E-E-A-T & YMYL STRATEGY.
Google classifies every health page as YMYL — Your Money Your Life. That triggers a different ranking standard, enforced by human quality raters who assess real medical expertise, not keyword density. E-E-A-T isn't a ranking factor you can optimise around. It's the prerequisite for ranking at all. SERQON builds the trust architecture that lets health brands pass that threshold.
Google scores all four.
Health brands must pass all four.
E-E-A-T isn't a single signal — it's a framework of four distinct quality dimensions, each evaluated independently by Google's quality raters. Missing any one of them is enough to suppress YMYL health content regardless of performance on the others.
Does the author have first-hand experience with the health topic? Google distinguishes between an MD writing about a condition they treat versus a writer researching it. Personal experience signals are now explicit in the Quality Rater Guidelines.
- First-person clinical experience markers
- Author patient-care background disclosed
- Case study and outcome references
- Practice or clinical affiliation stated
Does the author hold recognised credentials in the relevant health domain? For YMYL health content, expertise means licensure or academic qualifications — not general interest or SEO writing experience.
- MD, RN, RDN, LCSW, PharmD bylines
- Author credential schema markup
- LinkedIn and institutional profile links
- Academic publications cited where relevant
Is the brand or author recognised as authoritative by other credible health entities? Authority is built externally — through medical journal citations, health news coverage, association memberships, and peer recognition.
- Medical journal and NIH citations
- Health news media mentions
- Medical association memberships
- DR 55+ health backlink profile
Does the site make it easy to verify who is responsible for its health information? Trustworthiness is the most weighted dimension — a site can have all three others and still fail if it lacks transparent accountability.
- Editorial review policy published on-site
- Last reviewed date on all health content
- Medical citations with source links
- About, contact, and corrections pages
Your rankings dropped.
Here's exactly why.
The 2022 Helpful Content Update and 2023–2024 core updates disproportionately hit health websites that lacked E-E-A-T signals. If your traffic chart looks like the one below, the cause isn't technical — it's trust architecture.
Health content written by uncredentialed authors · No editorial review process · Medical claims without citations · Anonymous "Staff Writer" bylines · Thin condition pages copied from WebMD · No organisational trust page. If your site had three or more of these, HCU targeted you directly.
Generic SEO agencies
can't audit YMYL.
Implementing E-E-A-T signals for a health brand requires understanding what Google's quality raters actually look for when they assess medical content — knowledge that only comes from working exclusively in the health vertical.
Quality rater guidelines are health-specific
Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines contain a distinct section on YMYL content with health-specific evaluation criteria that differ from every other content category. A generalist SEO agency optimising for E-E-A-T without health expertise is optimising against a document they haven't read in full — or don't know how to apply. SERQON's entire practice is built around the health section of those guidelines.
Medical credentials aren't interchangeable
An MD writing about psychiatry is not the same E-E-A-T signal as an MD writing about oncology — and a quality rater knows the difference. Implementing author credentials for health content requires understanding which credentials are credible for which health topics, how to display them in a way quality raters recognise, and what schema markup Google uses to verify them. Generic SEO doesn't have this granularity.
False E-E-A-T signals backfire on YMYL sites
Adding a generic "medically reviewed" badge without a documented review process, or adding a credential byline that doesn't match the content topic, doesn't improve E-E-A-T — it actively signals inauthenticity. Quality raters are trained to identify performative trust signals that don't reflect genuine expertise. Getting E-E-A-T wrong on a YMYL site is worse than having no signals at all, because it signals deceptive intent.
Seven E-E-A-T systems.
All YMYL-calibrated.
Each deliverable addresses a specific dimension of E-E-A-T as defined by Google's Quality Rater Guidelines for health content — not generic best practices.
YMYL E-E-A-T site audit
Full site evaluation scoring every health page against all four E-E-A-T dimensions using SERQON's YMYL audit framework — modelled directly on Google's Quality Rater Guidelines. Outputs a prioritised gap report.
- Per-page E-E-A-T scoring (0–100)
- Fix, consolidate, or remove recommendations
- YMYL classification check per content type
- Quality rater simulation review
Medical author credential system
End-to-end author credential implementation: byline strategy, author bio pages, credential schema markup, and institutional profile links. Every author matched to appropriate health topics by specialty.
- Author byline strategy per content type
- Credential bio pages with schema
- Person + author schema markup
- Author–topic specialty matching
Editorial review process architecture
Design and publication of a documented editorial process — the single highest-impact individual E-E-A-T action for YMYL sites. Includes reviewer credentials, review cycle, correction policy, and on-page trust markers.
- Editorial policy page (full documentation)
- Medical Review Board page
- Last-reviewed date system site-wide
- Corrections and update policy
Medical citation implementation
Systematic addition of peer-reviewed citations to all factual health claims. Source selection, inline citation formatting, reference list structure, and citation schema that signals genuine clinical research engagement.
- PubMed, NIH, CDC source selection
- Inline citation markup per claim
- Reference list with schema
- Citation freshness monitoring
Organisational trust page build
About page, contact, editorial policy, and privacy pages built to quality rater standards. Includes organisational history, mission, team credentials, and the accountability signals that determine trust scoring.
- YMYL-standard About page
- Team credentials and photos
- Mission and founding story
- Contact and accountability signals
Google HCU recovery programme
Structured 12-week recovery programme for health websites affected by the 2022–2024 Google algorithm updates. Combines all E-E-A-T implementations in sequence, with monthly quality rater simulation testing.
- 5-stage recovery roadmap
- Monthly quality rater testing
- Traffic recovery tracking
- Core update monitoring
YMYL author & content schema
Full structured data implementation for health content: MedicalWebPage, Person, author, reviewer, medicalAudience, and citation schema. Makes E-E-A-T signals machine-readable for Google's knowledge graph.
- MedicalWebPage schema site-wide
- Person + credentials schema per author
- Review and citation schema
- FAQ schema on all YMYL pages
What a YMYL-compliant
health site looks like.
| E-E-A-T signal | ❌ Before SERQON | ✓ After SERQON | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author bylines | Anonymous "Staff Writer" or first-name only — no credentials, no professional bio, no institutional link | → | Named author with credential (MD, RN, RDN), professional bio page, LinkedIn + institutional profile linked, Person schema implemented |
| Editorial process | No documented review process — content goes from writer to publish without clinical review. Quality raters flag immediately. | → | Published editorial review process — reviewer credentials, review cycle, last-reviewed date on every health page, corrections policy |
| Medical citations | Zero citations or links to Wikipedia and WebMD as primary sources — secondary sources flagged as low-expertise by raters | → | Inline citations to PubMed, NIH, CDC on every factual claim. Reference list with citation schema. Sources reviewed for recency annually |
| Trust pages | Sparse About page with no team credentials, no mission, no editorial accountability — looks anonymous to quality raters | → | YMYL-standard About, Editorial Policy, Medical Review Board, and Contact pages. Organisation entity schema linking all pages |
| Author schema | No structured data for authors — Google's knowledge graph can't verify the claimed credentials against external sources | → | Person schema with credentials, sameAs links to institutional profiles, author schema on all content. Machine-readable E-E-A-T |
| Content depth | Thin condition pages (400–600 words) competing with NHS and Mayo Clinic. YMYL pages need depth that matches the stakes of the query | → | Condition pages 1,500–3,500 words covering symptom, cause, diagnosis, treatment, and when-to-seek-care — all peer-reviewed and clinician-reviewed |
| E-E-A-T score | 12–28/100 on SERQON's YMYL audit framework — below the threshold for consistent YMYL ranking | → | 78–94/100 post-implementation — above quality rater threshold for all four E-E-A-T dimensions. Audited quarterly. |
E-E-A-T requirements by
health vertical.
YMYL classification applies to all health content — but the credential requirements and trust signal thresholds differ across niches. Mental health and pharmaceutical content face the most stringent quality rater evaluation.
Highest YMYL scrutiny. Crisis and treatment content requires LCSW, LPC, or psychiatrist credentials. Safe messaging guidelines must be integrated into editorial policy.
Critical fitFTC and YMYL dual compliance. Efficacy claims need RDN or PharmD authorship and clinical study citations. E-E-A-T is the primary defence against FTC enforcement as well as ranking suppression.
Critical fitFDA promotion guidelines and YMYL requirements overlap significantly. Drug information pages need PharmD or MD authorship and FDA-sourced citations. Most regulated content category.
Critical fitClinical evidence pages for devices need MD or biomedical engineer authorship. FDA clearance documentation and clinical trial citations are the primary E-E-A-T signals in this vertical.
Critical fitProvider credential pages, treatment explanations, and condition guides all require E-E-A-T architecture. The About page and practitioner profiles are the primary rater evaluation points.
Strong fitProcedure pages and oral health content require DDS/DMD authorship. Patient education content benefits from ADA citation as an authority source recognised by quality raters.
Strong fitMusculoskeletal condition content requires DC credentials. Clinical evidence citations from peer-reviewed journals are especially important given the higher rater scrutiny on this specialty.
Strong fitYMYL classification applies when content addresses weight management, medical conditions, or supplements. NASM, RDN, or exercise science credentials are the appropriate byline standard.
Strong fitE-E-A-T & YMYL —
answered directly.
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — the four quality signals Google's human quality raters use to assess web content. For health websites, E-E-A-T is not optional: Google classifies all health content as YMYL (Your Money Your Life), which triggers a stricter quality evaluation threshold. Health pages without demonstrable E-E-A-T signals — credentialed author bylines, editorial review processes, medical citations, and transparent organisational trust pages — are systematically downranked regardless of their technical SEO. The 2022 Helpful Content Update and subsequent core updates specifically targeted health sites that lacked these signals, causing widespread ranking losses across the health vertical.
YMYL stands for Your Money Your Life — Google's classification for content that could significantly impact a user's health, financial stability, or safety if inaccurate. Health content is the primary YMYL category. When Google's quality raters flag a page as YMYL, they apply a higher quality standard: the page must demonstrate real medical expertise, accurate clinical information, and clear accountability for that information. YMYL classification is why health websites require fundamentally different SEO strategies from e-commerce or SaaS sites — and why generic SEO agencies that don't work exclusively in health consistently underperform for health brand clients. A YMYL page that fails the quality rater evaluation simply doesn't rank, regardless of its backlinks or technical performance.
Google HCU recovery for health websites requires addressing the E-E-A-T gaps that caused the ranking drop — not technical fixes. The primary recovery actions are: adding credentialed author bylines to all health content, publishing a documented editorial review process, removing or substantially improving thin health content, adding medical citations to all factual claims, and implementing author schema markup. Recovery typically takes 3–6 months after E-E-A-T implementation because Google's quality rater evaluation cycle is slow — changes to your site take time to be re-evaluated. Sites that recover fastest are those that address all four E-E-A-T dimensions simultaneously rather than one at a time, and those that don't publish new content until the existing content is brought to standard.
For health websites, the four highest-impact E-E-A-T signals are: credentialed author bylines with verifiable professional credentials (MD, RN, RDN, LCSW), a documented editorial review process published on-site, medical citations from peer-reviewed or authoritative sources (PubMed, NIH, CDC), and a comprehensive About page that establishes organisational expertise and mission. Author schema markup, a dedicated editorial policy page, and trust signals on individual content pages (last reviewed date, reviewer name, source list) are the secondary signals that reinforce the primary four. Trustworthiness is consistently identified as the most weighted dimension — a site can score well on Experience, Expertise, and Authoritativeness and still fail the quality rater evaluation if it lacks transparent accountability mechanisms.
TRUST IS
NOT
OPTIONAL.
We'll audit every page of your health site against Google's YMYL quality standards — scoring E-E-A-T signals across all four dimensions — and deliver a prioritised recovery roadmap in 48 hours. No obligation. No pitch.