The E-E-A-T audit: does your site prove what it claims?

What the audit looks at

Quick test: Open your About page and your top service page. Count the claims that have a source next to them.

An E-E-A-T audit examines whether a visitor can find clear, consistent evidence of experience, expertise, authority and trust. It does not rate your business with a made-up score; it shows what is present, what is hard to verify and what to improve.

The audit is useful when your site makes complex or consequential claims, when authors or company details are difficult to confirm, or when you are preparing content for AI answers and search results. It can also help teams align marketing, product and compliance pages around the same verifiable facts.

We review a plan agreed with you, which may include:

• Priority landing pages, guides and product explanations.
• Author, team and company information shown on your site.
• Sources, evidence, disclosures and contact details supporting key claims.
• Consistency between your website and public brand information you identify.

For a broader view of AI search work, see AI search visibility. If you need a wider diagnostic beyond trust and evidence, compare this service with a GEO audit.

How do we check experience, expertise and trust?

We assess whether the evidence is visible, relevant to the claim and understandable to the intended reader. A credential or company description is not enough by itself if a visitor cannot connect it to the advice, product or service being presented.

During the evidence review, we check each priority page for practical questions:

• Does the page identify who created or is responsible for its information?
• Are relevant qualifications, first-hand experience or subject knowledge explained clearly?
• Can a reader trace important statements to supporting sources or product documentation?
• Are ownership, contact routes, limitations and material disclosures easy to locate?
• Do outdated or conflicting statements need correction or a clearer explanation?

We record findings against the page and the evidence observed, rather than presenting broad advice without context. You can then distinguish a content gap from a missing company detail or a verification issue. For teams that need help making the evidence easier to cite, our content for AI answers service can support the next stage.

One audit for AI search and for Google

The audit checks whether your public pages give readers and search products clear, consistent material to interpret; it does not presume access to private ranking systems. We look at the content and trust evidence a visitor can actually see, then note where your publishing setup or brand information makes that evidence difficult to find.

For a company focused on Perplexity, that means reviewing whether relevant pages explain the subject directly, identify credible sources and make the brand’s role clear. It is a practical foundation for Perplexity optimization, not a promise of inclusion in a particular answer. For Google, we review the same public-facing evidence and whether key information is presented clearly on the pages you control.

The audit can also flag technical questions for a separate review, such as whether important pages are accessible and whether structured information accurately represents visible content. See technical AEO for work focused on schema, llms.txt and crawler considerations. We keep recommendations tied to the issue found: adding technical markup is not a substitute for substantiating a claim or clarifying who is responsible for it.

What your team receives

Your team receives findings that connect each observed gap to a practical next action. The aim is to make decisions easier: what to change, where to change it, and who should own the work.

The audit what you receive are planned to the pages and business information agreed at kickoff. They typically include:

• A page-by-page record of evidence and trust issues found in plan.
• A prioritized action list, distinguishing urgent clarity fixes from longer-term work.
• Recommendations for content, author information, sources, disclosures or technical follow-up.
• A summary of dependencies, such as needing product, legal or subject-matter review.
• A summary so decision-makers can understand the findings and agree on owners.

We explain why each recommendation matters and what evidence would demonstrate that the change is complete. If the work points to recurring gaps across many pages, AI visibility monitoring may help your team keep track of public presence after the audit. Monitoring is a separate activity; the audit itself is a focused assessment and action plan.

From kickoff to the first fix

Rule of thumb: A claim with a name, a date and a link beats three claims with none.

The audit starts by agreeing what decisions the findings need to support. That keeps the review focused on your audience, the pages that represent your business and the evidence your team can provide.

The working sequence is straightforward:

1. You share the site, priority pages, target audiences and the questions the audit should answer.
2. We confirm plan, access needs, relevant products or services and any review constraints.
3. Our team checks the pages and public evidence, recording specific observations rather than generic scores.
4. We organize recommendations by issue, affected page and likely internal owner.
5. We present the findings, answer questions and clarify the next actions with your team.

To make the review more useful, prepare current author and company details, product documentation, approved claims, source material and any relevant disclosure requirements. You do not need to rewrite pages in advance. We agree the schedule once the plan and materials are clear, and we can identify which recommendations require input from subject experts or other reviewers.

The 7-point E-E-A-T checklist

Run this checklist on your top 5 pages first.

• Name the author or reviewer on each page.
• Show who the company is: address, team, contact.
• Link claims to a source you can point to.
• Date the page and say when it was last checked.
• Show real work: cases, screenshots, or documents you may share.
• Make policies and risk notes easy to find.
• Check that outside profiles say the same thing as your site.

Terms in one line

E-E-A-T (in plain words: Google's shorthand for experience, expertise, authority and trust).

Trust signal means anything on or about a page that lets a stranger verify a claim.

What an E-E-A-T audit can prove, and what it can't

An E-E-A-T audit can establish what evidence is visible in the agreed plan and where your pages leave readers with unanswered questions. It cannot verify information that your team does not provide or that is not publicly available, so we mark those points for confirmation rather than treating them as facts.

Google and AI answer products decide independently which pages to show, cite or summarize, and their presentation can change. We cannot promise a ranking, citation, recommendation or change in visibility; we can commit to delivering the agreed review, documented evidence and recommendations. The practical safeguard is to treat each recommendation as a testable publishing or information task, not as a guaranteed route to a specific search outcome.

Send 4 things: your site, your top 5 pages, your audience, and the decision the audit should help you make.

How it works

1. Set the review planSend four things: your site, your priority pages, your audience, and the decision the audit should help you make. We confirm what is in plan before reviewing.
2. Provide supporting evidenceSend relevant author details, product documentation, approved claims and sources. We flag information that still needs confirmation.
3. Review pages and public signalsWe record what a visitor can verify, where claims lack context and which pages contain conflicting or unclear information.
4. Prioritize recommendationsFindings are organized by page, issue and likely owner so your team can decide what to address first.
5. Walk through the summaryWe explain the evidence behind the recommendations, answer stakeholder questions and agree the next actions.