Google E-E-A-T: Stop Hiding Behind Your Brand (Show the Receipts)

By: Martin Grozev | Performance Marketing Specialist 8 Years Experience | $3M Managed Ad Spend |

The internet is currently drowning in "commodity content." With one click, a competitor can generate 50 articles on "B2B Sales Strategies" using ChatGPT. The content is grammatically correct, factual, and completely worthless.

Google knows this. That is why they updated their Quality Rater Guidelines to add an extra letter to E-A-T: Experience.

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is Google’s new filter. It is no longer enough to be "correct." A Wikipedia article is correct. An AI is correct. To rank in 2026, you must prove you have lived the topic. You need "Receipts."

If your blog posts are written by "Admin" or "Marketing Team," you are sending a signal to Google that nobody stands behind this advice. And if nobody stands behind it, Google won't rank it.

1. Why Google Wants Your "Receipts" (The Experience Signal)

There is a massive difference between Expertise and Experience.

• Expertise (The What): Knowing that "ROAS stands for Return on Ad Spend." (AI can do this).

• Experience (The How): Explaining "How I fixed a crashing ROAS during Black Friday by cutting bids 20%." (AI cannot do this).

The Anti-AI Strategy: Google’s algorithm is now hunting for Information Gain—new data points that do not exist in the Large Language Model (LLM) training set. If your article just summarizes what is already on Page 1, you are flagged as "unhelpful."

The Operator's Rule: Every piece of content must contain a "First-Person Signal." Stop writing in the passive voice ("It is recommended that..."). Start writing in the active voice ("We found that...").

• Bad: "CRM implementation can take 3 months."

• Good: "In our last 3 HubSpot migrations, the average timeline was 94 days."

The specific number (94 days) is the receipt. It proves a human measured it. This is the only defensible moat against AI content.

2. Building Authoritative Founder Bylines

The era of the "Faceless Brand" is over. Google wants to know who is giving the advice.

If I inspect your blog and the author is listed as "Content Team" or "Company Name," you are capping your SEO potential. You need to treat your Founder or Head of Product as a Subject Matter Expert (SME).

The Byline Audit:

1. Real Name & Face: Use a high-res headshot, not a cartoon avatar.

2. The Bio: Don't write "John loves coffee." Write "John has managed $10M in ad spend for SaaS startups."

3. SameAs Schema: Use structured data to link this author bio to their LinkedIn and Twitter profiles.

This creates a "Knowledge Graph" connection. Google looks at the author, scans their LinkedIn to verify they are real, checks if they have been cited elsewhere, and then assigns a "Trust Score" to the content.

3. On-Page Signals: The Death of Stock Photos

Nothing screams "I used AI to write this" louder than a stock photo of a smiling business team shaking hands.

The Data: According to a famous A/B test by MarketingExperiments, replacing a generic stock photo with a real image of the company’s founder increased conversion rates by 35%. Furthermore, Google’s Cloud Vision API can instantly identify stock images. If your blog post uses the same image as 10,000 other sites, Google treats it as "duplicate visual content," lowering your uniqueness score.

The Operator’s Rule: "Evidence Boxes" To prove Experience, every major claim needs a visual "receipt."

• Don't use a stock photo of a computer.

• Do use a screenshot of your actual Google Ads dashboard.

The "Evidence Box" Tactic: At the top of high-value articles, add a custom HTML box titled "How We Tested This."

• Text: "This guide is based on $5M of ad spend managed across 15 B2B client accounts. We tested these bid strategies personally."

• This explicitly signals to the Quality Raters that this is First-Hand Knowledge.

4. Case Studies as SEO Assets (The "Link Magnet" Effect)

Most agencies bury their case studies in a hidden section. This is a waste. A Case Study is the ultimate E-E-A-T signal because it generates Backlinks—the currency of Authority.

The Science: A massive study by Backlinko and BuzzSumo analyzed 912 million blog posts. They found that "Original Research and Data" (i.e., Case Studies) generate 2.5x more backlinks and significantly more social shares than standard "How-To" articles. Why? Because AI cannot invent a case study. Other writers must cite you as the source.

How to Weaponize Case Studies: We don't leave case studies in the silo. We inject them into our informational content.

• The Injection: "When we migrated [Client Name], we found 50 orphaned pages. Here is the crawl map from that specific project."

• The Result: You create Information Gain. Google rewards content that provides new data points found nowhere else on the web.

5. The "Code of Trust" (Schema Checklist)

Finally, you need to speak the robot’s language. Most founders write the bio but forget the code.

• Person Schema: Do not just list a name. Use Person schema to link the author to their specific LinkedIn URL. This "disambiguates" them from other people with the same name.

• ReviewedBy Schema: Even if a junior writer drafts the post, have your Founder review it. Add a "Reviewed By [Founder Name]" tag. This passes the Founder's high authority score onto the junior writer's article.

• Citation Attribute: When you cite external sources, use the cite HTML attribute. It shows Google you are referencing authoritative sources, which boosts your own trust score.

The Bottom Line

E-E-A-T is not a "nice to have." It is the only thing standing between you and the "AI Sludge."

1. Kill the "Content Team" Byline: Put a real expert’s face on the post.

2. Verify with Schema: Link that expert to their LinkedIn.

3. Show the Receipts: Replace stock photos with real screenshots of your work.

4. Inject Proof: Weave case studies into every guide.