Pillar · Hub
Experience — the first E in E-E-A-T: first-hand knowledge
Systems that evaluate whether content reflects genuine, lived experience
The question
Has someone here actually done the thing, or only read about it?
What Google goes by
The first 'E' in E-E-A-T, Experience, was added in December 2022. It asks whether the person who made the content has first-hand experience with the topic. For Google, this is the dimension hardest to measure algorithmically. It requires telling content that shows real experience apart from content that merely discusses a topic.
What this means for your page
Straight from the system pages: what each system rewards or punishes in practice.
Own measurement data, expert assessments from in-house sources and direct observations all increase the OriginalContentScore. Writing 'our station is currently measuring 87 km/h wind gusts' creates more original value than copying the same number from another service. Flag your own data visibly.
The QRG (Quality Rater Guidelines) are publicly available and should be required reading for editorial and product teams. The goal is what a rater would judge as 'high quality' per the QRG, not what tools measure as 'optimized'. The QRG distinguish strictly between 'Page Quality' (the quality of the page itself) and 'Needs Met' (does the page match the search query).
What you can do
Only one of Google’s eight Helpful Content practices addresses Experience. That is not a hole in our mapping. It is the finding: the public guidance says least about this dimension.
Original information, own research or analysis; substantial, complete coverage of the topic that goes beyond the obvious — not mere summaries or rewrites.
Helpful Content: Content & Quality · Original content systems · Helpful content system (part of Core Ranking) · Panda (integrated into Core Ranking)
Which practice belongs to which dimension is our assessment [C]. Both ends, the practice and the named systems, are documented by Google [O]. All eight, with the systems behind them →
The systems
Primary (2)
Systems where Experience is the primary E-E-A-T dimension.
This score measures how much first-hand material a piece of content contains: information found only there, that an AI could not reconstruct from other sources. The higher the score, the more original the content. It is the closest machine equivalent to the E-E-A-T dimension 'Experience' (lived experience and direct observation).
Not a live signal used daily in ranking — but the foundation on which all quality models are calibrated. The IS-Score (Information Satisfaction) summarizes how well a page meets a user's information need, rated by trained human raters. The QRG (Quality Rater Guidelines) are the public rulebook by which these raters judge.
Flanking (4)
Systems that support Experience indirectly.
Deep Dives (9)
NavBoost: How Google Uses Click Behavior to Re-Rank Search Results
From DOJ testimony to leaked API documentation — the most important ranking signal you can't directly manipulate
Q* and P*: The Two Pillars of Google's Ranking Architecture
The DOJ trial revealed that Google's ranking ultimately reduces to two top-level signals — Quality (Q*) and Popularity (P*). This is what the evidence shows about how they work.
IS-Calibration: The Human Rater System That Trains Google's Quality Models
The hardest evidence in the entire matrix — DOJ/sworn material confirms the rater system that calibrates every quality signal Google uses
OriginalContentScore: How Google Measures Content Originality
The leak field that measures how much original material a document contains — information that is only found there and that an AI couldn't reconstruct from other sources
contentEffort: How Google Estimates Editorial Effort
The AI model that estimates how much editorial work went into a page — and why 'effort' is becoming a ranking signal
Glue: How Google Measures Interaction with Special Search Features
The NavBoost counterpart for carousels, 'People also ask' boxes, and news features — measuring whether users interact with special elements, not just blue links
Site Reputation Abuse: What Google Suspended in Europe — and What It Did Not
What Google suspended in the EEA is the manual action — the replacement removes exactly what parasite SEO pays for
What Good Content Is: contentEffort and Google's Soft Metrics
One leaked field, one rater definition, twelve official questions, and a checklist that marks which parts are evidence and which are our reading.
Links That Count: Five Link Tactics Against the Leak and the Patents
A popular link guide reads PageRank buckets, trusted anchors and context hashes out of Google's leak. The fields are real. The trusted sources are news sites, the bucket counts onsite anchors, and the cap is 200, not zero.