Google Says EAT Applies To Each Single Question

Out of the Hyung Jin Kim interview from SMX Next last week, we not only got the scoop on the Coati algorithm but also Hyung-Jin Kim told us that EAT is used in every single query, it is applied to everything Google Search does. “EAT is a core part of our metrics,” he added, explaining that it is to “ensure the content that people consume is going to be, is not going to be harmful and it is going to be useful to the user”

Google lives by the principles of EAT every single day, he said. “We do it to every single query and every single result,” he added. Kim said “so it’s actually pretty pervasive throughout everything we do.”

Yes, this was summed up in Lily Ray’s recap at Search Engine Land but Marie Haynes grabbed a 90 second clip of it from the SMX interview (with permission from SMX) and published it.

Watching Hyung-Jin Kim, the VP of Google Search, who leads core ranking at Google, say it is worth a lot more than just reading any recaps of it. So here it is:

Here is the transcript:

EAT is a core part of our metrics and it stands for expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. This has not always been there in Google, and it is something we have developed about 10 to 12 to 13 years ago. And it is really there to make sure that, along the lines of what we talked about earlier, that it is really there to ensure the content that people consume is going to be, is not going to be harmful and it is going to be useful to the user. These are principles we live by every single day.

And EAT, that template, of how we rate an individual site based on expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, we do it to every single query and every single result. So it is actually pretty pervasive throughout everything we do.

I will say that YMYL queries, the your money or your life queries, such as when I am looking for a mortgage or when I am looking for the local ER, those we have a particular eye on and pay a bit more attention to those queries because those are some of the most important decisions people can make, some of the most important decisions people will make in their lives. So I will say that EAT is a bit more of an impact there but again, I will say that EAT applies to everything, every single query that we have.

Now how does Google’s algorithms determine what EAT is another conversation but you can read the quality raters guidelines as a start to try to understand the basics.

I 1000% recommend you watch the full interview from SMX Next – so see the full 30 minutes.

Forum discussion at Twitter.