Google's quality guidelines describe a category called "Your Money or Your Life", or YMYL. It covers topics where poor information could affect someone's financial stability, health or safety. Finance sits squarely inside it. The guidelines also describe E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust, with trust at the centre.
These guidelines are used to train and evaluate search quality. They are not a ranking checklist, but they describe what search engines are trying to reward, and the same ideas matter when AI systems decide whom to cite.
What this means in practice
- Experience: show that the people writing have really done the thing, for example advised clients, underwritten risks, or built a product.
- Expertise: use qualified authors for sensitive topics, and show their credentials.
- Authoritativeness: be a known source in your area, evidenced by credible mentions, links and citations from others.
- Trust: be transparent. Who you are, how you are regulated, how to contact you, how you make money, and how you keep information current.
Checklist for a financial site
- Clear "About" and "Team" pages with real people and credentials.
- Regulatory status and registration details that match the regulator's register.
- Authors and reviewers named on each guide, with dates for publication and review.
- Sources cited for facts and figures.
- Plain contact information and a real support route.
- Secure, fast, accessible pages that work on mobile.
- No misleading claims, hidden fees or buried terms.
- A way to correct errors quickly.
Common mistakes
Anonymous, generic content produced in bulk is the most common. Thin affiliate-style pages are another. Inconsistent company details across the web and out-of-date rates also undermine trust, and they are easy to fix.
Why it matters for AI search
AI systems need confident sources for money topics. The signals that help human quality raters trust a page, such as named experts, clear sourcing and consistent facts, also make it easier for an assistant to rely on you.