YMYL (finance)

YMYL (Your Money Your Life) is a content category covering finance, health, law, and safety where Google applies elevated E-E-A-T criteria and fact-checking verification, because inaccurate information can directly impact readers' lives, health, or finances. YMYL pages must demonstrate experience (Experience), expertise (Expertise), authoritativeness, and trustworthiness at higher levels than entertainment or hobby sites.

Law firms are a classic YMYL example — every piece of legal information can influence readers' life decisions. Legal articles therefore require: source citations (statutes, court rulings), author credentials (name, specialization, bar number), links to authoritative sources (courts, government agencies), and current information.

In the context of semantic auditing, the E-E-A-T assessment tool skill automatically checks these signals. In practice with YMYL, invest in E-E-A-T before you invest in content quantity: one expert article with full E-E-A-T beats ten articles without sources.