Comments on: Is There Such a Thing as On-Page Trust Factors (Poll)?

By: Jacob Stoops

Jacob Stoops — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:02:25 +0000

I agree. Google definitely uses a trust factor as part of their rankings. Like @Nick Stamoulis said, they are just trying to clean up their search results so that they can display only the most relevant and trusted websites.

By: Tag44

Tag44 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:08:46 +0000

Thanks for the post and for sharing the resourceful information with us.

By: Game

Game — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:24:11 +0000

This blog has been created to share useful information. Thanks and greetings!

By: Lohith

Lohith — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:12:21 +0000

Yes Google is behind trustworthy websites.I think this post from Ann smarty is sensible.

By: Vern at AimforAwesome

Vern at AimforAwesome — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:53:38 +0000

I’ve thought so since early 2000’s. It makes sense. Having this information is also the sign of a quality site – one that gives a good user experience – so I include it where I can…

By: Brennan

Brennan — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:25:28 +0000

I think Google is weighing trust now almost as heavily as backlinks. I would say everything you mentioned does matter to Google as they do not want black hat SEO’s finding ways to manipulate the system. I have seen a few clients pages go up in ranking after adding a physical address to the footer as well as a privacy policy and terms of use. It is hard to say whether this was coincidence or not but either way it builds trust with your consumers who visit the site.

By: Marjory

Marjory — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:06:31 +0000

How about “I don’t know?”.

By: Alan Bleiweiss

Alan Bleiweiss — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:32:23 +0000

Ann, there surely is a trust factor on sites. In addition to the points you’ve suggested, regarding Matt’s reference to internal link quality – if a page is 90% ads, or how about a scraper site / all duplicate content on most of the pages?

There are countless ways that trust can and most likely is evaluated at the page level.

By: Matt Leonard

Matt Leonard — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:05:50 +0000

Interesting post, Ann. Two things I believe to be trust related page specific factors are the age of the URL (page, not site) and quality of internal links. With that being said, I do believe there are also inherent differences in talking about assumed page trust between large and small sites. I also think trust comes more into play (significantly) with more competitive keywords.

By: Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:02:51 +0000

I def. think that Google is starting to strongly lean towards a trust factor type of ranking. This will allow for some of the fly by nights to go away. Google is just trying to clean up search results.