What Are YMYL Pages?
YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life” — pages covering topics that could significantly impact a reader’s health, financial stability, safety, or overall wellbeing if the information is inaccurate or misleading.
Examples of YMYL Topics
Common YMYL categories include medical and health advice, financial and investment guidance, legal information, news and current events, and safety-critical topics. A page about medication dosages or mortgage advice falls squarely into YMYL territory; a page about the best hiking trails generally doesn’t.
Why They Need Higher E-E-A-T
Because inaccurate YMYL content can cause real harm, Google’s quality rater guidelines hold these pages to a noticeably higher standard for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). That typically means clear author credentials, citations to authoritative sources, transparent editorial or medical review processes, and a level of care and accuracy that lower-stakes topics aren’t held to in the same way.
