The Mechanisms of EAT: How Google's Patents Can Help Explain How EAT Works Google updated its guidelines on YMYL from "pages" to "pages" and "topics" This wording in Google's documentation suggests that Google's EAT ratings are likely performed at the Banner Design entity level . That would make sense, given what Google is building with its Knowledge Graph: a repository of 500 billion facts about 5 billion entities, and the connections between them. Advertising Continue reading below Although Google's patents did not explicitly mention evaluating entities based Banner Design on EAT considerations, Google's Gary Illyes said at the 2019 Pubcon conference that:
The same patent listed above - Website Representation Banner Design Vectors - is the best place to understand the mechanisms Google uses to determine what content is considered YMYL: your money, your life. In this patent, Google uses neural networks to understand the patterns and functionality behind websites in order to classify these websites into categories such as health, medical, finance, etc. As part of this process, Google may also determine the level of expertise Banner Design required for certain topics, such as: “[E]xperts in the knowledge field, e.g., doctors, the second category of websites created by apprentices in the knowledge field, e.g., medical students, and a third category of websites created by laymen in the field of knowledge.” Although the patent does not clearly delineate the categories considered YMYL, it shows how Google categorizes sites into niches and rates authority accordingly.
The patent also states that, for certain queries, Google may limit its retrieval of results to those included in a certain category of domains. Advertising Continue reading Banner Design below Here's Slawski's explanation of how this could happen: "If this process limits the number of sites from which Google must return search results based on the knowledge Banner Design domain they are in, it means that Google is looking for fewer sites to return results than Google's full index on the Web ... The search system can select, search, or both, data only for websites with a particular classification, which reduces the computing resources needed to find search results, for example by neither selecting, nor searching, or both, no website regardless of classification. " The above part of this Google patent states that, Banner Design for certain queries, Google may search its established set of highly trustworthy websites in a given category when ranking pages. If you've ever wondered why you always see the same set of 10-20 authoritative domains on any given topic – especially for YMYL topics – this might be the reason. 6. Does Google measure EAT at the author, page, domain or brand level? No patent clearly answers this question, but Google states in its search quality guidelines that EAT applies to the “creator of the primary content; the main content itself and the website. » Advertising Continue reading below Google also changed the Banner Design Quality Guidelines in 2019 to expand the notion of YMYL from page-level considerations to “topics.”