Google: Our Systems Aren't Looking For EAT But We Hope Our Signals Align To EAT

Danny Sullivan from Google said that while its search systems are not looking for EAT specifically, Google does hope the outcome of the search results that the algorithm outputs "align with what a good human EAT assessment would be."

Danny Sullivan posted this on Twitter:

Our systems aren't looking for EAT. Our raters are using that to see if our systems are working well to show good information. There are many different signals that, if we get it right, align with what a good human EAT assessment would be. See also: https://t.co/1fs2oJ9Gtl pic.twitter.com/GBbnYEjJUV — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) February 19, 2020

That is an important distinction. The specific things Google tells their human quality raters to look at are not the same things that Google's search algorithms look for. Google aims for the same outcome but the signals the algorithms look for are different from what signals humans are looking for.

And no, search quality raters do not create training data sets for the algorithms to get better:

It's not like that. Rater data is not going directly into ranking systems. I'd refer you here: https://t.co/TteV34T2CK — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) February 19, 2020

This all goes back to Google saying there is not EAT score.

Forum discussion at Twitter.