YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)
YMYL is Google's classification for content topics that could impact a user's future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety. Pages in YMYL categories — medical advice, financial products, legal information, news on civic events, child safety — are held to substantially higher E-E-A-T standards by Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
In depth
Examples: prescription drug information, investment advice, mortgage calculators, divorce attorneys, vaccine guidance, election news, suicide hotlines.
On YMYL pages, the 'Trustworthiness' factor of E-E-A-T is weighted highest — anonymous content, unsourced medical/financial claims, and content lacking author credentials face structural ranking penalties.
AI Overviews are more conservative on YMYL queries — they suppress AI-generated answers and cite established authorities (Mayo Clinic for health, IRS for tax, .gov for government) instead of independent blogs.
Required for YMYL content to perform: named author with verifiable credentials, dated content with last-reviewed timestamp, sources cited inline with links to primary research, transparent publisher identity.
Common misconception
YMYL isn't a single binary tag — it's a spectrum. A blog post about budgeting tips is moderate-YMYL; the same site's mortgage calculator is high-YMYL. The required E-E-A-T standard scales with the impact severity, not the topic category alone.
Source: Google — Search Quality Rater Guidelines (PDF, Section 2.3 covers YMYL)
Start with a free audit.
A senior strategist reviews your account and records a Loom walkthrough within 48 hours.