EAT

What Does EAT Mean?

The Quick Answer

EAT means "Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness."

More Observations...

It's a framework used in search-engine optimization (SEO) by Google's quality raters to help determine how well a website meets the needs of its users, influencing the sites visibility in search results. Here's a breakdown of each component:

Expertise: Refers to the creator's depth of knowledge on the topic. It signifies that the content should be informative and valuable, created by someone who is knowledgeable in the subject matter, whether through formal education, professional experience, or a passionate interest.
Authoritativeness: Concerns the credibility of the content, the author, and the website where the content is published. It indicates that both the author and the website are recognized as reputable sources of information on the topic at hand.
Trustworthiness: Relates to the reliability and honesty of the content, the author, and the website. It suggests that users can trust the information to be accurate, transparent, and secure.

EAT is usually typed as E-A-T. It was superseded in December 2022, when Google added an additional "E" for "Experience" to form the acronym E-E-A-T.

Image for EAT

When I write EAT, I mean this:

E-A-T was superseded in 2022, by EEAT.

Summary of Key Points

We have summarized the key points in the table below:

EAT
Definition:	Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness
Type:	Acronym
Guessability:	4: Difficult to guess
Typical Users:	Specialists

An Academic Look at EAT

image for academic look, showing a teacher with a mortar board

EAT can be considered an acronym, because it is formed by taking the initial letters of the words "Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness" and pronouncing them together as a single word, "eat." Other examples of acronyms are:

GOAT - "Greatest Of All Time."
UNICEF - "United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund."

Acronyms are often used as shorthand in many professional fields, such as technology, business, medicine, and government, as well as in general chat. They can help save time and space when communicating, especially when talking about complex or technical information. They differ from initialism abbreviations, which are pronounced using their individual letters. For example: