Google doesn’t treat every web page equally. The reason is that some pages have a direct impact on finance, health, safety, and also person’s life choices. And they come under YMYL in SEO. The Google search engine treats this content to the highest standard, and thus even small inaccuracies cause major real-world consequences.
Many studies already revealed that YMYL pages that rank better are from reputable websites with higher authority scores and user trust. With the number of day-to-day searches, Google often focuses on preventing users from any misinformation.
In this blog post, we will discuss YMYL and its growing importance in digital marketing. We also help you understand the correct way to create content that meets Google’s search quality raters.
What is YMYL?
Being a popular acronym, YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life”. It allows Google to distinguish any content that significantly impacts on person’s future happiness, and health financial stability of any person.
Google considers YMYL as an important concept for determining authoritative sites and pages that appear in search results. With this, the search engine determines web pages quality, which include low-quality or inaccurate information that is intended to do harm.
The above piece of information falls under the category of a YMYL page. The reason is that any misleading information on this page directly harms people’s health. Apart from this, other examples of similar YMYL pages include;
- Health information
- Legal information
- News articles
- Current Events Civics
- Major life decisions
Importance of YMYL in Search Engine Optimization
Google has strict quality standards and makes it mandatory to match them for all content creators who create YMYL content. It reflects that content creators should never leave any stone unturned to make their own content based on the provided Google’s guidelines. It helps rank content at the top of the search results.
Imagine a scenario, users search for better and high-quality content on “How to Quit Smoking?” and they fall on inferior quality of content. What will happen?
Well, it gives them misleading information that can make them habituated to bad practices as well. And it finally impacts adversely on their health.
Google’s March 2025 core update impacts heavily 53% of websites, especially those that focus on helpful content and in-depth E-E-A-T signals. Since Google has the highest quality standards for YMYL pages, those who evaluate content manually need to scrutinize their web pages even more carefully. They do it based on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness). Let’s explore the true meaning of E-E-A-T
- Experience: It determines the content creator’s first-hand experience with the topic they cover.
- Expertise: It reflects the expertise and knowledge of creators related to the targeted topic.
- Authoritativeness: It includes the positive reputation of the website
- Trustworthiness: It reflects the extent to which the website or content is accurate, transparent, uses credible and trustworthy sources, and more.
In case your YMYL page is not capable of matching the defined standards in this horizon, it has a lower chance of ranking.
How to Find YMYL Topics?
You may come across various topics that are clearly YMYL, whereas others can’t be. It indeed relies on the actual details and context. So, let’s discuss some of the ways to discover clear topics.
- Clear Topics
Clear YMYL topics have a great impact on people in terms of their financial stability, health, and overall well-being. These topics mainly include;
- Health and Medical Information
- Financial Information
- News and Current Events
- Safety Information
- Civic and Legal Information
- Information Regarding Groups of People
Above are straightforward categories that should demonstrate strong E-E-A-T, as per Google. When it comes to low-quality content, it causes harm to rank poorly in search results.
- Possibly YMYL Topics
For important topics that fall under the YMYL category, the nature and context of the content are important when it comes to determining the overall classification. Therefore, you need to take into account and determine any possibility of misleading, inaccurate, or inferior-quality YMYL content. It causes significant negative outcomes for people.
Popular Topics Under This Category
Let’s explore several important topics that come under this category;
- Daily Life and Routines
- Parenting and Family
- Travel Advice
- Unlikely or Not to be Topics
You will come across numerous topics that either don’t or are unlikely to fall under the category of YMYL. These are important topics that have no bearing, just like the above topics, including health, personal well-being, financial stability or safety.
Let’s find out some of the top examples of those topics that don’t fall under the YMYL category.
- Entertainment
- Sports and Hobbies
- Fashion and Lifestyles
Well, there could indeed be certain specific exceptions. Meanwhile, these types of topics don’t come with exactly the same standard for search engine rankings.
How to Create a YMYL Page? Top Practices to Consider
As per the latest stats, articles that have more than 3000+ words get an ability to produce 3x higher traffic, 4x more shares, and 3.5 more backlinks. So, creating a YMYL page is a highly responsible task that necessitates you to maintain transparency, accuracy, expert-reviewed content, and mention credible and reputable sources. Let’s explore various important practices.
- Ensure Accuracy
Be it comprehensiveness or accuracy, your YMYL content needs to fulfil both. The reason is that the accurate information you provide has a major impact on the reader’s life and their decision.
Therefore, it’s advisable to verify everything properly, whether it’s facts, figures, or any claims. Make sure you cover topics as comprehensively as possible for you.
The top example for this is none other than “Mayo Clinic,” which specializes in publishing many health-related posts. Of course, every post is well-researched, comprehensive, and accurate. Let’s explore an example of ‘“Coronavirus” published by this website.
- Don’t Forget to Mention Sources
The next important practice you need to implement is “mention sources”. If you include statistics, quotes, data, or other details from various external sources in your YMYL content, you should never forget to mention their authoritative sources. This is an important practice to give credit where it’s due, actually.
Meanwhile, it’s also about creating trust with readers. Cited information from a reliable source reflects the readers’ trust in your website. Make sure you reflect on readers’ concerns about its reliability.
The above content produced serves as a good example that cites genuine sources from other authoritative site throughout the information and support provided. This approach is indeed useful for the SEO performance of the post. It offers numerous benefits in terms of increased visits.
- Mention Input from Experts
When you get input from an expert in the related field and feature it in your post, it comes under the YMYL niche. The reason is that it develops credibility. If you don’t have any site’s authority, you can interview experts.
This is one of the important practices that many writers follow, especially those who belong to the healthcare industry. After initial meetings with healthcare experts to create content, writers continue to engage in further conversation.
Another way you can do this is to work closely with experts while reviewing your content. This practice is followed by Investopedia with its personal finance and investing content to ensure its reliability.
You can engage with experts by recognizing well-known authorities in your area. LinkedIn is the better platform to find them. Once you find someone who is perfect, you can reach out to them easily.
In the above image, you can easily visualize. The post is written by someone else, while reviewed by a renowned medical expert.
- Earn Backlinks from Reputed Websites
Backlinks are basically types of external links that your website earns from other sites. It reflects to search engines about authoritativeness, worthiness, and value being passed on. This has indeed a great impact on search rankings for your every content strategy – YMYL content is certainly not an exception.
To acquire backlinks, you need to focus on crafting top-quality content that offers unique insights, perspectives, data, etc., on other reputable websites that seek to get references. It attracts links naturally.
Meanwhile, if you desire to speed up the entire process, you can even use the link-building tool provided by SEMrush. It gives you a complete list of your website with the advice to approach them to provide backlinks.
Once you have a complete list of websites, you can contact them through email. It’s advisable to draft an email by clearly defining how your content adds value. If your recipient likes the content, you can ask them to link to it. You can also create emails and send them within the tool.
- Highlight your Team’s Credentials
Another important practice is to highlight the credentials and expertise of your team. It’s indeed necessary to build credibility and develop trust with your target audience. So, you need to always ensure to highlight your team’s credentials by maintaining accuracy.
What to Highlight in Team Expertise?
Well, you can highlight various important details about your team members. Some of them are as follows;
- Relevant experience
- Educational degrees
- Certifications that are relevant to your horizon
- Awards, achievements, recognition, etc.
- Featured works and prominent publications
The next target sections are “Team” or “About Us” that you can target. In these sections, you need to offer a fully comprehensive overview of the accomplishments and expertise.
It’s not only for writers but also for editors or subject matter experts who may be relevant. You need to gather the background details of every individual. It helps you highlight the necessary knowledge and details.
- Keep your Content Updated
The next important thing you can do is to keep your YMYL pages updated with the use of the latest details. The reason is that any obsolete or outdated information tends to mislead readers or can harm them by impacting their way of decision-making. So, now the question is, how to stay updated?
You need to create a regular schedule to analyze and then update your YMYL pages. The frequency of doing the same is something that depends heavily on your specific niche. The least you can do is to implement annual updates for relevant content with the majority of your clients.
You need to be thorough while keeping your content updated. Don’t forget to double-check for every detail you use, revisit recommendations or advice, replace data or statistics, etc.
Wrap Up
YMYL SEO evolves continuously with the latest Google updates and user expectations. So, you need to have a strategic approach based on authority and trust to stay ahead in your horizon. With the digital landscape shift, YMYL content governs algorithms and metrics.
In order to thrive, businesses need to implement E-E-A-T principles into different facets of their search engine optimization strategy. It’s really important to maintain transparency and ensure integrity in high-quality content, which distinguishes YMYL websites apart. The future often favors those people who adapt fast and cater to their audience’s requirements. Get in touch with a professional SEO company to make an impeccable strategy for your YMYL web page or content.
