✔️✔️ Do you think E-A-T is a Ranking Factor?

RealDaddy · Jul 8, 2022

Searchpilot ran proper A/B testing on EAT using authorship. Control pages had no author name/bio/pics and test pages had all 3 of them. (https://www.searchpilot.com/resources/case-studies/authorship-content-and-eat-signals/)

Can you guess what the results were?

NOTHING.
They ran the test twice and there was 0 impact on rankings or search traffic from plastering the authors everywhere.

What's your say on that?

SirLouen · Jul 8, 2022

When EAT was (just) putting a biopic extract in each page?

Also, although they suggest that EAT is important "specially" for YMYL sites, they don't specify which kind of sites are they ranking (generally for this kind of tests, people tend to use randomized keywords combinations for the ease of rankings, but they cannot rest assured that those ranks are specifically oriented to certain kind of niche, specially within YMYL sprectrum)

So technically, I feel that proving this is kind of horrid. There are plenty of other tests much more worthy to be done (and easier to be executed).

BaldHat616 · Jul 8, 2022

I forgot to setup author bio on one of my blogs and it ranks fine. Not YMYL though

HenryObi · Jul 8, 2022

RealDaddy said:
What's your say on that?

Maybe it is niche dependent, on what niche were the experiments done?

PVADeals · Jul 8, 2022

it works for me

RealDaddy · Jul 9, 2022

HenryObi said:
on what niche were the experiments done?

not YMYL, probably some generic niche.

Starblazer · Jul 9, 2022

EAT doesn't mean adding author bio below every article.

Author bio assures users of reliability & trustworthiness of the content in some niches. For example, if I have eye conjunctivitis and a friend of mine suggests me to wash my eyes with apple cider vinegar, then I'd prefer content written by a doctor or a medical professional to understand pros & cons of doing it. If you write great content and add your bio as mechanical engineer below it, then I'd rather consider it as less reliable because you're not a professional.

If I'm buying a washing machine, then I would check article that helps me choose a product. I wouldn't even bother if the post has any author bio below it because it's irrelevant in this case.

I think this is what Google does because the algorithm is designed to mimic user behavior to find great content.

RealDaddy · Jul 10, 2022

Starblazer said:
EAT doesn't mean adding author bio below every article.

Author bio assures users of reliability & trustworthiness of the content in some niches. For example, if I have eye conjunctivitis and a friend of mine suggests me to wash my eyes with apple cider vinegar, then I'd prefer content written by a doctor or a medical professional to understand pros & cons of doing it. If you write great content and add your bio as mechanical engineer below it, then I'd rather consider it as less reliable because you're not a professional.

If I'm buying a washing machine, then I would check article that helps me choose a product. I wouldn't even bother if the post has any author bio below it because it's irrelevant in this case.

I think this is what Google does because the algorithm is designed to mimic user behavior to find great content.

well said. So do you conclude that E-A-T is mostly for YMYL niches?

Starblazer · Jul 10, 2022

RealDaddy said:
well said. So do you conclude that E-A-T is mostly for YMYL niches?

Yes, it's mandatory and a ranking factor for YMYL niches. EAT is basically about how you convince a user to trust your article. The importance of EAT factors change from niche to niche.

Expertise is based on author's (or brand's) experience in the niche, Authoritativeness & Trustworthiness is based on content quality which again depends on several other factors like factually correct info, reliable citations, user feedback, case studies, statistics, infographics, etc. to support claims made in the content. The personal blog type content ranks in some exceptional cases like when it goes viral in social media.

pj777777 · Jul 10, 2022

EAT counts for YMYL niches, but for everything else I feel that's it's site authority.

Roger Marquez · Jul 10, 2022

RealDaddy said:
Searchpilot ran proper A/B testing on EAT using authorship. Control pages had no author name/bio/pics and test pages had all 3 of them. (link to the test)

Can you guess what the results were?

NOTHING.
They ran the test twice and there was 0 impact on rankings or search traffic from plastering the authors everywhere.

What's your say on that?

What % of the site were on YMYL-type niches?

Even though there´s a mention of the importance of E-A-T signals on YMYL websites in the study´s brief...

E-A-T signals are especially important when it comes to content that is characterised as Your Money Your Life (YMYL) or any content that can influence and potentially have a direct impact on an individual as it relates to finances, physical health, safety, and general wellbeing.

There is no mention as to what % of the sites taken into consideration for this study belong to that YMYL group so, I feel these results are somehow irrelevant and/or don´t provide enough insights on the impact E-A-T signals have on the organic rankings of YMYL sites.

Personally, I think E-A-T IS a ranking factor and will soon be considered by Google as one soon. I feel Google is approaching E-A-T the same way they approached page loading speed. Meaning, they publicly stated for years page loading speed is NOT a ranking factor until they rolled out the Core Web Vitals optimization.

So, we need to take what Google says with a grain of salt and move from there.

Google has spent millions of dollars rolling out core algo updates to "protect" their users by providing them with accurate, valuable, insightful, and factual information that matches/fulfills their search intent so, makes sense to believe (or at least I do), that E-A-T is here to stay and soon to become an "official" rating factor.

My 2cc

RealDaddy · Jul 10, 2022

Roger Marquez said:
What % of the site were on YMYL-type niches?

Even though there´s a mention of the importance of E-A-T signals on YMYL websites in the study´s brief...

There is no mention as to what % of the sites taken into consideration for this study belong to that YMYL group so, I feel these results are somehow irrelevant and/or don´t provide enough insights on the impact E-A-T signals have on the organic rankings of YMYL sites.

Personally, I think E-A-T IS a ranking factor and will soon be considered by Google as one soon. I feel Google is approaching E-A-T the same way they approached page loading speed. Meaning, they publicly stated for years page loading speed is NOT a ranking factor until they rolled out the Core Web Vitals optimization.

So, we need to take what Google says with a grain of salt and move from there.

Google has spent millions of dollars rolling out core algo updates to "protect" their users by providing them with accurate, valuable, insightful, and factual information that matches/fulfills their search intent so, makes sense to believe (or at least I do), that E-A-T is here to stay and soon to become an "official" rating factor.

My 2cc

The site didn't have any part of its content in the YMYL niches.

✔️✔️ Do you think E-A-T is a Ranking Factor?

RealDaddy

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