Not all website content is rated equally. If you’re interested in SEO best practices, you’ll be aware that Google is continually updating its search and ranking algorithms to improve the search engine results page (SERP).
Google’s core objective is to provide the most relevant results that satisfy searcher intent. This is where YMYL comes in.
What Does YMYL Mean?
YMYL stands for ‘Your Money or Your Life.’ It is a class of content that Google first introduced with the release of its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. According to Google, YMYL refers to “pages or topics that could potentially impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.”
YMYL has had a significant impact on how Google ranks content. It is, therefore, crucial to have some understanding of it in order to leverage Google’s algorithm in your favor and get your content towards the top of the SERP.
What Does Google Consider as YMYL Content?
Google considers various types of content as YMYL. You can refer to section 2.3 of the SQEG for an in-depth breakdown, but the main point to keep in mind is that it broadly relates to wealth and health.
Google does not strictly confine YMYL content to the finance or healthcare industries; it can also relate to genres, including:
- News and current events
- Civics, government, and law
- Shopping
- Information about, or for, groups – for example, veterans groups or victims of major events
- Other topics include important aspects of people’s lives such as fitness and nutrition, housing, university, and finding a job
YMYL content does seem to be quite poorly defined. But it is essentially any content that offers advice, helps with decision making, or relates to the searcher’s life. For example, a piece of content about the inventor of the Heimlich maneuver would not qualify as YMYL content. Meanwhile, a breakdown of how to perform the Heimlich maneuver would be YMYL content.
How Does Google Rank YMYL Content?
Google has applied various YMYL-focussed updates to its algorithm. For example, the 2018 ‘Medic Update’ had a tangible effect on sites closely related to the health and finance verticals.
More recently, Google has geared its efforts towards combatting disinformation (content created to confuse and sow discord: think psy-ops and trolls) in order to reduce instances of misinformation (the inadvertent promotion of disinformation).
It’s impossible to identify the specific ranking factors but Google has stated that its ranking algorithm gives more weight to YMYL content. “Where our algorithms detect that a user’s query relates to a ‘YMYL’ topic, we will give more weight in our ranking systems to factors like our understanding of the expertise, authoritativeness, or trustworthiness of the pages we present in response.”
The above statement introduces another acronym – ‘E-A-T’ – that is key to understanding how Google ranks YMYL content. Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness are the metrics that Google uses to rank order YMYL content. In the same way that traditional SEO ranking factors, such as Domain Authority and your site’s backlink profile, are used to rank non-YMYL content, E-A-T is used to rank YMYL content.
Remember that Google’s core objective is to provide the most relevant results that satisfy searcher intent. At a minimum, YMYL content must be up-to-date and factually accurate.
‘Your Money or Your Life’ and Your SEO
Now that you’ve got a basic understanding of how Google ranks YMYL content based on E-A-T / Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, it’s important to take steps towards improving your site’s E-A-T ranking.
Here are a few quick wins that are immediately actionable.
- Continuously work on your site’s E-A-T ranking: Make sure your business’s contact information is readily available and update any pages that contain outdated advice or information that’s no longer factually accurate.
- Create high-quality content: Focus on creating content that your readers will find useful. Refer back to Google’s recommendations in the SQEG, and keep optimizing for on-page ranking factors.
- Include relevant external links: Always include at least one external link to other sites in your content. External links can help improve your site’s trustworthiness. Remember to link to authoritative sites rather than low-quality or spam sites.
- Build your backlink profile: We’ve written extensively about the importance of building your backlink profile. Securing links to your content from other sites passes link equity to your site, which Google views as a sign of authority.
Having a product or service is one thing; marketing it is another. If you’re serious about your SEO strategy, we can review your current strategy and assist you with your SEO efforts.
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