Chapter 35 — Exercises

Work these in order; they graduate from recall to judgment. Items marked † get full worked solutions in the answers appendix (along with the odd-numbered items). No answers here — struggle first. Where an item names a free tool (Google search in incognito, Search Console, the Rich Results Test), actually do the task; YMYL judgment is a muscle, not a fact.

A standing rule for every item: never invent a credential, a reviewer, or a statistic, and never write actual medical, financial, or legal advice. The whole point of this chapter is the difference between demonstrating trust and faking it.

Recall and understanding

35.1 Define YMYL in your own words, then state the one-sentence test that decides whether a given page is YMYL.

35.2 † List the four broad YMYL categories from the Search Quality Rater Guidelines and give one example topic (not advice) for each. For one example, explain who could be harmed if the content were wrong.

35.3 Name the four things credible YMYL sites demonstrate, one sentence each, and label which two are partly machine-readable and which two are mostly not.

35.4 Distinguish "credentialed author," "expert review," and "medical/financial/legal review." Can the author and the reviewer be the same person? Should they be?

35.5 Trust sits at the center of E-E-A-T (Chapter 5). Explain why that placement matters more on a YMYL page than on a hobby page.

35.6 In one paragraph, distinguish author-level E-E-A-T from organizational E-E-A-T, and say why a YMYL page needs both aligned.

Applied reasoning

35.7 Classify each query as YMYL / not YMYL / borderline, and justify each from harm potential: (a) "best sci-fi novels of 2026"; (b) "how to lower a fever in a toddler"; (c) "is a Roth conversion right for me"; (d) "how to reset a tripped breaker safely"; (e) "best pizza in Northgate."

35.8 † Using the honest lesson of the "Medic" update, explain why coasting on thin content is a special liability on YMYL topics — and why there was never a version of Medic a site could have "out-tricked."

35.9 A YMYL page carries a named credentialed author, a "medically reviewed" line, and thirty citations — but several central claims contradict current guidance and the review date is five years old. Is it trustworthy? Defend your answer using the trust-is-the-center idea.

35.10 Explain why a genuinely credentialed expert publishing on a thin, anonymous, ad-choked domain still fails to fully clear the YMYL bar. Which level of the trust stack is failing?

35.11 Explain, to a client who read it in a blog post, why "link out to .gov and .edu and your health page will rank higher" is a myth — and what citations are actually for.

35.12 Put these in order of strength for supporting a YMYL medical claim, and justify the order: an anonymous aggregator blog; a peer-reviewed study; a major medical center's summary page; a supplement brand's marketing page. Then explain why currency can override source strength.

35.13 Explain why a visible, dated corrections policy is a trust signal rather than an admission of weakness.

35.14 † Draw or describe the two-level trust stack for a YMYL page, and give a concrete example of a page that is strong at one level and weak at the other — one example for each direction.

Diagnose why this page isn't ranking

35.15 A well-written, genuinely accurate page about a medication's side effects is stuck far down the results. It has no named author, no reviewer, no sources, and the site is an anonymous domain registered last year. Before concluding "the writing isn't good enough," name the YMYL-specific problems that likely outrank the content problem, in priority order.

35.16 A registered dietitian's genuinely credentialed, well-sourced article on a nutrition topic is stuck on page two. Walk through how you would decide whether the problem is YMYL credibility at all — versus intent mismatch (Chapter 3), weak internal linking (Chapter 15), or thin authority/links (Chapters 22–24). What would you check first, and why?

Audit your own site (or a chosen one)

35.17 Take your own site (or one you know). Using the harm test — "if this page is wrong, who gets hurt, and how badly?" — list every page or section that touches YMYL. For each, note whether it is fully YMYL or only YMYL-adjacent (like a safety page on an otherwise non-YMYL site).

35.18 † Pick the single most consequential query your site targets. Search it in an incognito window. For each of the top five results, record: the named author and their verifiable credential; the organization and what the open web says about it. Then write one honest sentence: can you genuinely compete here, and if so what is the credibility gap — or is this a no-go?

Research and assess queries

35.19 List ten queries your business could realistically target. Classify each YMYL / not / borderline, and mark which would require genuinely credentialed authorship to publish responsibly.

35.20 † Choose one clearly-YMYL query. Catalog the credibility markers present in the top five results (author credentials, review lines and dates, citation quality, organization type). Conclude with an honest list of what you would actually need — people, process, or reputation — to belong in that set. Resist listing formatting tweaks.

Optimize and rewrite

35.21 Rewrite this weak YMYL article header into a credible one without inventing anything: Posted by admin · [no reviewer] · [no date] · [no sources]. State any real facts you would need to gather first (and from whom).

35.22 † You inherit a thin, anonymous "symptoms of [condition]" page on a site with no medical staff. List the honest steps to make it credible — and include, as a genuine option, the decision not to publish it. Explain when each path is right.

35.23 Rewrite this over-promising bio into an honest one, then annotate which phrase supports which E-E-A-T component: "The web's #1 most-trusted money expert — read by millions — tells you the secrets banks don't want you to know."

35.24 A gas-safety page opens with 400 words of keyword-optimized company copy before mentioning what to do about a suspected leak. Restructure it responsibly. What goes first, and why?

Read the report

35.25 Interpret this rendered header report: Written by [staff writer] · Reviewed by "Dr. J. Smith" (no link, no specialty, no date) · 2 citations, both to the site's own other pages · a "Trusted by millions" badge · display ad for a supplement mid-article. What trust is legible, what is missing or suspect, and what is the first thing you would verify?

Spot the myth

35.26 † A vendor pitches: "Our YMYL Recovery Service removes the YMYL penalty that's suppressing your health site and guarantees page one within 90 days." Identify every myth and false claim in that sentence and give the honest correction for each.

35.27 "Adding a 'medically reviewed by [Doctor]' line is the single fastest way to boost YMYL rankings." Spot the myth and correct it — including the ethical problem hiding inside the SEO claim.

Ethics and risk judgment

35.28 A client asks you to attach a friendly doctor's name to health articles the doctor will not actually review, "just for the E-E-A-T." Walk through why this is wrong on all three levels named in the chapter, and propose honest alternatives.

35.29 An affiliate site wants "supplement guidance" pages engineered to sell the products they earn commission on, presented as neutral advice. Where exactly is the ethical line, and how would you reframe the project into something honest (and still viable)?

35.30 † Give a concrete YMYL scenario in which the correct professional recommendation is "we should not publish this at all," and explain the reasoning — including what you would say to a client who insists.

Rivertown Strategy-File extension

35.31 Extend Rivertown's YMYL-touch policy to a new page: "Is it safe to reset a tripped breaker myself?" Draft the responsible handling — who is the named expert, what authorities you cite, where the bright line falls, and what Rivertown can honestly say from experience.

35.32 † Draft Rivertown's one-paragraph internal YMYL content policy — the checklist a blog writer must satisfy before publishing any page that touches safety. Keep it to rules a non-expert writer could actually follow.