Blog · GEO · 25 Sep 2026

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E-E-A-T:trust that Googleand AI systems can see

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. This article explains what Google actually means by it, what is proven and what is only assumed when it comes to AI answers, and which trust signals a company website needs.

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Blog · GEO

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness and describes how Google's search quality raters are meant to recognise good content. According to Google, E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor in its own right. Google relies on a mix of signals that identify content with these qualities, and it treats trust as the most important of the four. For the AI features in Google Search, the same fundamentals apply as for regular search. ChatGPT, Perplexity and other services have not published comparable criteria, but studies link evidence and third-party mentions with greater visibility in AI answers. For your company website, that means showing who is behind your content, where your knowledge comes from and what independent sources say about you.

In brief

E-E-A-T comes from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines and, according to Google, is not a ranking factor in itself.
The extra E for Experience was added on 15 Dec 2022; trust is the most important element.
Google's AI features follow the usual quality principles; other AI services have not published their criteria.
What works: visible authors, a complete legal notice, evidence, first-hand experience and reviews on third-party sites.

Published 25 Sep 2026Nikolai Schöbel and Jeremias Burger9 min read

Nikolai Schöbel and Jeremias Burger

Co-founders of Scalableloops GmbH. Nikolai Schöbel leads online marketing and AI strategy, Jeremias Burger the AI architecture. Both build AI systems and train teams on them in their own agency work.

On this page

What does E-E-A-T mean?
Is E-E-A-T a ranking factor?
When did experience become part of E-E-A-T?
Does E-E-A-T influence mentions in AI answers?
What do Google's quality raters look for on a company website?
How can you strengthen E-E-A-T on your company website?
How can you tell whether your trust signals reach AI answers?
Frequently asked questions
How to strengthen E-E-A-T on your website
Where the information on this page comes from

Definition

What does E-E-A-T mean?

E-E-A-T is an evaluation framework from the Search Quality Rater Guidelines, a publicly available handbook that people commissioned by Google use to assess search results. The letters stand for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. The current version of the handbook is dated 11 Sep 2025 (as of 25 Sep 2026).

The four elements do not carry equal weight. In its documentation on helpful content, Google says trust is the most important aspect, the others contribute to it, and content does not have to demonstrate all of them. The rater guidelines give the reason: an untrustworthy page has low E-E-A-T however experienced, expert or authoritative it may seem.

The overview below shows what each term covers and how it becomes visible on a company website.

Element	What Google means	How it shows on your site
Experience	Content created from first-hand experience, such as actually using a product or visiting a place	Your own projects, your own photos, lessons from your daily business instead of generic descriptions
Expertise	The knowledge and skill of the person who created the content	Author details with qualifications, role and field of expertise
Authoritativeness	How far the website or person is known as a go-to source for the topic	Mentions in trade media, associations, directories and by other companies
Trustworthiness	How accurate, honest, safe and reliable a page is; the core of the framework	Complete legal notice, reachable contacts, evidenced claims, transparent terms

Rankings

Is E-E-A-T a ranking factor?

No, not in the narrow sense. Google states that E-E-A-T itself is not a specific ranking factor, but that using a mix of factors which can identify content with good E-E-A-T is useful. There is no single score that Google calculates for your site and then uses to decide its position.

The raters do not move pages either. According to Google, they have no control over how pages rank, and their ratings are not used directly in the ranking algorithms. Google uses them to check whether its systems deliver good results, much as a restaurant collects feedback cards from diners.

So why does E-E-A-T matter? Because the guidelines describe what Google's systems are designed to reward. For topics that could significantly affect people's health, financial stability or safety, Google says its systems give even more weight to content with strong E-E-A-T. Google calls these "Your Money or Your Life" topics, or YMYL. Since the version of 11 Sep 2025, the guidelines explicitly include government, public institutions, elections and civic topics as well. If you sell financial products, insurance or healthcare services, E-E-A-T deserves particular attention.

Background

When did experience become part of E-E-A-T?

On 15 Dec 2022. That day Google updated its rater guidelines and added an E for Experience to the familiar E-A-T. The question behind it, in Google's words: does the content show that it was produced with some degree of experience, such as actually using a product or visiting a place?

Google illustrates the difference between experience and expertise with an example. If you want to know how to fill in a tax return correctly, you look for an expert in accounting. If you are comparing tax software, you are more likely to want reports from people who have used it. Both kinds of content can be helpful, depending on what someone needs.

For mid-sized companies this is good news. The experience from your projects, your workshop or your customer service is something a generic text cannot provide, and it is often what sets your page apart from interchangeable content.

AI search

Does E-E-A-T influence mentions in AI answers?

For the AI features in Google Search there is a documented answer; for everything else there are only indications. Google's documentation says that foundational SEO best practices apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode and that there are no additional requirements. A page must be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet. Google's guidance to create helpful, reliable, people-first content is on the same page where it describes E-E-A-T. With the 11 Sep 2025 update, Google also added examples for rating AI Overviews to the rater guidelines. How AI Overviews select their sources is covered in our article on Google AI Overviews.

OpenAI, Perplexity, Anthropic and Microsoft have not published criteria for their assistants that correspond to E-E-A-T. What exists is research. An Ahrefs analysis of 75,000 brands found the strongest link with visibility in AI Overviews for brand mentions across the web (correlation 0.664), well ahead of backlinks (0.218). Ahrefs itself points out that correlation does not prove causation. The paper "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization", presented at KDD 2024, shows that citing sources, adding quotations and including statistics can raise visibility in generative answers by up to 40 percent.

Our working hypothesis, clearly labelled as such: AI systems prefer statements they can cross-check against other sources, and they prefer to name companies that independent sites write about. That makes the signals Google groups under E-E-A-T largely the same ones these studies associate with visibility in AI answers. There is no evidence that any single signal guarantees a mention. For the wider shift in SEO for AI answers, see our article on AI SEO.

0.664

was the correlation between brand mentions on the web and visibility in AI Overviews, against 0.218 for backlinks.

Ahrefs, analysis of 75,000 brands

Assessment

What do Google's quality raters look for on a company website?

First, who is behind the site. The rater guidelines require it to be clear which person, company or organisation is responsible for the website and who created the content on the page. For websites that handle money, such as online shops, the guidelines call contact and customer service information extremely important.

Next, what others say about you. Raters are explicitly told to research reputation. Where a website's description of itself disagrees with what reputable independent sources say, the guidelines tell raters to trust the independent sources. Calling yourself the market leader counts for less than a trade article or a review profile that says the same.

The guidelines treat customer reviews with nuance. Raters should be sceptical of both positive and negative reviews, since anyone can write them, read as many as possible and look at their content rather than just the number or the star rating. A few negative reviews are considered normal. In practice: many genuine, specific reviews on independent platforms are worth more than a handful of glowing ones on your own site.

Actions

How can you strengthen E-E-A-T on your company website?

The following areas are derived from the rater guidelines, Google's documentation on helpful content and the studies mentioned above. They work for traditional search and at the same time give AI systems what they need to place your statements in context.

01
01
Make authors visible
Google recommends making it self-evident who wrote a piece of content, with a byline and background on the author. Create short profiles for your experts with role, training and experience and link your articles to them. Google also advises explaining how content was produced, including where AI was involved.
02
02
Keep legal notice and contact details complete
For websites operated from Germany, Section 5 of the Digital Services Act Germany (DDG) has governed the mandatory legal notice (Impressum) since 14 May 2024, replacing Section 5 of the Telemedia Act. Required details include name and address, legal form and authorised representatives for companies, and information enabling fast electronic contact. A complete legal notice is a legal duty and the simplest trust signal there is. Add named contacts, a phone number and a page about your company.
03
03
Back up your claims
Name the source for figures and claims, quote standards, studies or certificates verbatim and link to them. A claim with evidence can be checked by people and is easier for AI systems to reuse. Remove what you cannot support.
04
04
Show first-hand experience
Describe what you have done, measured or experienced yourself: project reports, before and after comparisons, your own photos instead of stock images, lessons from your operations. This is exactly the element Google added on 15 Dec 2022.
05
05
Look after reviews on third-party sites
Ask satisfied customers for reviews on independent platforms such as your Google Business Profile or the portals common in your industry, and respond factually to critical reviews as well. The rater guidelines look at what reviews say, not just the average rating.
06
06
Build mentions beyond your own website
Guest articles, association memberships, industry directory listings and press coverage confirm what your company stands for. Keep your company name, address and service description consistent everywhere so that search engines and AI systems attribute every mention to the same business.

Measurement

How can you tell whether your trust signals reach AI answers?

There is no E-E-A-T score you can look up. What you can measure are the effects: whether your company is named in AI answers to your audience's questions, whether it is linked as a source, and whether the statements about your services are correct. When an AI gets facts about your company wrong, it often means there are too few reliable sources about you or that existing sources contradict each other.

Ask realistic questions in several AI systems and repeat them, because answers vary from one query to the next. Our article on how to measure AI visibility explains the approach and the available tools. For the specifics of ChatGPT search, read our guide to ChatGPT SEO.

For a full analysis with competitor comparison and concrete measures for your site, talk to our GEO agency. If your team should master the basics itself, we cover them in our AI training.

Frequently asked questions

What does E-E-A-T stand for?

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. The concept comes from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines.

Is E-E-A-T a ranking factor?

Not in the narrow sense. Google says E-E-A-T itself is not a specific ranking factor; its systems use a mix of factors that identify content with good E-E-A-T. Ratings by quality raters are not used directly in rankings.

What is the difference between E-A-T and E-E-A-T?

On 15 Dec 2022 Google added Experience to the concept. Since then it also matters whether content visibly comes from actual use, a visit or first-hand experience.

Which of the four elements matters most?

Trust. Google calls it the most important element, with experience, expertise and authoritativeness contributing to it. According to the rater guidelines, an untrustworthy page has low E-E-A-T however competent it appears.

Does E-E-A-T help me get mentioned in ChatGPT?

That is not proven, because OpenAI and other providers have not published such criteria. Studies do show that third-party mentions, source citations and statistics go along with greater visibility in AI answers. These are largely the signals E-E-A-T describes.

Do I need author pages for E-E-A-T?

Google recommends making clear who wrote a piece of content, with a byline and background on the person. Short profiles of your experts are the easiest way to do that, especially for topics involving money, health or safety.

What now

How to strengthen E-E-A-T on your website

01
Check legal notice and about page
Make sure all mandatory details are in place and add named contacts and a page that shows who your company is.
02
Make authors visible
Create short profiles for the people who write or approve your expert content and link them to the articles.
03
Add evidence to key pages
Add sources, your own project examples and practical experience to your most important service pages.
04
Review your outside image
Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Google about your company, read your reviews on third-party platforms and note where information is missing or wrong.

E-E-A-T is not a formula to build in but a description of what trustworthy companies do anyway: show who is speaking, back up what they say and let others confirm it. AI systems are now reading along.