Ryan Walsh
15/01/2025

YMYL in SEO

Google is like a vast library. It’s filled with pages and blog posts that could answer any shopper’s question, from facts about famous rugby players to how to make a particular pasta dish. Yet some content marketing is generally more critical than others.

Making your pasta dish poorly won’t dramatically impact your life, other than perhaps calling it a takeaway.
However, taking advice on a solicitor’s website, for example, for a break-up you’re going through, well, that’s a whole new ball game. That advice, which you base a decision on, say, what will happen to your home post-separation, is massive.

This content, the content marketing deemed to have a large impact on your life, or at least to critical decisions you plan on making, is called YMYL content.

This stands for your money or your life—which sounds dramatic, but it has to be. It’s Google’s way of saying, “We want this content marketing, the work on which people base critical decision-making. We need that to be super high quality and well written.”

What is YMYL?

Tell me more about YMYL.

Your money or life is simply content marketing, such as a blog post you read on a solicitor’s website. If you take the advice contained in the article, it could greatly impact your life. Therefore, Google’s algorithm pays particular attention to whether that information is of good quality or not.

There are many Google “filters” if you like that ensure this; we won’t go into too much detail, but here are some of the ways Google ensure the SERPs are better quality, especially the YMYL pages:

– Google’s spam algorithm filters
– Google’s Knowledge Vault
– Google’s RankBrain uses machine learning to see which pages better answer a user query
– Google E-EAT works out which pages are good quality.

Human evaluators at Google

To create the Google E-EAT framework, Google used human evaluators to evaluate the quality of various business websites.
Then, this framework was created. It evaluates the author’s level of experience, expertise, authenticity, and trustworthiness of the page.
It uses this to determine how well that page answers the query.

What types of pages do Google brand as “YMYL” pages?

• News
• Health
• Finance
• Healthcare
• And many more

Why Does YMYL Matter in SEO?

So, how does YMYL impact organic SEO?

As with all content marketing, it’s essential that the work is well-written and offers high-quality information. For example, the work is detailed and provides many relevant facts. This is especially important for YMYL because Google’s algorithm will ensure the job is high-quality and offers accurate and helpful information.

Google does not want to have content marketing that offers misleading information.

So, YMYL content marketing must offer high-quality information; copywriters must spend a long time ensuring the work is high quality. It must also be well-written and have a high Google E-EAT score.

 

Is Google E-EAT part of the YMYL Google update?

We consider the YMYL and Google E-EAT updates separate, but they are trying to achieve the same end goal: publishing high-quality content marketing that offers reliable and helpful information to shoppers. Therefore, if the work is well-written, researched, and has a lot of helpful information, it should be fair regarding its YMYL score and Google E-EAT score.

 

Don’t use A. I don’t think that content marketing can be written in 5 minutes flat

It’s an old saying, but that quality always pays.

This is definitely true. When it comes to SEO, it’s better to invest your time in quality methods than aim for quantity and have a website that doesn’t rank anywhere near page one of Google. So do take your time to produce quality work. This is particularly important when it comes to writing content marketing.

Instead of writing, let’s say, a content thin article once a week, invest your energy and time into writing a superb, high-quality piece of content marketing, say just once a month. But aim for that piece to be of absolute quality; aim for it to be better than any other piece of content marketing written about the same subject.

Also, I aim to obtain a high Google E-EAT score for every piece of content marketing.

Cite your sources

For readers, shoppers, and Google’s algorithm to have more confidence in the facts and your business’s content marketing, it’s important to cite relevant facts. For example, you could quote facts from a newspaper website that has conducted market research. If you then attach anchor text and an outbound link, this helps Google’s algorithm have more confidence in the work.

For example, you may quote the Office of National Statistics, the BBC, or the Guardian. By adding an external link to that page, you show that you have researched to make the article more accurate.

Do read more about Google E-EAT.

With every article your business publishes, ensure you try to improve your business’s Google E-EAT score. So when writing the work, for example, show that you have real experience with what you are talking about. Also, show why you are an expert on that subject.
Also, ask your SEO agency to build high-quality and relevant backlinks.

 

Do you want to hire our SEO experts?

For over the last 10 years, we have worked on many different websites for many different Welsh businesses. Often, these companies, such as lawyers, operated in YMYL business sectors. Therefore, Our SEO consultants are well-versed in writing content marketing and have a high Google E-EAT score. They also keep the Google YMYL update in mind so that we go the extra mile to ensure that the YMYL content marketing we produce is very high quality.