Definition
E-E-A-T is a framework from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines that stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. It describes how human raters assess the quality of a page and its creator, and by extension which characteristics Google's ranking systems try to reward. The first E (Experience) was added to the older E-A-T in December 2022.
The four parts are different. Experience: has the creator actually used the product, visited the place, gone through the process? Expertise: does the creator have the knowledge or qualifications to write about the subject? Authoritativeness: is the creator or the site recognised by others as a source in this field? Trustworthiness: is the information correct, is the site secure, is it clear who is behind it and how to get in touch? Google calls trust the most important component; the other three support it.
E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor with a score, but a collection of signals. Concrete expressions you can control: an author page with name, photo, role and experience; bylines on articles; your own data, photos and examples instead of rewritten general knowledge; source references; a clear about and contact page; reviews and mentions on external sites; a last-updated date; and Organization and Person schema that make all of this machine-readable.
The weight of E-E-A-T varies by subject. For YMYL topics (Your Money or Your Life: health, finance, legal, safety) the bar is highest and qualifications weigh heavily. For a travel blog, experience counts more than diplomas. Since the rise of AI-generated content the distinction has become sharper: pages that demonstrably contain first-hand experience and original insight stand apart from text any model can produce.
AI engines use similar heuristics when choosing sources: a recognisable author, consistent facts, external confirmation and concrete evidence increase the chance of a citation. That is why Traze writes from your own data, customer cases and expertise, attributes every page to a real author from your team and adds sources and update dates, so E-E-A-T becomes visible rather than claimed.