EEAT, Content, Dwell Time. NOT Ranking Factors. Here's Why - Episode 121 - Grumpy SEO Guy

Grumpy SEO Guy Podcast Summary

Episode: EEAT, Content, Dwell Time. NOT Ranking Factors. Here's Why
Host: Grumpy SEO Guy
Release Date: August 13, 2025

In Episode 121, Grumpy SEO Guy delves deep into common misconceptions within the SEO industry, challenging widely held beliefs about what truly influences search engine rankings. Drawing from his 14 years of experience running an SEO agency, he provides insightful analysis on EEAT, content quality, and dwell time, arguing that these elements are often overstated as direct ranking factors.

1. SEO Industry's Accessibility and Lack of Regulation

Grumpy SEO Guy begins by addressing the open nature of the SEO industry, highlighting how the absence of formal barriers to entry leads to a saturation of misleading and ineffective advice.

[02:30] Grumpy SEO Guy: "SEO is a no barriers to entry industry, which means anybody who wants to do SEO can do SEO."

He compares SEO to other professions like teaching and law, which require certifications and formal training, emphasizing that this lack of regulation in SEO allows virtually anyone to claim expertise, often resulting in the dissemination of poor-quality strategies.

[04:15] Grumpy SEO Guy: "Anyone in the world can say they do SEO. And so it's interesting because somebody might say, well, why isn't there a certification for SEO? Well, technically there are, but they don't mean anything..."

2. EEAT: Misconception as a Ranking Factor

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dissecting EEAT—Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness—and its purported role in search engine rankings.

[12:45] Grumpy SEO Guy: "EEAT is not a ranking factor. Google has even said EEAT is not a ranking factor."

He clarifies that while EEAT can influence perceptions and indirectly affect elements like backlink quality, it should not be misconstrued as a direct determinant for ranking positions. Grumpy SEO Guy criticizes the oversimplification of EEAT in SEO advice, cautioning listeners against taking it at face value without understanding its true impact.

3. Debunking "Content is King" as a Direct Ranking Factor

Grumpy SEO Guy challenges the ubiquitous SEO mantra "Content is King," offering a nuanced perspective on how content quality interacts with SEO strategies.

[20:10] Grumpy SEO Guy: "Good quality content will probably get you better quality backlinks... But it's not the content itself that is making you rank higher because you could also have bad quality content and get the same backlinks and rank."

He suggests that the real value of high-quality content lies in its ability to attract superior backlinks, which are a more direct factor in improving search rankings. This distinction underscores the importance of focusing on relationship-building and authority establishment rather than solely on content creation.

4. Dwell Time: Why It's Not a Ranking Factor

Another key topic is dwell time—the duration a user spends on a webpage after clicking a search result—and its alleged influence on SEO rankings.

[30:25] Grumpy SEO Guy: "Dwell time is not a ranking factor. Because you can have long dwell time on a bad website and you can have short dwell time on a good website."

He presents scenarios where dwell time could be misleading, such as users quickly finding answers (resulting in low dwell time) or struggling to navigate a poorly designed site (resulting in high dwell time). These examples illustrate why dwell time should not be relied upon as a standalone metric for ranking purposes.

5. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Wrapping up the episode, Grumpy SEO Guy reiterates the importance of discerning effective SEO strategies from myths perpetuated within the industry. He emphasizes critical thinking and reliance on proven methods over trendy but unsubstantiated advice.

[45:50] Grumpy SEO Guy: "There's a lot of terrible SEO advice out there... It's very interesting though that there's a lot of suggestions that really aren't gonna help."

He encourages listeners to look beyond surface-level SEO tips and to understand the underlying principles that genuinely impact search engine performance.

Key Takeaways

SEO Accessibility: The lack of formal barriers in the SEO industry leads to widespread dissemination of ineffective and misleading advice.
EEAT Misconception: While EEAT elements can influence SEO indirectly, they are not direct ranking factors as per Google's own statements.
Content Quality: High-quality content is valuable primarily for attracting better backlinks, not as an independent ranking enhancer.
Dwell Time: This metric is unreliable as a ranking factor due to its susceptibility to misinterpretation based on user behavior and website quality.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

On SEO Accessibility:

"SEO is a no barriers to entry industry, which means anybody who wants to do SEO can do SEO."
[02:30]
On EEAT as a Ranking Factor:

"EEAT is not a ranking factor. Google has even said EEAT is not a ranking factor."
[12:45]
On "Content is King":

"Good quality content will probably get you better quality backlinks... But it's not the content itself that is making you rank higher."
[20:10]
On Dwell Time:

"Dwell time is not a ranking factor. Because you can have long dwell time on a bad website and you can have short dwell time on a good website."
[30:25]
On SEO Advice Quality:

"There's a lot of terrible SEO advice out there... It's very interesting though that there's a lot of suggestions that really aren't gonna help."
[45:50]

Final Thoughts

Grumpy SEO Guy's Episode 121 serves as a critical examination of prevalent SEO myths, urging professionals and enthusiasts alike to adopt a more informed and skeptical approach to the strategies they employ. By debunking the direct influence of EEAT, content quality, and dwell time on rankings, he highlights the need for a deeper understanding of SEO mechanics beyond surface-level tactics.

For those seeking to enhance their SEO knowledge, this episode offers a refreshing perspective that prioritizes experience-backed insights over commonly accepted but potentially flawed advice.

Transcript

Grumpy SEO Guy (0:00)

This is Grumpy SEO Guy, episode 121, SEO. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the grumpy SEO Guy and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. I'm grumpy today because I didn't have a topic for this episode. So I'm just gonna talk about SEO for a little bit and hopefully this will be a useful episode. But before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical and based on my experience. This podcast does not constitute advice or worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. So before we continue though, let's do some reminders. New episodes come out at 9am on Wednesday Central Standard Time. That's on the podcast websites. If you're listening on YouTube, it's gonna be a little bit later than that. If you leave a comment on YouTube, I try to reply on Wednesday, but sometimes it's not until Thursday. If you really like the podcast and wanna subscribe, that would be great. If you really like the podcast and wanna support us on Patreon, you can do so@patreon.com grumpyseoguy just on the podcast platforms. In the next week or so, we are going to start having ads. Okay? If you prefer to not have ads, you can sign up@patreon.com and get the episodes ad free. If you have a question, you can post it on the Grumpy SEO guy subreddit. That's Reddit.com r grumpyseoguy. Or if you have a really detailed question or you just want to get on Zoom and Talk SEO, we can set up a Zoom SEO advisory call. You can email me at hello grumpy SEO guy.com and we can talk about how to get that scheduled. Okay, let's continue with the episode. So I'm on the Internet answering SEO questions, you know, sometimes, and there's a lot of confusion when it comes to SEO. And I think part of this is because the SEO industry is, you know, there's no specific details anywhere for how the stuff works, but it's also a no barriers to entry industry. So we've talked about this before, but what that basically means is. And I think part of it is, you know, people. People, they learn a little bit or they hear something and then they want to, like, go tell people how to do it, right? It's kind of like. It's kind of like with finance, right? Like, have you ever been on an investing forum? Like, everybody thinks they know exactly the right way to invest to make more money than everybody else, and it's like, sure, you know, whatever, and. Or, like, workout forums. Have you been on, like, a. Like a. Like a gym forum or something? And it's just like. It's like everybody like, no, you can't do it that way. This exercise is better. But it's like, dude, okay, you know, people want to help, but they also want to, you know, feel superior for having better information than the other guy. I don't. Whatever. I don't know. But anyways, SEO is also a no barriers to entry industry, which means anybody who wants to do SEO can do SEO. For example, if you want to be a teacher, this is at least here in my country, you need a teaching certificate, okay? You have to go to school for that. You can't just be a teacher right now. Having a certificate doesn't mean that you're a great teacher, but it means that from a legal perspective, you can be a teacher, okay? Or if you want to be a lawyer, you have to pass the bar, okay? You cannot be a lawyer unless you have passed the bar, okay? Like, not, not, not. Somebody who wants to be a lawyer can't just be a lawyer. You have to go through a specific schedule to become a lawyer. Okay? You can't just say you're a lawyer, Right? But that doesn't exist for SEO. Anyone in the world can say they do SEO. And so it's interesting because somebody. And we have an episode on this, but somebody might say, well, why isn't there a certification for SEO? Well, technically there are, but they don't mean anything because it's just some random business selling you a certification if you pass the test. It doesn't actually mean anything because it wasn't made by a search engine company. The only business that could give you a real search engine optimization certification would be a search engine. Okay? And they're not going to. They're not going to. So anyways, look, now there are, there are AdWords certifications, right? And there's PPC certifications, I think that come from Google. I think, I'm not a PPC person. I'm not really aware of that, but I believe they exist because those are different. It's not the, it doesn't work the same as SEO. So anyways, look, um, anyone, anyone can say they do SEO. Anyone can claim that they're an SEO expert. You know what, like, whatever, whatever. And so anyone can give SEO advice, that's fine. Um, but there's. Guys, there's a lot of, there's a lot of terrible SEO advice out there. You know, people ask the same questions, why can't I rank? Why is this happening? Why am I com? Why are my competitors outranking me, blah, blah, blah. And the answers are always, well, have you tried E E A T? Which we're going to talk about that in a minute and let's talk about it right now. EEAT means experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. EAT is a neat way to make a website and to write content. Yes. If you're an expert, people will probably want to listen to you. If you are trustworthy, people will probably want to listen to you. But those things are not ranking factors. Google has even said EEAT is not a ranking factor. And I will put the link to the webpage where they say that in the description for this episode. Okay, so when somebody gives E E a T as a. As a reply to why you're not ranking that person, that's the wrong answer. That's not going to help the person at all. Okay. It's kind of like content is king, right? Well, write user focused content that answers questions. Well, that's a great way to write content, but that's not going to raise your position. So I'm not really sure what to tell you. You know what though, we should talk about for a moment. Content is king. Because I think, I think at one point somebody probably said this and it was misunderstood and it was, you know, put into a different context. So let me, let me tell you. And guys, this might be wrong. Let me tell you what I think content is king originally meant. Okay, let me tell you what I think content is king originally meant. Somebody probably said you should write good content. And the reason they said that is because Good quality content is more believably going to get better quality backlinks, okay? People generally make backlinks to good quality websites with good quality content and they regularly do not make backlinks to bad quality websites with bad quality content, okay? So by saying content is king, right, good content, they were probably implying that you will get better quality backlinks. And the better quality backlinks can make you rank higher, okay? But the content does not make you rank higher, okay? Search engines cannot tell the quality of content. They have to use things like authority to presume the quality, okay? So anyways, look, telling somebody now, first of all, telling somebody write good content is actually good advice because you should write good content. Why would you write bad content? Why? Why would you write bad quality content? Come on. So you should write good quality content. You absolutely should write good quality content. But it's not going to make you go to the top of the results because quality of content has nothing to do with that. Good quality content will probably get you more backlinks, I should say better quality backlinks. Better quality backlinks will probably benefit your rank, okay? But it's not the content itself that is making you rank higher because you could also have bad quality content and get the same backlinks and rank, okay? Because quality of content has nothing to do with rank, okay? And I'm sure we've all seen websites that are on the first page and you click it and it's unhelpful and you click back, okay? Even though it ranked wasn't good quality content. So anyways, look, I don't know if that's where content is king came from, but that explanation seems plausible to me, right? Like, because I don't know, I don't even know who said just right, good quality content first, but let's say it was somebody working for a search engine. I'm just, I'm just guessing here. I have no idea. They probably don't want to tell you, hey, guys, build backlinks. Because that would let people manipulate the system, right? So they're probably like, hey, write good quality content. It'll probably help you. Why will it help you? They probably didn't say this part. Maybe they did. Why will it help you? Because it will probably get you better quality backlinks and that will probably help your ranking. But somehow that just got, you know, misunderstood is just write good quality content and then content salesmen tell people, we'll write you good quality content. It'll make you rank higher. No, no, it won't no, it won't. Anyways, so, you know, I don't know, whatever. Another thing people tend to talk about is dwell time. Let's talk about why dwell time is not a ranking factor. Okay? Okay. Dwell time means how long is a person on your page right now when you think about kind of sounds like maybe that would be useful, you know, maybe. Because here's the thinking. Well, if somebody spends a lot of time on your site, you must have a good quality domain, right? Like, come on. Okay, okay, but hold on. What if your content is so nice that as soon as you get to the page, they immediately find the answer they're looking for and click back? That would be a low dwell time. But high quality content. That helped them. It helped. It answered their question. It helped them. It helped them. You have a great website, okay? But you have low dwell time. Okay, what about the opposite? What if, what if your website is so terribly arranged that people can't even find what they're looking for and they spend a really long time on it trying to find the answer and then they don't even find the answer and they just get frustrated and leave? Okay, that would be a bad quality website, but it would have a long dwell time. Okay? What if you have, what if you have like an ad at the top of your website and all over your website and people can't even find the content they're looking for and they spend a lot of time trying to find it? You would have a long dwell time on a low quality website. So you see why dwell time can't be a ranking factor, okay? Because you can have long dwell time on a bad website and you can have short dwell time on a good website. Guys, it can't be a ranking factor, okay? Or what if, what if you're not even. What if you're not even coming from the search engines? Okay, what if you're coming from. What if it's a referral from another site, right? How would the search engines even know? Well, you would have analytics on your site. Okay, what if you don't. What if are you saying websites without any kind of tracking tools are going to not get. Are going to not experience the same treatment? Or, or what if you, you know, what if you don't have anything on your site and you. Somebody clicks to it from the search engines and then they wouldn't know how long that they're on your site, then they click back. Maybe the search engines can tell how long you were gone if you click back to get back to that page. Again, maybe they can tell how long you were gone. I'm not sure. But you know, it's possible that you could have a long dwell time on a low quality page. So it doesn't make any sense to me that dwell time would be a ranking factor. It just doesn't make any sense. Okay. Or you could just, you know, I don't know. It doesn't really make any sense to me. But of course people talk about dwell time and all these other things that, you know, just, I don't know. Look, so whatever. Anyways, it's very interesting though that there's a lot of suggestions that really aren't gonna help. I think it's interesting. I don't really know. I hope this episode was beneficial for you. And we're done. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can Visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or you can email me@hellorumpyseoguy.com if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders, because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks, and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so@patreon.com grumpyseoguy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday for another episode.