The LLM SEO Experiment: Can a New Site Built on Authentic E-E-A-T Rank from Scratch?

One topic that is still relevant and much discussed is LLM SEO, AI Overviews, and E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). To me this felt like an interesting thing to explore and test, since it is about how to become relevant to LLM models and how to be picked up by the “new” search experiences in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity etc. Time as factor will also be interesting – how fast can something become an authority picked up by LLMs? Lastly, I hope to pick up on other methods that could affect LLMs and simply try introducing them to see what happens.

We’re told that to rank, we need ‘first-hand experience’ and ‘people-first content.’ But what does that actually mean? And can it really compete with the old world of keyword-stuffing and backlink-buying?

I will launch this as a public experiment to find out. I will build a brand-new site, in a (hopefully) competitive niche, from scratch. The goal is to test a single, central hypothesis.

My hypothesis is: In the age of AI, a new site built on a foundation of provable, first-hand experience will build authority and rank faster than a site built on traditional, high-volume SEO tactics.

This experiment is designed to test if LLMs and Google’s “helpful content” systems can truly identify and reward authentic, high-value content, even from a brand-new domain with zero authority.” Of course this will not be a full scientific method, simply due to the lack of time available while having a full time job; for example, building a traditional high volume SEO tactic site in parallel for comparison will be difficult. There may be some comparisons to make with other such sites though, we will see.

To test this, I will launching ‘The Durable Ledger.’

This site is not a generic review site. It’s a “living experiment” built on a single, powerful philosophy: The True Cost of Ownership and/or finding the optimal purchase with quality, cost, function as well as to some extent aesthetics. Why? Simply because this is something I cannot resist doing in my daily life, meaning I can reuse the work I do, and who knows, maybe it will deliver value to others (or just gain visibility in LLMs).

My E-E-A-T won’t be a persona; it will be a methodology:

• The Philosophy: I will mainly review “durable goods” (products built to last), from coffee grinders to computer monitors. Sometimes it will be a tradeoff, but quality will be an important factor.
• The Process: My analysis isn’t just about features. It’s a ‘Total Value Audit’ based on pragmatic research, long-term durability, and resale value or comparing the cost of having to buy multiple low quality things.
• The Proof: This is the key. My “first-hand experience” won’t be a stock photo. It will be testimonies of purchases, why I chose the product. It will also be about product longevity, how well it solves its intended use as well as showing value of resale when I choose to do so. By doing so, I can prove the actual TCO and retained value of the products I review. This is the kind of unique, data-driven experience that AI cannot fake.

To be continued…