# Building Eeat And Authority > Use when building Google E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) signals, writing author bios, planning thought-leadership SEO, hardening trust on YMYL (Your Money Your Life) content, getting cited as an authority by AI engines, or building a long-term authority moat from zero. Triggers on phrases like "E-E-A-T", "author bios", "build authority", "thought leadership SEO", "Google trust signals", "YMYL", "how to get cited as an authority". Long-game skill — invest 6+ months before you need it. - Skill: `benskamps/building-eeat-and-authority` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add benskamps/building-eeat-and-authority` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/benskamps/building-eeat-and-authority/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Marketing & Growth - Author: benskamps (https://skillmd.com/u/benskamps) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/benskamps/building-eeat-and-authority --- # Building E-E-A-T and Authority ## Overview E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor — it's the **weighting framework** Google's quality raters apply to evaluate whether a page deserves to rank, and AI engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini) have learned an almost identical pattern. **96% of AI Overview citations come from sources with strong E-E-A-T signals** (r=0.81 correlation) [1][6], and content from authors with verifiable credentials gets cited **~40% more often** by AI engines [2]. In 2026, E-E-A-T is an active filter, not a tiebreaker. Solo founders and small teams **can** build E-E-A-T from zero, but it is a 6-month minimum game. Plant the seeds before you need the shade. The example throughout: **vibecrafting.ai** — a solo-founder product site, no fortune-500 pedigree, building authority in the "vibe coding" / AI-assisted dev space. ## The 4 pillars in 2026 - **Experience** (added Dec 2022 [3]) — first-hand evidence you've actually done the thing. Weighted heavily for product reviews, travel, finance, parenting, and any "I tried it" content. For vibecrafting.ai: screenshots of real projects shipped, dated build logs, "I shipped 14 apps with this workflow" beats "10 best AI coding tips." - **Expertise** — credentials *plus* demonstrated knowledge depth. Less about degrees in 2026, more about specificity, accuracy, and information gain (Google's March 2026 core update made Information Gain the dominant content-quality signal [7]). - **Authoritativeness** — the broader web treating you as a source. Citations from other sites, **unlinked brand mentions** (now a discrete ranking signal — sites monitoring brand mentions rank 25–40% higher [4]), third-party validation, podcast appearances. - **Trustworthiness** — site-level: HTTPS, real contact info, privacy policy, accurate content, transparent corrections, last-reviewed dates. The "T" is the gate; weak T can sink strong E/E/A. ## On-page E-E-A-T checklist - **Author bios** with name, photo (real, not stock), 2–4 sentence credential narrative, LinkedIn link. "Staff Writer" bylines are now a negative signal on YMYL. - **`Person` schema** linked from the `author` field of `Article` schema. With a verified `sameAs` to LinkedIn / personal site / Wikidata, citation likelihood jumps **2.8×** on Claude and Gemini [2]. See `adding-schema-markup`. - **`Organization` schema** with `sameAs` to social profiles, `address`, `contactPoint`, `logo`. **45% of most-cited pages use `Person` schema; 47% use `BreadcrumbList`** [2]. - **About page** that names humans, shows the team (even if it's one person), and explains *why* you're qualified. For vibecrafting.ai: "Built by Ben — shipped X apps, Y users, Z years." - **Original data / research** as primary content — earns **5–14% more links per month** than synthesized posts [7] and is the strongest single Information Gain signal. - **Citations to primary sources** (papers, government data, vendor docs, industry reports). Linking *down* to authority signals trust *up*. - **"Last reviewed [date]" + "Fact-checked by [name]"** lines on YMYL content. Non-negotiable in 2026. ## The off-page authority playbook (the long game) Six-month minimum cadence. None of this works in 30 days. - **Get mentioned in 3 industry publications** in your niche over 6 months. **Unlinked mentions count** in 2026 — Google's NLP-based scrapers treat them as implied links, and **60% of new Knowledge Panels are initiated by unlinked brand mentions** [4]. Digital PR > backlink chasing. - **Publish 1 piece of original research per quarter.** A 50-respondent survey of your own users counts. Ship the dataset alongside the post. - **One external speaking footprint per quarter** — podcast guesting, conference talk, webinar, AMA. Creates citable third-party validation. - **Build the `sameAs` graph.** LinkedIn, X, GitHub, Bluesky, personal site — all linked from the About page *and* the `Organization`/`Person` schema. LLMs use this graph to confirm identity before citing. ## Solo founder authority paths (the realistic plan) Don't fake credentials. Lean on demonstrated experience — the new "E" exists exactly for you. - **"Built X for Y users over Z years"** beats "MIT-educated" in 2026. - **Open-source contributions count** as portfolio evidence. Link the GitHub from the bio. - **Build-in-public history** is a moat — archive X / IH / Bluesky posts with dates and screenshots. A two-year public dev log is irreplaceable. - **Specificity over polish** — case-study data is hard to fake and improves both human trust and AI retrievability [5]. - For vibecrafting.ai: bio reads "Ben — shipping AI-coded apps since 2023, 14 production projects, sharing the workflow." Not "Senior AI Researcher." ## Common mistakes - **Stock-photo author bios.** Detection is improving and the reputational risk now exceeds any SEO upside. - **Buying brand mentions / paid mention networks.** Google's spam team is good at finding these in 2026; penalties hit the whole domain. - **Ignoring YMYL until you publish in YMYL.** Retrofitting E-E-A-T after you've already shipped financial / medical / legal content is 3× the work — bake it in day 1. - **No team / about page on a "company" site.** Implies a content farm to both Google and AI engines. - **Cosmetic refreshes** ("updated 2026!" with no real changes). Google detects no-op edits. ## YMYL flag list — when E-E-A-T must be airtight from day 1 If you publish on any of these, treat E-E-A-T as a launch-blocker, not a polish item: - Medical, mental health, drug, supplement - Financial, investing, tax, insurance, crypto - Legal advice, immigration, criminal justice - News, current events, politics - Safety (child, food, product), home repair where mistakes cause harm - Civic engagement, elections, government information (added Sept 2025 [8]) ## Lifecycle - **Initial (0–3mo):** Skip *unless* YMYL. If YMYL, this is launch-critical. - **Growth (3–12mo):** Start the off-page playbook. Schema + bios on every new page. - **Mature (12mo+):** Full investment. Authority compounds; this becomes the primary moat. ## What's next - **`adding-schema-markup`** — `Person` + `Organization` + `Article(author)` are the load-bearing schema for E-E-A-T. - **`optimizing-for-generative-engines`** — converts the authority you build here into measurable AI citations. Citations and verification tags in [SOURCES.md](SOURCES.md).