YMYL & EEAT: Google's Trust Framework for SEO
- mohammed jarekji
- Oct 28
- 5 min read
When Information Can Change Lives
Some web pages can simply inform, while others can influence life-changing decisions.
That distinction is what Google calls YMYL: Your Money or Your Life content.
From health advice and financial guidance to safety tips and civic news, these pages can shape users’ wellbeing, happiness, and even survival. Because of that, Google applies stricter quality, accuracy, and trust requirements to them than to other types of content.
YMYL is not just an SEO classification. It’s an ethical standard for anyone publishing information that matters.
What Does YMYL Mean?
YMYL stands for Your Money or Your Life, a category Google uses for any topic that could impact a person’s:
Finances: investments, savings, taxes, or loans
Health: medical, nutritional, or psychological advice
Safety & Legal: law, security, or emergency preparedness
Society & News: elections, public trust, government policy
In short: if misinformation could harm someone, it’s YMYL.
“Pages that could impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety are held to the highest standards.” Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines, 2023
Examples of YMYL Topics
Not all informational pages fall under YMYL, but if a user could make a high-impact decision based on it, Google treats it differently.
Why YMYL Matters for SEO
If you write about YMYL topics, you’re not just optimizing for visibility. You’re optimizing for credibility.
Google’s ranking systems look for signals of expertise, accuracy, and transparency before rewarding YMYL pages with visibility.
In fact, poor EEAT or unreliable claims can cause Google to downrank or de-index content entirely.
SEO implications:
Higher EEAT thresholds: Google expects professional credentials, not just general opinions.
AI & misinformation filtering: AI Overviews reference only verified, high-trust data.
Brand safety: Consistent factual accuracy builds domain-level authority over time.
In YMYL SEO, authority is earned not through keywords, but through accountability.
How Google Evaluates YMYL Content
Google’s Search Quality Raters don’t judge design or style, they assess trust signals.
These signals are trained into Google’s ranking models, which then reward content that aligns with human judgment of reliability.
Key Evaluation Factors:
Expertise: Is the author qualified to discuss this topic?
Accuracy: Are statements backed by data or reputable sources?
Transparency: Does the site reveal who is behind it?
Reputation: Do external sources reference or endorse it?
Maintenance: Is the information regularly updated and reviewed?
This framework directly mirrors EEAT: the quality engine behind Google’s content evaluations.
The Role of EEAT in YMYL
YMYL content lives and dies by EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).
Experience: Firsthand stories or lived expertise strengthen authenticity.
Expertise: Degrees, certifications, or professional roles verify authority.
Authoritativeness: Endorsements, citations, and backlinks from reputable entities.
Trustworthiness: Accuracy, privacy, and transparency in presentation.
Example: A licensed dermatologist’s article on acne treatment will always outrank an anonymous blog post, even if both use the same keywords.
YMYL without EEAT is like medicine without a label, potentially harmful, and Google won’t risk serving it.
How to Optimize YMYL Content for Trust
Authenticity and technical excellence reinforce each other, Google rewards both.
YMYL, AI Overviews, and the Fight Against Misinformation
In the AI Overviews era, credibility has become quantifiable. Google’s generative systems (Gemini, MUM) rely on verified data graphs and EEAT-weighted content to produce safe, factual answers.
That means:
YMYL pages with uncited claims are filtered out.
Verified experts and organizations dominate AI citations.
Misinformation triggers model suppression to avoid reputational harm.
The viral Pizza Glue incident proved the risks of low-EEAT content being picked up by AI.
YMYL content helps train safer AI ecosystems: a direct synergy between human integrity and machine learning.
Common YMYL Mistakes to Avoid
Publishing anonymous or AI-only authorship
Making unverifiable health or financial promises
Using clickbait medical or legal titles
Neglecting content updates after policy changes
Linking to low-trust or commercial sources without context
Each of these issues can trigger Google’s “low quality” classification in the Quality Rater model.
The Future of YMYL and Search
By 2026, Google is expected to unify EEAT and YMYL into a single Credibility Evaluation Framework that governs both human and AI-ranked results.
This will combine:
Entity verification (via Knowledge Graph)
Real-time reputation scoring (based on citations and reviews)
AI-driven fact validation pipelines
In this ecosystem, authentic expertise will be the ultimate ranking signal.
The future of SEO isn’t just optimization. It’s accountable information delivery.
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FAQs
How can I tell if my website falls under the YMYL category?
Ask yourse lf: Could inaccurate information on my site cause financial, health, safety, or social harm?If the answer is yes, your content is YMYL.Typical YMYL signals include:
Offering medical or financial advice.
Covering legal or governmental topics.
Encouraging life-impacting decisions.
Handling sensitive user data or payments.
Even lifestyle blogs can fall under YMYL if they provide diet, supplement, or investment tips.
Does YMYL apply to influencers or content creators on platforms like YouTube or TikTok?
Yes.
Google and YouTube both apply YMYL criteria to creators when their content influences health, finance, or safety decisions.
Creators discussing skincare, crypto, or fitness are subject to the same scrutiny as written publishers.
Platforms use signals like credentials, product transparency, and comment moderation to assess reliability.
How does Google’s AI evaluate YMYL content?
Google’s generative systems (Gemini, SGE) use entity-level trust graphs to filter and summarize YMYL information.
AI Overviews prefer content verified by high EEAT scores and reputable data sources.
Pages with ambiguous authorship, outdated facts, or sensational claims are algorithmically excluded from AI-generated answers.
Can AI-generated content be considered trustworthy for YMYL topics?
Only if it’s human-supervised and fact-verified.
Google’s guidelines explicitly state that YMYL content requires human expertise, accountability, and review.
If AI tools are used for drafting, publishers must ensure:
Expert editing before publication.
Citations to authoritative sources.
Disclosures clarifying how AI assisted in creation.
AI can assist YMYL writing, but it cannot replace qualified judgment.
What happens if a YMYL site spreads misinformation or outdated advice?
Google’s systems reduce the visibility of sites that publish inaccurate or harmful YMYL content.
In severe cases, misinformation can lead to manual actions, AI exclusion, or even deindexing.
Consistent fact-checking, transparency, and expert collaboration are vital to maintaining visibility and credibility long term.
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