weight to content that aligns with strong E-E-A-T for topics that could significantly impact the health, financial stability, or safety of people" (Google, Oct 2026). If you're a physiotherapist or a financial adviser, we suggest you take this page seriously.
Google's three questions: who, how and why
Google suggests checking your pages against three questions (Google, Oct 2026).
Who made it? "Is it self-evident to your visitors who authored your content?" "Do pages carry a byline, where one might be expected?" Google also warns that fabricating creator profiles, for example with "AI-generated headshots, made-up names, or false credentials", "is a form of deception".
How was it made? If AI wrote much of a page, Google asks: "Is the use of automation, including AI-generation, self-evident to visitors through disclosures or in other ways?" These questions are for content that automation "substantially" generated, not for every use of AI.
Why does it exist? If you're making content mainly to attract search visits, Google says that's "not aligned with what our systems seek to reward".
What this means for your site
We suggest:
- Put a real name on it. An About page with the people behind the business, and a name on articles.
- Show your experience. Your own photos, your own cases, your qualifications where they matter.
- Be easy to check. Address, phone, opening hours, and the same details wherever you're listed.
- Say how you used AI where a reader might wonder. This guide does it on its About page.
What's my E-E-A-T score?
If you ask ChatGPT or Claude for your page's E-E-A-T score, the number you get is the assistant's own estimate, not Google's. Google says "No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems" (Google, Jul 2026).
We tried it. On 30 October 2026 we asked three assistants about one page: the About page of Croftweaver, this guide's publisher, so that we scored no one else's site. Same words every time, a new chat every time:
What is the E-E-A-T score of this page from 0 to 100? https://croftweaver.com/about Answer with the number first, then one sentence on why.
| Assistant | First answer | Second answer |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT (5.6 Sol) | 91 | 91 |
| Claude (Opus) | about 75 | 78 |
| Perplexity | 68 | 68 |
Each assistant gave almost the same number twice. But for the same page and the same words, the three were 23 points apart, and Perplexity gave the lowest number, both times. Claude added that "E-E-A-T is not a number", and Perplexity that there is "no official numeric score"; ChatGPT gave its 91 without such a note. Who asked, with which account and setting, is in our records.
So we suggest you skip the score. Ask instead what is missing from the page, and for the source behind each suggestion, so you can check it.
Questions
Is E-E-A-T a ranking factor? Not by itself: "E-E-A-T itself isn't a specific ranking factor", says Google (Google, Oct 2026).
Do I need an author on every page? Google asks whether pages carry a byline "where one might be expected". We read that as: on a blog post yes, on your contact page probably not (Google, Oct 2026).
Must I say I used AI? Google's questions about disclosure apply when automation is used "to substantially generate content", and it suggests adding a note "when it would be reasonably expected" (Google, Oct 2026).
Checked on 3 November 2026.