Helpful people first

Google says its systems prioritise helpful, people-first content and use a mix of factors to identify content that demonstrates experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T), with trust the most important; E-E-A-T itself is not a single ranking factor, and content made mainly to attract search visits, or that leaves readers needing to search again, is what the guidance tells creators to avoid. Its generative AI content guidance (updated 1 October 2026) applies the same bar to AI-assisted pages: fact-check and review all AI-generated content, including titles, meta descriptions, structured data and alt text, before publishing, and it now points to the rater guidelines' sections on scaled content abuse and low-effort main content, while noting that rater scores do not directly affect ranking.