I have once looked into how Google may be viewing trust and authority where the most important difference is that trust is attributed to the domain whereas authority is attributed to a page. In both cases, the factors influencing Google’s opinion of the site are primarily external: i.e. other sites linking back to the domain / page.
But what if there are also on-page factors making the domain “more trusted”? These factors may include:
- The official privacy policy present on the site;
- Detailed contact information (including physical address);
- Detailed “About Us” page;
- Proper spelling and grammar;
- Absence of obscenities and “red-flag” words (e.g. gambling and health niches);
- Other?
Of course, another (more obvious) factor of trust can solid identification of strong brand (but this is not completely on-page as brand should be also identified off-page):
- Using brand name in page titles (?);
- Using brand name throughout the site content; etc
So do you believe these (or other?) on-page factors may be some (minor) signal of trust? Have you noticed the related effect in practice? Do you think making the site look more trustworthy should be part of search engine optimization process? Please share your thoughts!
