HEEAT is an adaptation of Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) guidelines, with the inclusion of Helpfulness, creating the acronym H-E-E-A-T. This score evaluates your webpage alongside the top 10 competitors for your EMQ, providing an assessment of your page’s quality and the prevalence of HEEAT keywords within your content. The 61 criteria we analyze are listed below.
| No | Section | Question/Comment |
| 1 | Content and quality questions | Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis? |
| 2 | Content and quality questions | Does the content provide a substantial, complete, or comprehensive description of the topic? |
| 3 | Content and quality questions | Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond the obvious? |
| 4 | Content and quality questions | If the content draws on other sources, does it avoid simply copying or rewriting those sources, and instead provide substantial additional value and originality? |
| 5 | Content and quality questions | Does the main heading or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content? |
| 6 | Content and quality questions | Does the main heading or page title avoid exaggerating or being shocking in nature? |
| 7 | Content and quality questions | Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend? |
| 8 | Content and quality questions | Would you expect to see this content in or referenced by a printed magazine, encyclopedia, or book? |
| 9 | Expertise questions | Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results? |
| 10 | Expertise questions | Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, background about the author or the site that publishes it, such as through links to an author page or a site’s About page? |
| 11 | Expertise questions | If someone researched the site producing the content, would they come away with an impression that it is well-trusted or widely-recognized as an authority on its topic? |
| 12 | Expertise questions | Is this content written by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well? |
| 13 | Expertise questions | Does the content have any easily-verified factual errors? |
| 14 | Expertise questions | Presentation and production questions |
| 15 | Expertise questions | Does the content have any spelling or stylistic issues? |
| 16 | Expertise questions | Is the content produced well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced? |
| 17 | Expertise questions | Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care? |
| 18 | Expertise questions | Does the content have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content? |
| 19 | Focus on people-first content | Does content display well for mobile devices when viewed on them? |
| 20 | Focus on people-first content | Do you have an existing or intended audience for your business or site that would find the content useful if they came directly to you? |
| 21 | Focus on people-first content | Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place)? |
| 22 | Focus on people-first content | Does your site have a primary purpose or focus? |
| 23 | Focus on people-first content | After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal? |
| 24 | Focus on people-first content | Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they’ve had a satisfying experience? |
| 25 | Focus on people-first content | Is the content primarily made to attract visits from search engines? |
| 26 | Focus on people-first content | Are you producing lots of content on many different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results? |
| 27 | Focus on people-first content | Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics? |
| 28 | Focus on people-first content | Are you mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value? |
| 29 | Focus on people-first content | Are you writing about things simply because they seem trending and not because you’d write about them otherwise for your existing audience? |
| 30 | Focus on people-first content | Does your content leave readers feeling like they need to search again to get better information from other sources? |
| 31 | Focus on people-first content | Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don’t.) |
| 32 | Focus on people-first content | Did you decide to enter some niche topic area without any real expertise, but instead mainly because you thought you’d get search traffic? |
| 33 | Who (created the content) | Does your content promise to answer a question that actually has no answer, such as suggesting there’s a release date for a product, movie, or TV show when one isn’t confirmed? |
| 34 | Who (created the content) | Is it self-evident to your visitors who authored your content? |
| 35 | Who (created the content) | Do pages carry a byline, where one might be expected? |
| 36 | How (the content was created) | Do bylines lead to further information about the author or authors involved, giving background about them and the areas they write about? |
| 37 | How (the content was created) | Is the use of automation, including AI-generation, self-evident to visitors through disclosures or in other ways? |
| 38 | How (the content was created) | Are you providing background about how automation or AI-generation was used to create content? |
| 39 | Why (was the content created) | Are you explaining why automation or AI was seen as useful to produce content? |
| 40 | Why (was the content created) | Why is perhaps the most important question to answer about your content. Why is it being created in the first place? |
| 41 | Why (was the content created) | Is the content primarily to attract people from search engines, rather than made for humans? |
| 42 | Why (was the content created) | Are you producing lots of content on different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results? |
| 43 | Why (was the content created) | Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don’t). |
| 44 | High quality review page Suggestions | Provide the review from a user’s perspective. |
| 45 | High quality review page Suggestions | Demonstrate that you are knowledgeable about the subject reviewed – show you are an expert. |
| 46 | High quality review page Suggestions | Provide evidence such as visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the subject, to support your expertise and reinforce the authenticity of your review. |
| 47 | High quality review page Suggestions | Share quantitative measurements about how the subject measures up in various categories of performance (if applicable). |
| 48 | High quality review page Suggestions | Explain what sets the subject reviewed apart from its competitors. |
| 49 | High quality review page Suggestions | Cover comparable products or services to consider, or explain which products or services might be best for certain uses or circumstances. |
| 50 | High quality review page Suggestions | Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the particular subject reviewed, based on your own original research. (Useful Pros and Cons) |
| 51 | High quality review page Suggestions | Describe how the subject reviewed has evolved from previous iterations to provide improvements, address issues, or otherwise help users in making a purchase decision. |
| 52 | High quality review page Suggestions | Identify key decision-making factors for the subject’s category and how the subject performs in those areas (for example, a car review might determine that fuel economy, safety, and handling are key decision-making factors and rate performance in those areas). |
| 53 | High quality review page Suggestions | Describe key choices in how the subject reviewed has been designed and their effect on the users beyond what the manufacturer or original sources or other experts say. |
| 54 | High quality review page Suggestions | Include links to other useful resources (your own or from other sites) to help a reader make a decision. |
| 55 | High quality review page Suggestions | If applicable, consider including links to multiple sellers to give the reader the option to purchase from their merchant of choice where applicable, or to other potential comparable pages on your site. |
| 56 | High quality review page Suggestions | When recommending the subject that is reviewed on this page as the best overall or the best for a certain purpose, include why you consider that this thing (product, service, et al) the best, with first-hand supporting evidence. |
| 57 | High quality review page Suggestions | Ensure there is enough useful content in your ranked lists for them to stand on their own, even if you choose to write separate in-depth single reviews for each recommended product/service et al. |
| 58 | Extra review questions | Is this review from a reputable person who talks a log and is an expert in this topic? Failing this is it from a reputable merchant? |
| 59 | Extra review questions | Does this seem like a spammy affiliate site? |
| 60 | Extra review questions | Does this page Include links to other useful resources (their own or from other sites) to help a reader make a decision? |
| 61 | Extra review questions | Does this article unfairly target or show preferential treatment to any of the following protected classes: race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, marital status familial status (families with children under 18), source of income (e.g., Section 8 Voucher), disability (mental and physical) medical condition, citizenship primary language immigration status military/veteran status or age? |
