Content · Glossary
What is YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)?
YMYL, short for Your Money or Your Life, is Google's label for topics that could significantly affect people's health, financial stability or safety, or the welfare of society. Google says its systems give extra weight to content with strong E-E-A-T on these topics.
Written by Noor KhanWhy YMYL matters
Health, money and safety pages face the highest bar for trust. A behavioral health or financial site with anonymous authors, no sources and no clear business identity will struggle against providers who show who wrote and reviewed their content.
How YMYL works
- Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines ask raters to judge YMYL pages more strictly.
- Rater scores don't set rankings; Google uses them to check whether its systems return reliable results.
- Google calls trust the most important part of E-E-A-T, so accuracy and transparency count for more here than polish.
How to apply it
- Name a qualified author and, for clinical content, a medical reviewer with credentials.
- Cite primary sources such as clinical guidelines, regulators and peer-reviewed research.
- Show licensing, accreditation, ownership and contact details on the site.
- Review and date clinical and financial pages on a fixed schedule.
Example
A page on medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder is YMYL because it shapes treatment decisions. It should be written or reviewed by an addiction medicine clinician and cite current SAMHSA guidance.
Common mistake
Assuming YMYL only covers hospitals and banks. An e-commerce store selling supplements or a SaaS tool that runs payroll can touch YMYL topics too.
put this into practice