E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust, and it is Google's shorthand for one question: has the person behind this page actually done the thing? It is not a score you raise by adding a byline. It is shown, page by page, by what is on the page, who signed it, and what the rest of the web says about them.
The receipts
I think of E-E-A-T as 'the receipts': the evidence on and around a page that you did the work. A photo from your own bench. A number you measured. The problem a customer brought in last week. A name that turns up in the trade's forums. Anyone can write "we are passionate experts". Receipts are harder to fake, which is why they count.
The rule: show the work on the page, sign it with a real name, and make sure that name exists somewhere you do not control. The consequence is that a page cannot claim its way in. An about page full of adjectives does nothing. One measured number and one photo from your own shop do more than a paragraph of credentials, because they could only have come from someone who was there.
Google's own checklist asks it directly: does your content "clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place)?" And it tells you to ask "Who, How, and Why" about every page: who made it, how it was made, and why it exists (creating helpful content (opens in new tab)).
| Letter | The question behind it | What shows it on an espresso shop's page |
|---|---|---|
| Experience | Have you used it, been there, done it? | Photos from your own bench. The shot times you wrote down. "We sent two of these back, here is why." |
| Expertise | Do you know the subject past the first page of a manual? | The edge cases: hard water, the single-boiler workaround, what fails first on that model |
| Authoritativeness | Do others in the trade point to you for this? | Your name in the forum threads, a roaster linking your descaling guide, reviews that mention the advice you gave |
| Trust | Can a reader check who you are, and act on this safely? | A real name and face, an address, prices, a returns policy, and a correction when you got something wrong |
One paragraph, claims and receipts. Claims: "As espresso experts with years of experience, we always recommend descaling your machine regularly to keep it performing at its best." Receipts: "Our water is hard, so the demo machines in the shop get descaled on a fixed interval, and we write the interval and the hardness reading at the top of this page. In the machines that come in for repair, scale in the boiler is the most common thing we find, and the photo below is what it looks like." Same subject, same length. The second names a place, a routine, a measurement and a photo, and a reader can check every part.
Worked example: turning a claim into a receipt
Step by step
- Sign every page with a real person. Name, photo, one line on why they know. "Repairs the machines that come in" beats "content team".
- Put one thing you measured or did on every page. A number, a photo, a case from last week. What makes a page rank is the same test from the other side.
- Say how the page was made. If AI drafted it, say a named person checked it. If you tested something, say how. That is Google's "How".
- Make the author findable off your site. A profile on LinkedIn or the trade's forum with the same name, photo and subject. Google and the AI answers check whether the name exists anywhere else.
- Show the boring trust signals once, where they can be found. A real address, contact details, prices, a returns policy, and corrections when you were wrong. A correction is a receipt too.
- If your subject touches health, money or safety, name a qualified reviewer. Google holds those pages to a higher bar, and a byline alone will not clear it.
When you need this, and when you don't
You need this on every page where a reader will act on what you say, which is most of the map. It is the same "something only you know" from the writing pages, with a name attached.
You don't need a 300-word bio on every page or a credentials wall. One line under the title and a proper author page do the job. And never invent experience. Pick the subjects where you have receipts, and leave the others to people who do.
Next
- Next page: Commodity content: how to tell if your page is one. The page you get when there are no receipts.
- The free AI-Tell Detector marks the sentences in a draft that read like nobody in particular wrote them. Those are usually the ones without a receipt.
- Where the receipts live off your site, and how to build them: step 5, Get seen beyond your site.