Chapter 5 — Further Reading: E-E-A-T

Grouped by the book's three evidence tiers (see the style of Chapter 2). Tier 1 is where to spend your time — read Google's own words before anyone's interpretation of them.

Tier 1 — Verified canonical (read these first, and directly)

• Google, Search Quality Rater Guidelines (PDF). The primary source. E-E-A-T, the Page Quality scale (Lowest→Highest), YMYL, and reputation research all live here, defined in Google's own words for its human raters. Long, but skimmable — read the sections on Page Quality, E-E-A-T, and YMYL. Search "Search Quality Rater Guidelines PDF"; Google publishes and periodically updates it.
• Google Search Central — "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content." Google's public guidance for creators, including the "who, how, and why" self-assessment questions and the explicit statement that while E-E-A-T is not itself a specific ranking factor, its systems use signals that align with strong E-E-A-T. This is the doc to quote when a client asks "what does Google actually say?"
• Google Search Central Blog — the December 2022 update announcing "Experience." The post that turned E-A-T into E-E-A-T and clarified how the framework fits into helpful-content guidance. Read it for the reasoning behind the added "E."
• Google Search Central — "How Search works" and documentation on search quality and raters. Explains, at Google's level of disclosure, how quality raters fit into evaluating changes — the basis for "raters don't rank your site."
• Google Search Central — HTTPS as a ranking signal. Confirms HTTPS as a lightweight signal; useful for calibrating how much weight a single trust cue carries (not much, but real).
• Google (John Mueller), 2014 announcements ending Google Authorship. The public record behind Case Study 5.1 — author photos removed (June 2014) and authorship data dropped (August 2014). Read it as a lesson in not chasing declarable features.

Tier 2 — Attributed, specifics unverified (useful interpretation; check it against Tier 1)

• Vendor and trade explainers on E-E-A-T (Moz, Ahrefs, Semrush, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land). Good for orientation and examples. Caution: several offer an "E-E-A-T score" or checklist that implies more precision than Google's position supports — treat any score as the vendor's model, not a Google metric (see Chapter 30 on third-party scores).
• Community coverage of the August 2018 "Medic" broad core update (e.g., Search Engine Roundtable). Documents the event and the SEO community's interpretation that YMYL/health sites were disproportionately affected. Remember the tier: the event is Tier 1 (Google confirmed a broad core update); the "it was about E-A-T" reading is Tier 2 community consensus, not a Google statement. Deepened in Chapters 6 and 35.

Tier 3 — Illustrative / constructed (this book's teaching examples)

• Rivertown Home Services — the running local-business project; the E-E-A-T "has it vs. shows it" pass in §5's Strategy File.
• "SupplementSage" — the labeled composite in Case Study 5.2, built from documented patterns to teach the limits of faked E-E-A-T.
• "WellPath" — the constructed health-and-finance publisher introduced lightly in §5.7; developed in Chapters 34 and 35.

Suggested order

1. Skim the Search Quality Rater Guidelines sections on Page Quality, E-E-A-T, and YMYL — get the concepts from the source.
2. Read "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content" and try its self-assessment questions on your own most important page.
3. Read the December 2022 "Experience" announcement to see why the framework changed.
4. Read Case Study 5.1 here, then the 2014 Authorship record, to inoculate yourself against chasing declarable features.
5. Only then sample a Tier-2 vendor guide — you will now spot where it over-claims.
6. Forward-link when ready: Chapter 6 (updates), Chapter 25 (local trust signals), Chapter 35 (YMYL in depth).