What is TrustRank?
TrustRank is an algorithm that was to help identify and filter out low-quality or spammy websites from search results. It helps distinguish between trustworthy sites and those that may engage in deceptive practices, like spamdexing or keyword stuffing, which violate search engine guidelines.
Search engines use TrustRank to assess the credibility of websites by analysing several factors, such as backlinks, domain authority, and the trustworthiness of linked sites. The idea is that trustworthy sites typically link to other high-quality, reputable sites, creating a “web of trust.”
First introduced by Zoltan Gyongyi and Hector Garcia-Molina of Stanford University and Jan Pedersen of Yahoo! In a paper titled “Combating Web Spam with TrustRank” It proposed the theory that PageRank was at risk of manipulation.
How Does TrustRank Work?
TrustRank works by analsing the backlink profile of a site, starting with a small set of manually selected, highly trustworthy websites.
From there, the TrustRank algorithm follows the backlinks from these trusted sites to others they are linking to. The closer a site is to one of these trusted sources in the backlink chain, the more trustworthy it is considered. On the other hand, the farther away a site is from a trusted source, the less trustworthy it is considered.
Does Google use TrustRank?
Technically? No. While there are various papers, articles and studies that say Google uses TrustRank as proposed by the paper by Gyongyi, Garcia-Molina and Pedersen, this is not entirely correct. This concept of TrustRank was patented by Yahoo.
However, Google does use the term “TrustRank” to refer to an anti-phishing filter.
In terms of determining the trust of a website Google uses a number of factors like PageRank, website age, inbound links, backlink quality and more to assess how trustworthy a site is in its ranking algorithms.
