Understand and use E-E-A-T link building

Google has been following a new quality concept for several years: E-A-T, which stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trust. In December 2022, another “E” was added, representing Experience. E-E-A-T significantly changes the approach to search engine optimization. It affects the entire concept of a website. However, E-E-A-T is also highly relevant—and still underestimated—for link building.

To better meet Google’s requirements for high-quality websites, you should develop a new link strategy. It is no longer sufficient to rely solely on strong links from large websites. Instead, links to author profiles are becoming increasingly important.

You can read more about how link-building strategies are evolving with E-E-A-T and AI in our blog.

What exactly does E-E-A-T mean?

To better understand Google’s approach, it is helpful to take a look at the Quality Rater Guidelines (Search Evaluation Guidelines). These guidelines instruct evaluators on how to manually assess the quality of individual pages.

A key change has emerged: it is no longer just about the quality of the content, but also about the credibility of the author. This represents a significant shift in perspective and has a major impact on how websites are evaluated. The concept can be understood through the four components of E-E-A-T:

  • E – Experience: The new “E” stands for experience. It refers to practical, hands-on experience with a product or subject. A typical example is product testing, where firsthand experience plays a central role.
  • E – Expertise: The second “E” refers to knowledge. Unlike practical experience, this focuses on in-depth, professional, scientific, or long-term acquired expertise, including unique selling points (USPs).
  • A – Authority: Authority describes how well-known and recognized an author or company is within a specific field or industry, including media presence.
  • T – Trust: Trust refers to the credibility an author has with others. It includes transparency, contact options, and reliable information. Trust can also be seen as the result of all other factors combined.

The interaction of these factors determines the overall quality of content and directly influences rankings on Google. E-E-A-T has become a crucial metric for websites. It helps ensure that the best content is presented for a search query. High-quality expert articles are therefore ranked higher than mere opinions. In simple terms, content from recognized and authoritative experts is typically ranked above content from inexperienced or unknown authors.

YMYL: In some areas, E-E-A-T is more critical than in others

This quality concept applies to all types of content. It evaluates how trustworthy online articles are, how knowledgeable influencers appear, and how authoritative scientific publications are.

However, there is one area where Google applies especially strict standards: YMYL.

YMYL stands for “Your Money Your Life” and refers to topics such as finance or health. In these sensitive areas, Google aims to display only accurate and reliable information.

Practical example: rising through credibility

In practice, various updates have demonstrated the importance of E-E-A-T. Websites covering YMYL topics that were created by non-experts have significantly lost visibility. In contrast, well-researched and expert-driven content has improved in rankings. This clearly reflects Google’s quality evaluation—expert knowledge is rewarded.

An interesting case:
In this example, a website neglected many technical aspects and should not have achieved strong rankings. It even lacked an SSL certificate.

Surprisingly, this website in the medical field saw significant gains during the March 2023 update. There was a noticeable increase in visibility. This is due to a strong E-E-A-T concept. The website clearly communicates that qualified medical professionals are behind the content. This is a major advantage in this field and leads to strong rankings.

Highlight your own strengths

A similar approach is recommended for all website operators. In practice, this means displaying author names, presenting contributors with profiles, keeping content up to date (e.g., by showing update dates), and positively influencing your own E-E-A-T evaluation. But how does this work? A closer look at the influencing factors is necessary.

How to influence E-E-A-T factors

There are several ways to influence the interaction of E-E-A-T.

Important to understand: There is no direct score that can simply be improved. However, each individual factor can be supported through various measures.

The fundamentals remain the same – UX and EEAT as filters

Before diving into specific steps, remember one key point: the fundamental path to the top of search results remains unchanged. Through competitive analysis, you can identify the strengths your competitors have in search.

Gather ideas and potential link sources from your analysis. Then focus on the following points:

  1. High-quality content with relevant information, offers, and solutions remains the key factor for strong rankings. Create a content plan and identify important keywords you want to cover.
  2. Technical SEO and a solid information structure are essential so that search engines and users can find your content. At the same time, you improve website performance.
  3. Links from third parties are important for Google to assess relevance. These links should increasingly take entities into account.
  4. User experience on your website determines whether your content reaches and stays in Google’s top 10.

Every page requires quality. Build a strong foundation by sending clear signals aligned with the E-E-A-T concept.

Experience – how to demonstrate experience

Show your real experience with a topic. Take photos of relevant situations or details, create videos, and write articles highlighting your practical experience. Clearly include your opinion, critique, or review, and provide a final evaluation of the product or topic.

Enhance your author profile with details of your practical experience. Include third-party opinions or additional reviews. Also update older content with new media and additional insights.

Expertise – how to strengthen expert status

To reinforce your expert status, provide detailed author profiles with relevant qualifications. Show your professional background and combine this with high-quality, well-written content that goes into depth and addresses user intent.

Do not neglect older content. Update it with current and helpful information. Answer common user questions, such as those shown in Google search results.

Important: Google’s Helpful Content Updates aim to push low-quality content out of top rankings. If your site contains too much weak content, overall visibility can drop—even for strong pages. Updating old content is therefore essential.

Authority – how to build authority

Building authority is more challenging. While experience and expertise can be demonstrated on your own website, authority requires external validation.

The goal is to gain recommendations or mentions from third parties. Links from Wikipedia or other trusted websites are particularly valuable. Authority can also be built through backlinks, mentions, interviews, or guest contributions.

Another strategy is to position your website as a central source of information. Answer all relevant questions, provide downloadable resources, and create directories or collections of useful links. Infographics can also support this.

Use these elements for content marketing and content seeding. This not only attracts new audiences but also generates backlinks and recommendations.

PR and online marketing are additional options. Distribute press releases with images and a biography. Position yourself as a go-to expert for media coverage. All of this strengthens your authority and long-term reputation.

Trust – how to build trust

Building trust is comparatively easier. Provide essential information such as an imprint, privacy policy, SSL certificate, clear contact options, and transparent details about shipping, returns, or cancellation policies.

Trust signals also include certifications (e.g., Trusted Shops), industry awards, and customer reviews.

Trust is influenced by the other three factors. Therefore, clearly show who you are. Use an “About Us” page, introduce your team, and create detailed author profiles with relevant information.

Summary: Personalize your website

With E-E-A-T as a key quality factor, it is essential to highlight the company and the people behind the website. Every page should have a clear expert behind it.

This not only increases credibility but can also lead to enhanced visibility in search results—especially for searches related to individuals.

This is how you show that you are a reference. Become visible to search engines and website visitors!

Understanding Google Patents

To achieve this, a revised link strategy is essential. By clearly focusing on E-E-A-T factors, you set new priorities in link building.

You continue to strengthen your website while also sending important signals for quality evaluation. Authors, brands, and products are entities that are used—just like content—to assess websites. The more signals you provide for the E-E-A-T concept, the better.

Starting points for a newly aligned link strategy can be found in Google patents. In recent years, Google has registered several developments that all point in one direction: evaluating quality.

  • Agent Rank (2007): This patent describes mechanisms for re-evaluating pages based on the identity of individuals and detecting false identities (including ghostwriting). It is an important building block for E-E-A-T.
  • Speaker Identification (2020): This patent describes a technology that allows Google to recognize individuals (speakers) by their voice. It is mainly used for videos on YouTube and helps identify the uniqueness of a speaker.
  • Knowledge Graphs: Google identifies entities and search intent and answers queries using suitable knowledge graphs. This approach highlights the importance of E-E-A-T within the search algorithm. The system is supported by third-party data sources such as census data, the World Bank, and Data Commons.
  • Website Representation Vectors: This patent describes how Google determines the relevance of a person or brand within a specific field. By analyzing content and comparing it with other sources, websites can be classified—for example, as experts, learners, or beginners. YMYL areas can also be identified.
  • Obtaining Authoritative Search Results: This technology ranks websites based on factors such as content quality, level of advertising, and authorship.

There is currently no officially disclosed patent explaining exactly how Google measures E-E-A-T. It is unclear whether these factors apply to authors, individual pages, entire domains, or across the entire web. However, it is certain that they influence rankings. From this, conclusions can be drawn about how link building should be structured for a website or brand with E-E-A-T in mind.

E-E-A-T Link Building: Optimization

Generating high-quality links that support overall quality is more demanding. Previously, the goal was to build strong links for better keyword rankings. However, E-E-A-T requires a different approach.

It has become significantly more important to strengthen entities and authors.

This can be achieved through direct links to articles, as well as links to profiles and presences on other websites. For example, linking to an author’s social media profile is now highly beneficial, as it helps improve the author’s authority.

Use Google Platforms

To achieve this, even seemingly “small” links can be helpful. If they come from reputable platforms or trusted sources, they have a positive impact. Google, in particular, offers a wide range of useful tools and platforms.

Some examples where you can start:

  • Google Jobs
  • Google Events
  • Google News
  • Google Discover
  • Google Business Profile
  • Google Brand (for brands and products, including integration with YouTube)
  • Google Scholar and author profiles (for academics and publications)
  • Google Books (beneficial for publishers and authors)
  • Google for Publishers

Use as many of these platforms as possible to send signals for your company, your name, or your authors. This strengthens the entities, which in turn are relevant for quality evaluation and search results.

Send signals and build trust

However, this is only the beginning. There are many more platforms you can use strategically to build E-E-A-T signals.

For companies, these include your own website, business directories (including Google Business Profile!), and all social media channels. Each individual platform sends signals and strengthens your E-E-A-T evaluation.

But: You should actively use these channels and develop a tailored strategy for each platform.

 

 

Individuals and authors should pay particular attention to cross-linking from recognized platforms. This helps search engines better associate and reference their names. Suitable platforms include profiles on LinkedIn, Xing, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Google Scholar.

In addition, as mentioned above, you should strategically use classic content marketing. Promote your content, knowledge, and services through press releases (including links to individuals or offerings) and publications on other websites or platforms. This helps strengthen your expertise, authority, and overall trust within a specific topic area.

From these examples, you can see a shift in strategy: it is no longer just about generating a link—it is about strengthening entities.

Goal of the New Link Strategy

The link strategy focuses on authors, companies, and specific topics. By referencing these entities, the overall quality of your website improves. This also applies when links point to external targets, as long as those targets link back to you. There may even be a positive effect without a direct link to your website, as Google matches author names across platforms. If your author or name is strengthened on third-party sites, it also benefits the author’s content on your website.

The traditional direct link between source and target page evolves into a multi-layered structure that enhances overall reputation. For example, instead of a direct link from Medium to your website, a three-step link path may look like this:

  1. Sources link to author profiles such as Google Scholar or author websites (strengthening the author entity).
  2. These profiles and author websites link to relevant articles (demonstrating expertise and authority).
  3. The relevant articles link to the company website or final destination (building trust through recognized authors).

This indirect linking is specifically designed to positively influence E-E-A-T factors—particularly the “author entity.” It does not primarily strengthen a keyword, but rather helps position you and your authors as a reference and authority. This builds trust and credibility and is an important quality factor that influences rankings.

The strategic shift: Strengthening the article on a trusted source is more important for your website’s reputation than obtaining a direct link from a trusted source to your own site.

EAT – Author Profiles: What Really Helps

E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These factors are crucial for the credibility of a website, especially in areas such as medical, legal, or financial content, where accurate and reliable information is essential. Below are the key elements that contribute to optimizing E-A-T factors.

Element Description Auswirkung auf E-A-T
Name Full name as used professionally Expertise
Photo Professional and authentic photo, no smartphone pictures Trust
Bio Short biography including details on expertise, experience, and values. Expertise
Contact information Simple, clear, and direct contact details or a contact link. Trust
Social proof Mention of awards, recognitions, and certifications Authority
Publications Links to or mentions of relevant works, articles, blogs, and books—also including Google Scholar, etc. Expertise
Testimonials / reviews Positive feedback or quotes from clients, colleagues, or industry peers. If applicable, include links from platforms such as ProvenExpert, etc. Trust
Links to social media profiles Links to social media profiles—especially relevant platforms. Trust
Speaking engagements Information about conferences, webinars, and podcasts you have participated in. Authority
Education Details of relevant education, courses, and certifications. Expertise
Professional experience Overview of relevant positions and roles in the professional background Expertise
Multimedia elements Videos, podcasts, or images from events where expertise is demonstrated Expertise
Consistent updates Regular updates to keep the page current and relevant Trust
Privacy policy / disclaimer Link to or brief mention of the privacy policy and/or a disclaimer Trust
SEO Relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and alt texts where appropriate SEO

Use New Strategies for Better Rankings

E-E-A-T is a factor that has changed search results. The resulting attributes such as expertise and credibility have a noticeable impact on the visibility of websites.
Google has always aimed to rank high-quality websites at the top of search results.
With E-E-A-T, the company outlines key factors that are important for search. At the same time, it enables the evaluation of websites even without links—purely based on the quality of content and authors.

The four E-E-A-T factors provide clear starting points for reviewing and improving your own offering. High-quality content and links are still essential, but trust and traffic have become increasingly important. Links are considered particularly valuable when they come from relevant, high-quality, and trustworthy sources.

Each individual link not only strengthens the target page or domain but also all connected entities such as brands, companies, or authors. Your website gains visibility by embracing the E-E-A-T concept, refining your link strategy accordingly, and creating high-quality content authored by qualified and recognized experts. All of this leads to greater quality—something Google rewards.