TrustRank in action - or not

Trustrank has been a phrase bouncing around the internet for a while. It has always been associated with some form of replacement or supplement to PageRank (PR).

Funny thing is, I'm not so certain that is the case!

Here is a snippet of code sent from Google's Anti-Phishing Toolbar extension for Firefox:

Now it may be that TrustRank will develop as a supplement to PageRank (PR) over time through the data collected, or it may just be the case that people have gotten a hold of the wrong end of the stick.

(O'Reilly about the flaws in the anti-phishing toolbar extension for Firefox)

 

Interesting...

 

This use of TrustRank makes sense. It is deciding whether or not the page is trusted for security purposes.

Using TrustRank for links and ultimately SERPS was debated when is first surfaced in the Patent application. It is certainly seemed less useful for this purpose.

 

Using TrustRank in the way described makes perfect sense. I was rather surprised to see it in the code but it did make the penny drop for me. TrustRank is not so much about algos and SERPs but about internet sites that can be trusted with Google's Wallet.

 

In regards to adsence i think google 100% has a trust rank..

I had massive problems when my db went down on my forum.. Re-installing it fixed the problem but google picked up a session key and index 200k of page from 2,000 actual pages.. after a month the homepages got deindexed as the site got flagged for dup content.. it took 2 months to recover 90% but still my ppc is a hell of a lot lower..

Its increasing but nothing like when google had "trust" in my site.. So if it work like that for adsence then why not for the serps .. just imho

 

No, you got deindexed. Completely different thing.

 

mcfox, John Scott just pointed me to this Aaron Wall article on TrustRank.

Is this related to what you were thinking with your "Google Wallet" example?

 

I'd forgotten about that article. Aaron seems to discuss some of the overall TrustRank stuff in depth with a view to the future, so I guess in that respect, yes, it's very much related.

On the other hand, what was shown in the Firefox Toolbar article is that TrustRank seems to be much more about finances and preventing fraud via anti-phishing technologies at the moment than it is about linking and serps.

I'd say that link values (as discussed by Aaron) will eventually be weighted, depending on TrustRank, as the technologies converge. It makes sense to do so to some extent but only up to a point as many sites do not require a TrustRank value (as is passed via the Firefox toolbar) since they do not require any user details.

 

I must say your notion fascinates me - I'm not sure what to make of it yet, though, and thinking about it is making my brain hurt