Extended definition
Google acronym: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. Quality criteria for content, more important on sensitive niches (health, finance, legal).
Context and application
The first “E” (Experience) was added in 2022 — emphasis on who lived the experience they’re documenting. For SEO, this means: product reviews with own photos > scraped reviews; technical tutorials with real screenshots of one’s own application > generic tutorials. For YMYL (Your Money Your Life — health, finance, legal), Google applies extra standards: authors with verifiable credentials, sources from official medical/financial/legal publications, updates on regulatory changes. Without E-E-A-T, YMYL pages don’t rank regardless of SEO technique.
In practice
real authors with credentials + cited sources + regular updates.