31st March 2025: Google Confirms You Can’t Add E-E-A-T To Your Web Pages
3rd April 2025: How To Apply E-E-A-T To Your Site & Boost On-Page SEO
If you saw both these headlines in Search Engine Journal recently you may be asking yourself which one is right? (Fight, right, Harry Hill?) Google’s John Mueller says you can’t just “add” E-E-A-T to web pages yet an SEJ “VIP contributor” is saying that you can?
What is E-E-A-T?
I’ve spoken about this at length elsewhere in my digital marketing blog, but to recap for anyone unfamiliar with the acronym, E-E-A-T stands for:
- Experience,
- Expertise,
- Authoritativeness, and
- Trustworthiness.
These are qualities that Google’s team of Quality Raters have guidelines to look for when manually assessing web pages.
Basically, there’s a quality assurance (QA) team at Google physically rating web pages within a framework that looks for all these key attributes. It’s important to clarify that the Quality Raters’ ratings are used to evaluate and train Google’s algorithms. They do not directly rank individual web pages.
Is it a Question of Semantics?
The apparent contradiction between the two articles from Search Engine Journal (SEJ) arises from different interpretations of how E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) applies to SEO practices.
Let’s have a quick look at what’s been said…
Google’s Clarification on E-E-A-T
In the first article, Google Confirms You Can’t Add EEAT To Your Web Pages Google’s John Mueller emphasized that E-E-A-T is not something SEOs can directly “add” to a webpage, like keywords or meta tags. Instead, it is an evaluative framework used by Google’s algorithms and the aforementioned quality raters to assess content quality, particularly for YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics such as health and finance.
Mueller stated that simply claiming expertise or adding superficial elements (e.g., author bios with fake credentials) does not constitute E-E-A-T.
How to Apply E-E-A-T
The second article How To Apply E-E-A-T To Your Site & Boost On-Page SEO published just 3 days later is an immediately contradictory piece, right? (Also notice the URL – /eat-ymyl )
This second piece focuses on practical ways to improve signals associated with E-E-A-T, such as creating high-quality content, showcasing real expertise through author profiles, and building trustworthiness via credible sources and backlinks. These actions can supposedly and indirectly enhance a site’s perceived E-E-A-T by aligning with the principles Google values.
That goes firmly against what John Mueller said. But it goes deeper than that…
Reconciling the Two Perspectives
I think this is all about nuance and semantics.
Maybe there’s a body of people out there that think you can simply open up an existing web page and do things that supposedly “add” E-E-A-T. These are probably the types of people who once thought that “keyword stuffing” was a good idea and who believed that bolding text was a ranking factor. We shouldn’t be surprised because there are human beings out there who think the world is flat.
What E-E-A-T is goes deeper than that. It’s part of the DNA, the fabric of a website. You have to weave it in at the beginning and all the way through. And even then it’s based upon external factors that cannot be (immediately) manipulated like your experience, and your expertise. These take time to build so they can’t be rushed.
It’s the same with authoritativeness and trustworthiness. These again take time to develop. You have to build authority and earn trust.
These are all achieved through working tirelessly to become experts, to have the experience, to become authorities and earn people’s trust.
Just to Recap
So while these two articles appear to contradict each other it’s all about the nuance. E-E-A-T isn’t the icing, it’s the cake.
What You Can’t Do: You cannot directly “add” E-E-A-T as a technical SEO element. It’s not a checkbox or a specific ranking factor but rather a holistic evaluation of content quality and trustworthiness.
What You Can Do: You can implement SEO and broader business strategies that demonstrate E-E-A-T principles—such as publishing expert-authored content, improving site credibility, and ensuring transparency—which may help your site perform better in search rankings.
Conclusion
Both articles are correct within their contexts. The first clarifies that E-E-A-T is not a direct technical SEO feature you can simply place upon a website, while the second provides actionable steps to align your site with E-E-A-T principles, thereby improving its perceived quality and trustworthiness.
John Mueller’s right as is Alex Valencia. What you should do when building your websites is make sure the recipe is right, and consider all the aspects at a strategic business level. Make it foundational rather than merely an afterthought.
Then when you conduct your business in a manner that supports and generates E-E-A-T principles you can surface these on your website. E-E-A-T is a deep and holistic framework, so get in the mindset and be E-E-A-T because you know you can’t just apply it, you have to live it then demonstrate it.
If you need a business, digital marketing and SEO strategy to drive your website forwards, speak to me on 07730 499 539 or leave a message on my contact form.