More credibility for creators: Google search now recognizes them as experts

YouTube has been battling misinformation for years, and one of its strats to slow the spread is surfacing correct information from trustworthy, authoritative experts like doctors and lawyers.

And…content creators?

Thanks to a sharp-eyed writer at Search Engine Land, we now know YouTube’s parent Google has begun explicitly classifying content creators as experts in search results across dozens of niches. SEL noticed that Knowledge Panels, which pop up in search results with prominent figures when someone looks up their name, something related to them, or a topic in which they’re relevant, are now appearing with some creators, too.

Knowledge Panels assign people an official descriptor, and also include short bios and links to websites where you can find more information. If you Google Joe Biden, for example, you get “46th U.S. president,” and if you look up Meryl Streep, it’s “American actress.” Both their panels link to Wikipedia.

For creators, it’s a little different. Search Engine Land saw that Dr. Casey Means, a New York Times bestselling doctor who also has 530,000 followers on Instagram, now has her own Knowledge Panel describing her as “Content creator (Medicine).” It has a bio describing her as “a Stanford-trained physician, Chief Medical Officer and co-founder of metabolic health company Levels,” and links to Levels’ landing page as well as her Instagram, YouTube, X, and LinkedIn accounts.

Another creator, Carmen Edelson, is officially tagged as “Content creator (Travel),” with a Knowledge Panel that pulls a biography from her LinkedIn and directs people to her Instagram, where she has a little over 140,000 followers.

What’s cool here is that because creators are sorted this way, and attached as credible sources to the content they’ve made, it’s possible their content will pop up as authoritative material in search results. Yes, creators’ videos appear in searches now, but you usually have to be actively looking for the creator’s material, or looking for a subject and adding “+ YouTube.” With this update, creators’ videos, streams, posts, and blogs could show up in search results where people weren’t actively looking for social media content at all.

As SEL notes, “This is a significant E-E-A-T development for content creators as it gives visible and meaningful proof that Google has recognized them as credible sources of information on a specific topic.”

E-E-A-T stands for “Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness“; they’re a set of guidelines Google uses to determine the quality of website content, whether it should surface that content on search results, and if so, where it should put that content on results based on usefulness and relevancy—should it be the first result? Or on page 10?

With creators getting Knowledge Panels, they’re a higher E-E-A-T priority–so, we could start seeing them appear in search results and getting the chance to share their skills with people who may not otherwise have seen their content. Someone who designs terrariums on YouTube, for example, could appear in results for a searcher trying to make their pet spider’s home a little more cozy. A mechanic sharing their current garage project on TikTok could appear in results for someone with a radiator problem (our condolences, bud).

Or, like the more serious example SEL spotted, doctors and other public health experts who take the time to share their knowledge on social media could appear–and maybe even help combat misinformation.

SEL says Google is rolling this change out slowly, identifying handfuls of creators every one to two weeks. Based on data from Kalicube, it showed that Google is tagging creators in over 60 niches, from agriculture and automobiles to baking and bodybuilding to finances and gambling to mental health, parenting, religion, stand-up comedy, video games, and the weather.

Our industry has come a long way over the last two decades, and this update is yet another sign that legacy entities are now taking creators seriously, and listening to what they have to say. Just in the last couple months, long-established media festivals like Cannes Lions and Tribeca have launched creator-specific tracks, and the White House invited 100 creators to its first-ever Creator Economy Conference, where President Biden gave a 15-minute speech telling creators they’re at the center of a historical shift in the way people exchange information.