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SEO Glossary /

YMYL Pages

What are YMYL Pages?

YMYL “Your Money or Your Life” pages cover or touch on topics that can potentially impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.

For example, a page that explains how to maximize your 401k for retirement is a YMYL page. Another example of a YMYL page is one on how to diagnose and treat diabetes. 

The term “YMYL” comes from Google’s guidelines for quality evaluators.

Google quality evaluators are an outsourced army of people who evaluate search results based on specific guidelines. Their work helps Google to educate AI-based algorithms and improve the quality of search results. Guidelines instruct them on how to evaluate the quality of web pages.

Examples of YMYL pages include:

  • News and current events: Pages about the news on international events, politics, science, etc.
  • Civics, government, and law: Pages containing information that informs people, such as info about voting, legal issues, social services, etc.
  • Finance: Pages about investing, taxes, banking, etc.
  • Shopping: Pages about shopping, including pages that allow people to make purchases online.
  • Health and safety: Pages about one’s health or safety, including medical issues, drugs, hospitals, etc.
  • Groups of people: Pages about groups of people, including nationality, race, status, etc.
  • Other: Pages that deal broadly with “your money or your life,” such as pages about fitness and nutrition, housing, finding a job, etc.

Why are YMYL pages important?

YMYL pages stand out from any different content because they can potentially harm human wellbeing and/or health.

For example, imagine that you woke up with a bad cough. You Google “how to treat cough.” 

If you land on a poor source of information that gives you the wrong advice, you could end up suffering more and your condition can easily get worse. That’s why it’s critical that Google serves you high-quality information so that your health is not impacted by the pages they show you.

Because these pages are so important, Google has much higher standards for YMYL pages. Here’s what they say:

“Low quality YMYL pages could potentially negatively impact a person’s happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.”

So, if you want to rank a page on the topic of “your money or your life,” you’ll have to step your game up.

Best SEO practices for YMYL pages

1. Be patient

It’s highly unlikely that Google will recommend new websites for YMYL topics. So, if you want to create content around YMYL topics, be prepared to wait a long time for your content to rank. While you’re waiting, work on the next 3 best practices.

2. Get mentions on reputable websites

Getting mentions on reputable websites is one of the best things you can do to rank YMYL content. Here’s what the Quality Rater’s Guidelines say about it:

“For YMYL informational topics, the reputation of a website or content creator should be judged by what experts in the field have to say. Recommendations from expert sources, such as professional societies, are strong evidence of a very positive reputation.”

You can use Site Explorer to find top-quality, reputable websites by reverse-engineering the backlink profile of the top-ranking results.

Remember your goal: to find reputable websites and get them to mention you. It won’t be easy, but it’s critical to ranking YMYL pages.

3. Invite real experts for interviews

Invite real experts in YMYL topics. Interview them to get valuable, reputable information. Then, use a copywriter to shape the interview into top-quality content.

Using a traditional copywriter or content marketer’s research for YMYL topics is a bad idea. Unless they have genuine expertise in the topic, the content will lack substance. But, if you interview an expert, you’ll get the best of both worlds — genuine expertise and showcasing that expertise in a reader-friendly way.

4. State the information about the website owner and writers clearly

In the eyes of Google, YMYL pages require the highest standard of E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). These elements must be instantly visible from the writer’s bio and the information about the website owner or company. This includes contact info.

example of authority in a topic

So, on your YMYL pages, be sure to include a writer’s bio that demonstrates their expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Establish that before you get into the content.

FAQs

What are YMYL categories?

YMYL categories are topics that could impact “your money or your life.” These include:

  • News and current events
  • Civics, government, and law
  • Finance
  • Shopping
  • Health and safety
  • Groups of people

What is E-A-T and why is it important for YMYL pages?

E-A-T stands for “Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.” It’s an important quality characteristic that helps quality evaluators determine a page’s quality rating.

For example, here’s what Google’s guidelines for quality evaluators say about evaluating E-A-T on pages that discuss medical advice:

“High E-A-T medical advice should be written or produced by people or organizations with appropriate medical expertise or accreditation. High E-A-T medical advice or information should be written or produced in a professional style and should be edited, reviewed, and updated on a regular basis.”

E-A-T is important for YMYL pages because a high E-A-T is mandatory for a YMYL page to rank well. Google has “very high” Page Quality rating standards for YMYL pages.