Simplifying Information Quality Using E-A-T Principle

If there is one document that SEO content specialists could trust in creating quality content, that would be the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. This is not an absolute SEO reference but a guide to creating content that is helpful to a specific audience.

The heart of Google is to provide Information Quality — it is the value we get when our search intention is fulfilled. “Context” helped us determine the satisfaction feeling when we find what we intend to search.

Sometimes Information Quality is a subjective concept and may vary among users. For example, when we search for the word “Jaguar”, Google showed several images of cars and animals.

This is because Google doesn’t have enough information about the searcher’s real intent. Google calls it “Queries with Multiple Meanings”.

Depending on query interpretation, Google offers several possible meanings apparently based on browser settings, location, and temporality.

How Google Delivers Reliable Information in Search

Google algorithm breaks down your query into several layers before they show search results. Danny Sullivan, a public Liason for Search in Google highlighted three key elements to describe the approach in providing information quality:

• Google Ranking systems are designed to identify information that people are likely to find useful and reliable. This is a challenge for keyword-driven content. Before RankBrain, Google would scan pages to see if they contained the exact keyword someone searched for. Today, Google deployed several AI systems to understand the Search and provide relevant search results. Here are some of the remarkable AI system deployment — RankBrain (2015) understands how words relate to concepts. Neural matching (2018) understands how queries relate to pages. BERT (2019) understands how combinations of words express different meanings and intents. This May 2022, MUM will be deployed. They say it is 1,000 times more powerful than BERT, it is capable of both understanding and generating language. Each AI system and model has a particular role, and they trigger at different times and in distinct combinations.
• Several Search features are developing and evolving not only to help the searcher but also to provide direct access to information from authorities. Ahref made an attempt to classify SERP features by search intent. If your website creates pages that match searcher intent and you received massive quality backlinks, most likely your pages belong to an authoritative website.

• Google has policies for what can appear in Search features to make sure that they are showing high quality and helpful content. How much content do we need before we belong to an authoritative website? John Mueller says it’s hard to call a site authoritative if it only has 30 pages of content. “Making your site ‘just as good/bad as others’ is not compelling — you should really aim significantly higher, and not just with regards to the text on your pages, but in regards to everything across your site, and its embedding within the rest of the world/web” he added in a Reddit post.

With these advanced mechanisms in place, AI-based systems do not completely understand content the way humans do. Instead, they relied on the “signals”. These are clues about the characteristics of the page that align with what humans might interpret as high-quality or reliable content. With the help of quality raters, Google measures high-quality and reliable content using the concept of E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Developing Information Quality Content

Google believed that a website that demonstrates authoritativeness and expertise on a topic is less likely to spread false and misleading information. Having this in mind, Google can continue to provide high-quality and reliable information, especially for YMYL sites or pages. Google describes YMYL sites or pages as ones that could potentially affect a person’s happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.

Provide the best resource, for a specific audience for their speicific problems. Jono Alderson (Yoast)

Reflecting on what John Mueller said, how can we translate E-A-T into a workable plan? I tried to imagine Expertise as the Source of information, Authoritativeness as the Consistently Positive Reputation, Trustworthiness as the Reliable Content.

We can match these concepts to the characteristics of untrustworthy pages or websites from Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. These characteristics are pages that have inadequate information about the website for its purpose, lowest reputation and deceptive purpose, deceptive design, or deceptive intent, deliberately obstructed or obscured main content, and suspected malicious behavior.

From these concepts, we can simplify the application of E-A-T to our web pages.

Source of Information (Expertise) — Avoid inadequate Information about the Website or Creator of the MC for the Purpose of the Page

Satisfying information about who is the source for the content of the site, these pages can be:

• Information about who is responsible for the website (about the company) and
• Who created the main content (about the author + their personal social media account details should be consistent)
• Contact information / Location (map), unless there is a good reason for anonymity
• Individual Service Information

Consistent Positive Reputation (Authoritativeness) — Avoid the lowest reputation of the Website or Creator of the main content. These can be seen in many external reviews.

• Offer the best quality of services to your target audiences and ask them to give honest feedback.
• Connect and interact with your audience. It can be to a different platform such as Social Media, Google Business Profile, Google Rating Partners, etc.
• Participate in the community forums
• Get more mentions and quality backlinks from trusted sources

Reliable Content (Trustworthiness). Avoid deceptive purpose, deceptive design, or deceptive intent. Deliberately obstructed or obscured main content and malicious behavior

• Provide artistic multi-media content that is original, well made, and is related to the purpose of the site or page.
• Create a title that reflects the actual purpose of the site or page.
• Create high-quality and user-focused content with a clear purpose.
• Provide the user an option to opt-out of any pop-ups, Ads, or links that do not benefit the user.
• Make your content original, substantial and readable on all devices.
• Have a clear distinction between main content and supplementary content.
• Keep content accurate and up to date.
• Always check “templated” content.
• Create content that is free from grammatical and typographical errors.

Summary

Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines is the place where Google wants to go. This is the handbook of how Google perceived quality and the northern star of every AI system update. Understanding quality information is like uncovering the path towards developing Google-friendly and user-centric content.

A longstanding debate whether E-A-T is a ranking factor is like asking if a vegetable is good for our body. You have a well and functioning body but eating healthy is just a part of the whole effort you need to strive for. You need exercise, water, sleep, sunlight, vitamins, and other supplements until you arrive at the condition you want to achieve.

We need to convince Google that we are expert, authoritative, and trustworthy, and the best place for it to start is by developing content with useful content that engages people.