UBC News

Why Does Google Hold Wellness Websites to a Higher Standard Than Others?

Episode Summary

Google evaluates health and wellness content differently than other industries, applying stricter trust signals before ranking pages. Understanding these standards can transform how potential clients find your practice online. To learn more, visit: https://zenrank.co

Episode Notes

So here's something that might surprise you if you run a wellness practice. Google doesn't treat your website like it treats most other websites. And once you understand why, a lot of things start to make sense. Google has this category called YMYL, which stands for Your Money or Your Life. It covers any content that could affect someone's health, their finances, or their safety. Therapy websites? YMYL. Med spas? YMYL. Health coaching, functional medicine, even yoga studios giving advice about injuries—all of it falls under this umbrella. And because the stakes are higher, Google holds these pages to a completely different standard. That standard is called E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These aren't just buzzwords. They're the actual criteria Google's quality raters use when they're deciding whether your content deserves to rank or whether it should get buried under competitors who've figured this out. Let's break it down quickly. Experience means you've actually done the thing you're writing about—real clinical work, real patient interactions, not just textbook summaries. Expertise is about credentials and qualifications that prove you know what you're talking about. Authoritativeness asks whether other credible sources recognize you as a trusted voice in your field—think backlinks from reputable sites or mentions in professional publications. And trustworthiness covers the basics: accurate information, transparent contact details, no exaggerated claims that could mislead people. Here's where most wellness practices struggle. You might have all the qualifications in the world, but Google can't see your diploma on the wall. It relies on signals—author bios on your content, consistent publishing schedules, backlinks from authoritative sources, and content organized in ways that demonstrate genuine depth rather than random blog posts scattered across unrelated topics. The practices that rank well have figured out how to send these signals consistently. They build topic clusters instead of publishing one-off articles. They earn placements on credible sites. They make their expertise visible in ways search engines can actually detect. Now, doing all of this manually takes serious time—time most practitioners don't have between client sessions and running a business. That's exactly why platforms like ZenRank exist, handling the E-E-A-T compliance, the topic clustering, and the syndication so wellness professionals can focus on what they actually trained to do. Check out the link in the description to learn more about how it works. ZenRank City: Folsom Address: 705 Gold Lake Dr Website: https://zenrank.co