E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. It is the lens Google publishes in its guidelines for quality raters to judge whether content deserves to be surfaced. The first "E", lived experience, was added at the end of 2022: Google wanted to separate the person who has done the thing from the person who merely read about it.
One clarification that is often missed: E-E-A-T is not a score. There is no E-E-A-T number in any dashboard, and no tool can measure it. It is a conceptual framework describing what the algorithms try to approximate through a great many signals — consistency, citations, mentions, editorial quality, transparency about the author.
The four components, in practical terms: experience is proof you have practised (photos of your own work, real cases, details only a practitioner knows). Expertise is demonstrated command of the subject, including its exceptions. Authoritativeness is what others say about you: local press, reviews, mentions, citations. Trustworthiness, the heaviest of the four, is accurate and current information, verifiable contact details, legal notices, prices stated without ambiguity.
The term gained new weight with generative answers. Analyses published in 2026 show AI Overviews favouring content carrying trust markers, and that brand mentions across the web are roughly three times more predictive of AI visibility than inbound links. In other words, the authority side of E-E-A-T now counts for more in AI search optimization than it did in classic SEO.
For an independent business the encouraging part is that E-E-A-T requires neither budget nor national fame. It requires precision: a real about page with a name and a face, contact details consistent everywhere, prices shown, authentic photographs, and factual answers to the questions customers actually ask.
Common mistakes
- Trying to "optimise your E-E-A-T score": there is no score. Anyone selling one is selling an invention.
- Publishing with no identifiable author: a site with no name, no face and no verifiable address plateaus on trustworthiness whatever the content.
- Mistaking length for expertise: a 3,000-word article generated without real experience is precisely what models now discard.
- Neglecting reviews: they are the main proof of authority for a local business, and models read their text, not just the rating.