Trust Rank - how to assess the quality of content on the website?

Have you heard about Page Rank - an algorithm that allowed to evaluate the quality of a website? From the very beginning of Google's operation, it was of great importance for determining the position of pages on SERPs. However, the search for an algorithm that would separate network spam from really valuable websites was started. It was then that the Trust Rank was established. What is it and how does it affect the positioning of your pages?

Trust Rank - what is it?

As we mentioned, Trust Rank was created as a complement to the long-known Page Rank algorithm, aimed at selecting websites with really valuable and useful content. The Trust Rank itself was established in 2004 thanks to the collaboration of Jan Pedersen from Yahoo and Zoltan Gyongyi and Hector Garcia-Molina from Stanford University. Trust Rank is intended to verify the quality of the content on the website as well as incoming and outgoing links. Checks if the subject of the page corresponds to the query for which it was found and placed on the SERP. You can say that the name "trust" is the trust that the search engine places in a given page. Trust that the user will receive valuable content in response to their inquiry, and will not be flooded with spam.

Trust Rank and its influence on positioning

Although Google states that the Trust Rank algorithm does not affect the evaluation of the page value and determining its position, there is a related issue worth thinking about. The quality of the content on the website and its usefulness for users, as well as the quality of incoming links are very important in positioning. So everything that is to verify the TR algorithm. Even if TR itself is not considered for ranking, it allows you to check how good the content on your site is and whether the linking is good, high level. It can therefore be assumed that Trust Rank is a litmus test that checks the adaptation of your website to search engines.

What affects Trust Rank?

As we wrote, Trust Rank acts as a sieve that is designed to separate spammy pages from valuable ones. The algorithm takes into account many factors, on the basis of which it develops a page score expressed in points. It is worth adding that there is no maximum number of points a website can receive. So what is taken into account when determining the TR of the page?

• Content posted on the website - should be unique, substantively valuable and useful for Internet users.

• History of the page (counted from the date of its indexation) - the older the page, the more trusted by Google's algorithm.

• Outbound links - should lead to valuable pages (preferably with the same or higher TR), thematically compatible with the one on which the link is placed.

• Inbound links - make sure that links to your site come from high-value sites - avoid link farms, spammy sites, etc. It is also important what part of the page the link is in. The best rated are those woven directly into its content (with an appropriate anchor showing the subject of the page to which the link refers), the worst - those contained in the footer.

• Updating - the more often you update the content on the website, the better the TR algorithm will evaluate it.

• SSL certificate - having it has a positive effect on the Trust Rank.

It is worth adding that the functioning of Trust Rank is also influenced by the human factor. At the beginning, some pages are analyzed by Google specialists and only based on their opinions, the algorithm evaluates subsequent pages.

How to check a website's Trust Rank?

Tools available on the web will be effective for assessing the level of trust of your website. It is worth emphasizing, however, that the results they provide are indicative and estimates only, and many of them use their own scale. It cannot be unquestionably stated that they coincide with the Trust Ranks issued by the Google algorithm. The Trust Rank Checker and Moz or Polish-language trustrank.pl tools are most often used to measure the authority of a website. You can also use add-ons to search engines, including SEO ToolBar for Mozilla.

The tools work similarly and present similar parameters in the results. Based on the Trust Rank Checker, we will look at tools that allow us to estimate the TR of a page. After entering the website with TR Checker, we place a link to the website we want to check and enter the verification code. After the data is approved, the tool starts the analysis that lasts a few seconds - we obtain general information about the website (IP, geolocation, indexation date), security settings and indicators, among others. Trust Rank, Page Rank, Alexa Ranking and estimated page value in dollars. Below, we can also see the number of links on the examined page, the number of indexed pages within a given website, the origin (location) of the most frequent visitors, etc.

Trust Rank, as we mentioned earlier, even if it is not explicitly taken into account by Google in the website evaluation, it nevertheless indicates the quality of the factors that have an obvious influence on positioning. That is why it is worth devoting time to activities increasing it - optimizing the content on your pages and acquiring links from trusted, valuable websites. These actions will automatically translate into a better position of your website in search results.

On the web, you can easily find lists of sites with high Trust Rank and Page Rank, where you can link to your site. However, remember to treat these types of statements with a certain distance and, above all, pay attention to what their subject matter is and whether it is consistent with the content that appears on your website. It will not be without significance for the positioning of your website on Google.