Many SEOs agree that showing expertise, authority, and trustworthiness in your site content is important to ranking well. But why is that, exactly? Is it because Google E-A-T is an actual ranking factor, or is it something else? In this episode of Whiteboard Friday, Cyrus Shepard explores whether it can be considered a true ranking factor, making your E-A-T goals SMART, and how to communicate it all to curious stakeholders.
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Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday, coming to you from my home where I am wearing a tuxedo, wearing a tuxedo in hope that it exudes a little bit of expertise, perhaps authority, maybe even trust.
Yes, today we are talking about Google E-A-T, expertise, authority, trust, specifically asking the question, "Is Google E-A-T actually a ranking factor?"
Now surprisingly this is a controversial subject in the world of SEO. Very smart SEOs on both sides[1] of the debate. Some SEOs dismiss E-A-T. Others embrace it fully. Even Googlers have different opinions about how it should be communicated. I want to talk about this today not because it's a debate that only SEOs care about, but because it's important how we talk to stakeholders about E-A-T and SEO recommendations. Stakeholders being clients, website owners, webmasters.
Anybody that we give an SEO recommendation to, how we talk about these things is important. So I don't want to judge. I don't want to be the final say — that's not what I'm attempting — about whether Google E-A-T is an actual ranking factor. But I do want to explore the different viewpoints. I talked to dozens of SEOs, listened to Googlers, read Google patents, and