E-E-A-T Audit
E-E-A-T audits run through three checklists in strict priority order: assessor, general, and author. Learn the "worst score wins" rule and how to turn findings into tickets.
What you'll learn
- Understand what E-E-A-T and YMYL mean and how broadly YMYL actually applies
- Learn the three-checklist audit process and its strict priority order
- Know the "worst score wins" scoring rule
- Apply the certification and competitor-comparison steps correctly
E-E-A-T and YMYL, Precisely
E-E-A-T — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness — is Google's framework for judging content creator and site quality, weighted most heavily for YMYL ("Your Money or Your Life") topics: anything that can affect a person's health, finances, safety, or happiness. Critically, every commercial site counts as YMYL to some degree — this is not limited to medical/finance/legal niches, though the required rigor scales with how directly the niche affects real-world outcomes. When in doubt about a niche's YMYL classification, escalate to your team lead rather than guessing.
Human quality raters don't affect any individual site's ranking. They build training data that the algorithm learns from — a site's actual ranking is affected by the algorithm, typically visible as a drop during a core update, not by an assessor's review.
The Three Checklists, in Priority Order
- Assessor checklist (highest priority) — run against a YMYL commercial landing page first. Scored on a worst-result-wins basis: if even one check comes back red, the whole page is rated at that worst level.
- General checks (priority 3 items first) — filter by site type (shop/commercial-service/informational) using the sheet's type filter, keeping "All sites" always active. Score each applicable item 1 (yes) / 0 (no); grey out anything not applicable to your site type.
- Author checklist (lowest priority, but valuable) — evaluates content-creator credibility; essential for highly competitive YMYL niches, useful best-practice guidance even elsewhere.
Manually Check Competitors First
Before finalizing your checklist, manually review 2-3 top competitor sites of the same type for E-E-A-T elements not already in the standard checklist (e.g., a forex broker displaying multi-country regulatory licenses prominently in the header). Add anything found as a priority-2 item — never ship a generic ticket without this competitor-specific check.
Ticket Requirements
Every E-E-A-T ticket must include: a short explanation of why the element matters, visual examples from competitors (screenshots), and clear priority labeling — distinguishing what must be implemented exactly as specified from what the client can adapt to their own brand. Generic "bank" tickets can never ship without niche-specific adjustment.
Certification Recommendations
After shipping the E-E-A-T improvement tickets, provide the client with a table of relevant certifications/accreditations for their business type from the standard certifications reference — never send the full undifferentiated list.
Key Takeaways
- Every commercial site counts as YMYL to some degree — it's not limited to medical/finance/legal niches
- Human assessors don't rank individual sites directly — they train the algorithm, which is what actually affects ranking
- The audit runs three checklists in order: assessor (highest priority) → general (priority-3 items first) → author (lowest priority)
- The assessor checklist scores on a "worst result wins" basis — one red check caps the whole page's rating
- Always manually review 2-3 competitor sites for E-E-A-T elements not in the standard checklist before finalizing tickets