E-E-A-T — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — is the quality framework Google's raters use, and it is weighted most heavily for "Your Money or Your Life" (YMYL) topics, which include health and behavioral health. Content that can influence a care decision is judged more strictly on who produced it and how trustworthy it is.
For an ABA or behavioral health brand, demonstrating E-E-A-T means visible clinical credentials and authorship (for example, BCBA-reviewed content), accurate and cited claims, clear organizational identity, and a trustworthy site experience. The same signals that satisfy human raters also help AI engines decide whether to ground on and cite a source.
Weak E-E-A-T is a common reason a clinically excellent practice underperforms in both classic search and AI answers: the substance is there, but the trust signals an engine can verify are not.