E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

E-E-A-T was Google's 2022 update (adding the second “E” for Experience to the original E-A-T). It is most strict for “Your Money or Your Life” topics — finance, medical, legal — where bad information can harm users.

AEO implications: content with named human authors, real bios, credentials, original research, and clear publication/update dates outperforms anonymous content in AI citations. Add Author schema, link to LinkedIn, and never publish AEO-critical content without a real byline.

Related terms

• Author Schema — Schema.org markup that identifies the human author of a piece of content, including their name, credentials, and link to a profile.
• Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) — The practice of optimizing content, schema, and brand signals so that AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini cite your brand accurately when answering user queries.
• Topical Authority — The depth and breadth of a website's coverage on a single topic, measured by search engines and AI systems through internal linking, content volume, and citation patterns.