How To Pass the EAT Filter

AlexR

AlexR

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Apr 27, 2017
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Hi

I've finally had the time to look at an old site and I'm trying to diagnose the best plan of action.

1) It's in the finance niche so I figure it gets special treatment with E-A-T.
2) The main KW got to pos 12, but then on 4 May 2020 it dropped along with a few others. I think this means the update hit it. It's never recovered from then. Does anyone know what the major target of this update was?

Things Done Since Then:
1) Site Speed Boosted
2) Many New Pages Added
3) Complete UI Overhaul
4) Tech Audit & As Many Site Issues Fixed As Possible
- internal links
- 404s fixed,
- etc.
5) Working through kitchen sink.
I'm double checking against the kitchen sink checks too https://www.buildersociety.com/thre...-seo-sites-with-the-kitchen-sink-method.5607/.

Rankings Issue for Main KW
KRgCsUa.jpg


Traffic
JHl9l5S.jpg

It has doubled but nothing to write home about.

My Questions
1) What would you focus on first?
2) What's the best way to get more E-A-T?
 
If you ask the SEO community at large you'll get a lot of answers about:
  • Author profiles and guest posting around and credentials
  • Having articles double checked by another credentialed professional
  • Fact checking every statement to make sure it's in alignment with the "narrative"
  • Making sure your outbound link profile only links to high EAT sites
Some of that may be true. Especially basic stuff like:
  • Having contact information listed with phone numbers and addresses
  • Having a substantial about page, who we are page, and all that
  • Disclosures, terms of service, how we ensure the accuracy of our information, etc.
  • Having author boxes and disclosures on each page
I think all of this 2nd list are just basic quality signals that we all should have to some degree. But in my own personal opinion, I think Expertise, Authority, and Trust boil mostly down to:
  • Expertise - Am I getting a bunch of links because I'm a good source of expert information?
  • Authority - Am I getting a bunch of links because I'm a good source of expert information?
  • Trust - Am I getting a bunch of links because I'm a good source of expert information? (distance from seed sites, shoutout to @bernard for the reminder below)
  • (and am I chasing stuff like alternative medicine or non-objective, science-based advice)
Of course there's stuff out there that could be measured like user sentiment surrounding these links (are they good reviews or bad?). There's user experience metrics, SERP pogosticking, and a lot of stuff that could all be justified as being a part of EAT.

And that's the point. EAT wasn't some new thing that Google rolled out. It was just a new all-encompassing way of thinking about things, just like the Core Web Vitals wasn't new. It just got a name and got bundled together.

I think in Finance, Health, and I'm seeing it in Exercise niches too, they simply tweaked the dials on link metrics to be very strict. They needed to drop out low quality results and boost high quality ones. So as links became more important in these verticals, everything else became less important since a normalized algorithmic score is a zero sum game. If the maximum number the factors can add up to is 100, and links move from a maximum contributing score of 25 to 30, then everything else has to lose 5 points somewhere.

And that's what everyone saw when EAT got switched on: an erosion of ranking positions even though none of these sites changed anything. Some gained, and some lost, and it all boiled down to link metrics and then of course, what kind of keywords were you chasing, and were you debunking them or promoting them (in terms of Health).
 
Ryuzaki said:
If you ask the SEO community at large you'll get a lot of answers about:
  • Author profiles and guest posting around and credentials
  • Having articles double checked by another credentialed professional
  • Fact checking every statement to make sure it's in alignment with the "narrative"
  • Making sure your outbound link profile only links to high EAT sites
Some of that may be true. Especially basic stuff like:
  • Having contact information listed with phone numbers and addresses
  • Having a substantial about page, who we are page, and all that
  • Disclosures, terms of service, how we ensure the accuracy of our information, etc.
  • Having author boxes and disclosures on each page
I think all of this 2nd list are just basic quality signals that we all should have to some degree. But in my own personal opinion, I think Expertise, Authority, and Trust boil mostly down to:
  • Expertise - Am I getting a bunch of links because I'm a good source of expert information?
  • Authority - Am I getting a bunch of links because I'm a good source of expert information?
  • Trust - Am I getting a bunch of links because I'm a good source of expert information?
  • (and am I chasing stuff like alternative medicine or non-objective, science-based advice)
Of course there's stuff out there that could be measured like user sentiment surrounding these links (are they good reviews or bad?). There's user experience metrics, SERP pogosticking, and a lot of stuff that could all be justified as being a part of EAT.

And that's the point. EAT wasn't some new thing that Google rolled out. It was just a new all-encompassing way of thinking about things, just like the Core Web Vitals wasn't new. It just got a name and got bundled together.

I think in Finance, Health, and I'm seeing it in Exercise niches too, they simply tweaked the dials on link metrics to be very strict. They needed to drop out low quality results and boost high quality ones. So as links became more important in these verticals, everything else became less important since a normalized algorithmic score is a zero sum game. If the maximum number the factors can add up to is 100, and links move from a maximum contributing score of 25 to 30, then everything else has to lose 5 points somewhere.

And that's what everyone saw when EAT got switched on: an erosion of ranking positions even though none of these sites changed anything. Some gained, and some lost, and it all boiled down to link metrics and then of course, what kind of keywords were you chasing, and were you debunking them or promoting them (in terms of Health).
Click to expand...

Sucks to say this, but it's time to learn that MOZ shit.
 
If I was to use tools that I know Google has, I would manually choose some trusted seed sites, institutions and people, using tools I assume they already have.

Google has been able to group people, institutions, topics and even concepts for some time now.

That means, it should be fairly simple to see how far from a content/person/website cluster someone else is.

This can be done using links, certainly, if you have a link from a trusted source or a link from someone who has a link.

I can also be stuff like the algo putting your website into various content clusters, that match with the typical trusted source i.e. ("health websites", "doctors in New York", etc).
 
Ryuzaki said:
If you ask the SEO community at large you'll get a lot of answers about:
  • Author profiles and guest posting around and credentials
  • Having articles double checked by another credentialed professional
  • Fact checking every statement to make sure it's in alignment with the "narrative"
  • Making sure your outbound link profile only links to high EAT sites
Some of that may be true. Especially basic stuff like:
  • Having contact information listed with phone numbers and addresses
  • Having a substantial about page, who we are page, and all that
  • Disclosures, terms of service, how we ensure the accuracy of our information, etc.
  • Having author boxes and disclosures on each page
I think all of this 2nd list are just basic quality signals that we all should have to some degree. But in my own personal opinion, I think Expertise, Authority, and Trust boil mostly down to:
  • Expertise - Am I getting a bunch of links because I'm a good source of expert information?
  • Authority - Am I getting a bunch of links because I'm a good source of expert information?
  • Trust - Am I getting a bunch of links because I'm a good source of expert information? (distance from seed sites, shoutout to @bernard for the reminder below)
  • (and am I chasing stuff like alternative medicine or non-objective, science-based advice)
Of course there's stuff out there that could be measured like user sentiment surrounding these links (are they good reviews or bad?). There's user experience metrics, SERP pogosticking, and a lot of stuff that could all be justified as being a part of EAT.

And that's the point. EAT wasn't some new thing that Google rolled out. It was just a new all-encompassing way of thinking about things, just like the Core Web Vitals wasn't new. It just got a name and got bundled together.

I think in Finance, Health, and I'm seeing it in Exercise niches too, they simply tweaked the dials on link metrics to be very strict. They needed to drop out low quality results and boost high quality ones. So as links became more important in these verticals, everything else became less important since a normalized algorithmic score is a zero sum game. If the maximum number the factors can add up to is 100, and links move from a maximum contributing score of 25 to 30, then everything else has to lose 5 points somewhere.

And that's what everyone saw when EAT got switched on: an erosion of ranking positions even though none of these sites changed anything. Some gained, and some lost, and it all boiled down to link metrics and then of course, what kind of keywords were you chasing, and were you debunking them or promoting them (in terms of Health).
Click to expand...
Your summary, I believe, is a much more likely description of how EAT is assessed by Google than most of the leading commentary. John Mueller said something to the effect that EAT is "mostly judged by links."

Even in the recent "product review update" which ostensibly was about product review content, as far as I can tell, it wasn't so much related to the actual content as to other factors that shed light on the sites as a whole. And if links weren't a significant component of those other factors, I would be quite surprised.
 
I always assumed E.A.T was largely link driven too.. do you think not @Philip J. Fry ?

I've been pondering trying it out. Create a blog under my own name, link all my socials, do like a mommy-blog style lifestyle thing but 33 year old dude instead. Write a lot in first person. Use all my own photos of things I buy and publish a variety of reviews, some positive but some negative. Link up social accounts, spend a bunch of time on a newsletter.

This is all opposed to the standard "low comp keywords + general info/review content outsourced at volume" approach.

Wonder if Google would reward? When I think successful SEO domains I keep seeing rank I think of Marie Haynes, Neil Patel, or shit, even the OG Viperchill. Although this could be confirmation bias now that I'm looking for it.

Has anyone gone veil-less, published a very personal site, and been rewarded? Is Google better at truly identifying real E.A.T? I'm curious if this "filter" can reward as much as it can hamper.
 
@harrytwatter I'd be interested in anyone's experience there too. I don't want to personalize my site with an author box, but I just might if I think it'll help significantly overall.
 
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