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Your Money Your Life (YMYL) SEO

Definition

The concept ‘Your Money or Your Life’ (YMYL) was created by Google to protect search engine users from untrustworthy content online. This content can be classified as harmful to anyone who may consume it. It may impact a person’s life financially, emotionally, mentally and physically.

In order to protect its users , Google has created SEO guidelines whereby quality raters increase assessment and evaluation of websites to ensure relevance and effectiveness. Data, facts and figures must be checked and verified, otherwise these websites will not be ranked. Pages containing YMYL content are subject to these guidelines. Google will protect search engine users from any content that may cause harm to their lives. 

Elaboration d'une stratégie de référencement naturel

Different Types of YMYL Content

There is no specific criteria that is required for a website to be classified as YMYL content. However, there are a number of areas of concern that are usually evaluated closely by Google. Some of these more obvious topics for concern include any page that may cause harm to or have a negative impact on a person´s life. 

Current World Affairs

Any website publishing information about current news topics, international affairs, politics, scientific discoveries etc. Misinformation can lead people to be ill informed about events around the world. This can cause public confusion, and may influence people´s opinions based on data that is accurate.

Health Practices

Websites providing healthcare advice, including information about treatment plans, diagnoses, symptoms, and cures for any illness or injury. These sites promote potentially harmful or unhelpful practices to people that can lead to serious health consequences. Authors of these sites may lack the correct knowledge or qualifications to be offering healthcare.

An example of this YMYL content is this blog post from Spatz Medical. This article is providing tips on weight loss practices. This content may cause potential harm to someone’s health, both mental and/or physical. This is the type of content Google is aiming to protect its users from.

weight_loss

Financial Help

Pages offering financial advice about money and how to use it e.g. investing, stocks, credit scores, insurance and banking practices. Harmful financial advice can have unfortunate consequences for a person’s financial situation.

invest_stocks

Information about Certain Demographics 

Pages about groups of people including race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. Any misinformation spread about a certain group can result in great confusion, misunderstanding and potential discrimination.

Safety Measures

Any content covering safety regulations e.g. food safety, safety procedures in the workplace, or road safety. A simple error or misjudgement in this information can put people´s lives at risk. 

The Importance of E-E-A-T in SEO for YMYL Content

YMYL is crucial in SEO because Google is focused on providing the most reliable and pertinent results to its users and  YMYL content comes under great scrutiny when Google is ranking it. 

Regular Google Algorithm Updates ensure users receive the utmost reliable and relevant results. These updates are also used to optimise any YMYL content. There are separate, higher standards for these topics due to the potential higher risks they pose for search engine users. For example,  Google uses an additional evaluation system called EEAT which stands for: Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Search Quality Raters use these 4 criteria to help them rank YMYL pages.

Experience

How much experience does the writer of the page have in the content they are producing? Have they previously worked in this field?  For example, a blog about how to invest in stocks should be written by someone that has hands-on experience in this area, like a stock broker or financial analyst.

Expertise

Expertise coincides with experience. Is the author an expert in this topic? Do they have the skills and qualifications necessary to offer advice or information on this subject? For example, has medical advice provided on how to target neck pain been provided by a medical professional like a doctor or nurse?

Authoritativeness

Is the website, where the content is coming from, legitimate? Does it have a good reputation? Is the public aware of the brand or the author? Has it been cited in other articles based on the same topic? These questions must be asked when determining the creditability of the page.

Trustworthiness

Can this source be trusted by search engine users? Are the facts, figures, data and/or advice provided deemed accurate and reliable? Is there any misleading information?

YMYL pages that do not meet all this criteria will be very unlikely to rank. They are considered low-quality content. Google will not rank them in order to protect users from potentially harmful topics that could alter their lives in a negative way. Therefore, any brand or author wishing to write YMYL content and increase their ranking on SERP must abide by these standards in order to succeed

How to Create a Successful YMYL Page

In order to obtain a successful, highly ranked YMYL page, it is important to recognise that Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines for evaluation must be adhered to. Authors can do this by following a number of important steps. High-Quality content is most important for Google when ranking YMYL pages. Improved quality ensures accuracy, reliability, authoritativeness and builds trust with the reader.

High Quality Content

The content provided in the article should be heavily researched, fact-checked, and verified. It should be in-depth and accurate, providing people with clear, concise answers or information. It must comply with Google´s Search Quality Rater´s Guidelines. 

Reliable Sources Cited

Ensure that any data or figures in the article are cited. You must provide the sources for your information. This ensures fairness but also builds a relationship of trust between the author and the reader. When the reader sees sources cited on a page, they are more inclined to trust it. For example, citing a source from a governmental association is going to reassure the reader that the article is legitimate. 

Providing Backlinks

Any backlinks to your website from other credible sources indicate that your website has authority. It builds a stronger reputation for your website. To create these backlinks it is important to provide reliable, credible, and useful information that other websites will want to use in their pages.

Author Credentials

To further build on that bridge of trust with the reader, providing the author´s credentials helps significantly. It adds a sense of credibility to your page. This action boosts your EEAT evaluation. For example, below is the credentials provided for the author of an article on Harvard Health Publishing.

author_credentials

 

Up-To-Date Content

It is vital to keep the content on your page up-to-date at all times. In order for your YMYL page to stay relevant, your data must also be relevant. Any information that is old or outdated can be harmful to people who consume it so ensure that there are constant updates made on the page. 

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