By: Jonathan Stec

Published: January 8th, 2023

Updated: January 8th, 2023

Google’s TrustRank is a system that the search giant uses to determine the quality and trustworthiness of websites that appear in its search results. TrustRank is just one of many algorithms that Google uses to rank pages and determine which results to display for a given search query, but it is an important one that can have a significant impact on a website’s visibility and traffic.

In this blog post, we’ll take a deep dive into what TrustRank is, how it works, and how you can use it to improve the ranking of your own website.

What is TrustRank?

TrustRank is a measure of the trustworthiness and credibility of a website. It is based on the idea that not all websites are created equal, and that some are more trustworthy and deserving of higher rankings than others.

Google uses TrustRank to help identify low-quality websites and spam, and to ensure that its search results are as relevant and trustworthy as possible. It does this by using a combination of automated algorithms and manual review by human experts to determine which websites are worthy of higher rankings.

One of the key factors that goes into TrustRank is the quality and credibility of a website’s inbound links. Google uses inbound links as a way to gauge the quality of a website, as they are a signal of the website’s value and reputation. Websites with a high number of high-quality inbound links are seen as more trustworthy and are therefore likely to rank higher in the search results.

In addition to inbound links, Google also looks at other factors when determining TrustRank, including the quality of a website’s content, its user experience, and its overall design and functionality. Websites that are well-designed, easy to use, and provide valuable, informative content are more likely to be seen as trustworthy and therefore rank higher in the search results.

How TrustRank Affects Your Website’s Ranking

TrustRank is just one of many factors that Google takes into account when ranking websites in its search results. However, it is an important one, as it can have a significant impact on a website’s visibility and traffic.

If your website has a high TrustRank, it is more likely to rank higher in the search results, which can lead to more traffic and more customers. On the other hand, if your website has a low TrustRank, it may struggle to rank well in the search results, which can lead to less traffic and fewer customers.

Therefore, it is important for website owners to understand and work on improving their TrustRank if they want to achieve better rankings and more traffic from Google.

How to Improve Your TrustRank

There are several things that you can do to improve your website’s TrustRank and, in turn, its ranking in the search results. Some of the most effective strategies include:

1. Focus on building high-quality inbound links: As mentioned earlier, inbound links are a key factor in TrustRank. Therefore, it is important to focus on building high-quality inbound links from reputable, authoritative websites. This can be done through a variety of methods, such as guest blogging, creating valuable content that other websites will want to link to, and participating in online communities and forums related to your industry.
2. Create high-quality content: Google places a high value on websites that provide valuable, informative, and well-written content. Therefore, it is important to focus on creating high-quality content that your visitors will find useful and that other websites will want to link to.
3. Improve your website’s user experience: Google also takes into account the overall user experience of a website when determining its TrustRank. This includes factors such as the website’s design, load times (which you will never hear me stop talking about it’s importance), navigability, and the content to be consumed by the user.

How to Measure Your TrustRank

There currently isn’t a tool that will give you the best guess of your site’s TrustRank, and we can only guess based on the factors above what your TrustRank is since it is a Google internal metric. So unless if Google releases a tool that allows you to measure it, we can only guess.

That is not to say that you cannot use a variety of tools to measure approximately how you are doing. Here is what I like to use to check general site issues, user experience, backlink profile, and site load times:

1. APIVoid – this site has a relatively great site checker to make sure your site’s overall trust is passing based on technical factors like accessibility, user experience, and many other factors.
2. Ahrefs – this site let’s you claim your site and set up a project to crawl the site and measure it’s health, as well as the backlink profile, and gives you a Domain Rating.
3. GTMetrix and PageSpeed – GTMetrix is a great way to measure your site speed as well as identify ways to improve it. PageSpeed is Google’s own tool and functions the same way as GTMetrix.