Google hires human teams to review the search results for various queries and assign quality ratings for each ranking URL. Google says the purpose is to help ensure helpful content for searchers.
The ratings do not impact search results directly, but Google’s guidelines for the human raters suggest its ranking priorities — what it looks for — and algorithmic scrutiny.
Here’s Google’s video explainer:
Google updated the guidelines (PDF) last week.
A recurring focus is what Google calls “Your Money or Your Life” topics, which can include ecommerce. Google’s human raters are to review YMYL pages more closely.
YMYL Topics
Your Money or Your Life topics affect a person’s health, safety, financial stability, and well-being.
Some pages clearly fall into that category; others are not as straightforward. Google provides a few examples in the latest guidelines.
| Type of Topic | Clear YMYL Topic | Possible YMYL Topic | Unlikely YMYL Topic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Information | Evacuation routes for a tsunami | Weather forecast | Music award winners |
| Personal opinion | Personal view of why a racial group is inferior | Personal view of why a exercise is inferior | Personal view of why a rock band is inferior |
| Ecommerce and product reviews | Purchasing prescription drugs | Review of a car | Purchasing pencils |
YMYL and EEAT
Sites that provide health- or money-related advice or sell products that can affect health or wealth must have clear signs of (i) high-level expertise and (ii) first-hand experience with the topic.
The guidelines provide much detail on how the raters should assess EEAT — the Expertise and Experience of the author and the Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness of the site — by reviewing these elements:
- Contact page (with the address) or customer support page (important for online stores that process payments).
- About page detailing the business’s history, milestones, awards, and achievements. The Organization schema type can help search engines extract the essential info.
- Shipping and return policies, terms of service, cookie policy, privacy policy.
- Detailed author profiles describing expertise and experience.
- Positive branded search results that reflect the business’s reputation. Google encourages raters to search for the site and author names.
- Original “opinion” or “expert” content.
- Detailed methodology for product reviews.
- Citations from trusted sources (government, official) on content pages.
Google also lists elements that should not be considered for evaluating EEAT:
- Ads (unless they prevent visitors from reading or engaging with a page).
- Broken links (unless excessive).
None of those EEAT elements are confirmed algorithm factors; Google includes them in the guidelines to assist human evaluators. The factors are Google’s definition of EEAT and presumably have a ranking role — algorithmic or manual — for all sites, especially YMYL-focused.