TrustRank
TrustRank is an algorithm that can be used to bias PageRank by placing additional authority on human-reviewed, trusted sites. Trust propagates out from the trusted pages and sites to pages and sites they link to. TrustRank also can be used to neutralize the effects of some types of low-quality link building from untrusted sources as well as to flag high-PageRank, low-trust websites for human review.
In the TrustRank research paper, the seed sites fit the following criteria:
- Seed sites linked to many other websites. DMOZ and the Yahoo! Directory, for example, were most likely seed sites.
- Seed sites were controlled by major corporations, educational bodies, or governmental bodies.
I believe TrustRank (or a similar algorithm) is a huge part of Google's current search algorithm. If you look at a link through the eyes of a search engineer or search editor, rather than just looking at PageRank, you would do far better in terms of evaluating the value of a link.
Look at a site and ask yourself questions like, "Is this the type of site I would use as a seed site?" If the answer to that is "no," then ask, "Is this site directly or indirectly associated with seed sites?" and "Why would quality seed sites want to link to this site or sites linking to this site?"
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