Trust is a website’s trust rating that search engines assign to a web resource. In simple terms, it’s like a person’s reputation. The higher the trust, the more authoritative and reliable the website is considered.
To better understand what website trust is, let’s look at an example. Let’s say Web resource A belongs to a large hospital that has been around for many years. It regularly updates expert content and has a large number of links from other reputable medical resources. Website B is a new health blog with a small number of articles and a weak link profile.
Obviously, web resource A will have higher trust than B. And search engines will be more likely to show portal A in search results for medical queries.
Why a website can’t do without trust
Search engines strive to provide users with the most relevant and valuable information for their queries. Therefore, the site’s trust acts as a kind of pass to the top lines of search results. If the trust level is high, the web resource receives many advantages, namely:
- It occupies more favorable positions for popular queries, including in organic search results.
- Indexing is faster, which is especially important for news portals and thematic blogs.
- Has less chance of being penalized by search engines.
Having figured out what the trust level is, let’s move on to how it is formed.
Parameters Affecting Trustworthiness
There are many factors that can increase a site’s trust. But we will analyze the key ones.
Age of the web resource
The lifespan of a website directly affects the trust of search engines. The longer a resource operates, the higher the probability that it is reliable. Knowing this, many owners resort to the strategy of placing a stub-announcement on the domain even before the full launch of the project. Due to this, the resource begins to be indexed earlier, which has a positive effect on promotion.
Domain
Another important parameter is the age of the domain. Sometimes it makes sense to buy one that has already been used. But we recommend doing this only if the previous website on this domain was of a similar theme or at least did not fall under the filters of search engines.
If you buy a domain with a negative history, it can seriously hinder the promotion and even harm the reputation of the new project. Therefore, before buying, you need to especially carefully check the past of the domain.
Domain zone
The domain zone (or top-level domain) also affects how a web resource is perceived by search engines. Some zones have a better reputation than others. The preferred ones are:
- .com, .net, .org, .su, .biz;
- .edu (for educational projects).
Less favorable are .info, .co.cc, .in, .cn. Therefore, the choice of domain zone should be approached with special care, as this will also affect the trust in the resource.
Outgoing links
Outgoing links play an important role in building trust. Their quantity and quality significantly affect how search engines perceive a resource. An excessive number of outgoing links may arouse suspicion in search algorithms. If they regard this as an attempt to sell links, there is a risk of being penalized.
But if you use outgoing links correctly, you can benefit from them. Checking sites for trust by search engines includes studying links. If they lead to authoritative resources, this is a sign that the site provides high-quality and reliable information. And we advise you to avoid links to low-quality or irrelevant resources.
External Link Profile
Another important parameter is backlinks, i.e. links leading to your site from other sites. The most valuable are links from thematic and authoritative resources. For example, if your site is dedicated to cooking, links from famous culinary blogs or portals about healthy eating will have great weight.
The diversity of link types also plays an important role. It is desirable that the link profile consists of both anchor and non-anchor links. Moreover, the latter are often more significant for search engines. This is explained by the fact that they look natural and less like artificially created ones for manipulation of the search results.
It is also important that the growth of the link profile is natural and gradual. The sudden appearance of a large number of backlinks can arouse suspicion in search engines and lead to sanctions.
Behavioral factors
A trusted site is a resource to which visitors are loyal. The quality of their interaction with the service plays a key role in building trust. The longer users stay on the site, the more often they return and actively interact with the content, the higher it is rated by search engines.
Search engine robots closely track various user behavior metrics, such as:
- total number of visitors;
- bounce rate;
- time spent on the site;
- transitions between pages;
- number of repeated requests to the resource, etc.
To have good trust, a web resource must meet the needs of visitors and provide a positive user experience.
Content
The quality and uniqueness of the content are also critical factors for increasing trust. Regularly filling the web resource with unique high-quality content significantly increases the trust of search engines. If you post duplicate content or plagiarism, this will negatively affect the reputation.
Advertising
It is important that advertising is not excessive. It should not interfere with the perception of the main content. Aggressive advertising blocks can negatively affect the resource’s evaluation by search engines. The use of clickbait – deliberately provocative or misleading headlines – is especially harmful.
Checking the trustworthiness of a website using services
Now that you know what trusted sites are, let’s figure out how to determine a site’s trust.
Serpstat
The metric called Serpstat Trust Rank allows you to check the domain trust. It is a 100-point scale that reflects the degree of authority of the resource. This indicator is based on the analysis of the quality of sites that link to the domain under study.
The peculiarity of the Serpstat algorithm is that it takes into account not only the quantity, but also the quality of backlinks. This approach allows you to get a more objective picture. Checking a site for trust is carried out in the “Summary Report” of the “Domain Analysis” module or in the “Link Analysis” section.
MegaIndex
Another way to find out the trust of a website is to use the MegaIndex tool. It takes into account the resource’s traffic and also examines traffic sources. The service distinguishes between organic traffic and traffic received through advertising, thanks to which it is possible to judge how natural the growth of the web resource’s popularity is. In addition, MegaIndex not only analyzes the trust of a website, but also evaluates its visibility in various search engines, which gives an idea of the overall authority of the web resource in the Internet space.
Netpeak Checker
In addition, the site trust is checked using the Netpeak Checker service. This tool is especially convenient because it allows you to get information from various services, which significantly saves time. The site trust is analyzed based on three key parameters:
- MozTrust is a metric that measures the trustworthiness of a particular page.
- Majestic Trust Flow is a metric that measures the number of clicks to a landing page.
- Majestic Citation Flow – This metric only measures the number of sites that link to the target URL.
Finding out the trust of a site is very simple: the user needs to select the above parameters in the sidebar, insert the list of analyzed resources and start scanning. With this tool, you can get a comprehensive trust assessment for a large number of websites at once.
To get the most complete and objective services picture, we recommend using several tools at once. We also note that it will not be possible to check the site’s trust in Google, since it does not have its own web resource quality indicator. This can only be done using special services.
Tips for Increasing Trust
One of the key factors is the proper building of the link mass. It is important to avoid artificial purchase of links. Instead, you should use “white” methods, such as:
- guest posting;
- outreach marketing;
- crowd marketing etc.
These strategies allow you to get quality Istwa eksplorasyon espas backlinks from relevant resources and increase the trust of the site.
Creating unique and useful content is another critical aspect. Search engines put forward serious requirements for resource content. Content should not only be original, but also provide real value to visitors.
In addition, it is worth working on improving tneural usa b2b list networkshe resource usability. Your task is to make sure that users stay on the site as long as possible and actively interact with it. A convenient and intuitive interface, a logical structure, and an adaptive design all contribute to improving behavioral factors.
Another important aspect is prompt correction of detected errors. For example, slow page loading has a negative impact on promotion. Therefore, it is important to systematically conduct a technical audit and promptly eliminate detected problems.