Credibility Indicators

I'm curious what members here use for credibility indicators of a website. I often check the PageRank, sometimes the Alexa rank if I've just come across a website I've never heard of before.

I also like to see a truly informative "About Us" page, preferably with a physical location and 1.800 number.

 

Depends on your goal. I almost never bother with PR, Alexa etc. unless I want to buy the site or links on it. If I want to buy a product from them then their contact us, about us and general professionalism means more to me. It normally takes 3 seconds to sus out though, it either looks good or crap.

If it's a high ticket purchase I often google [company name + scam] or [website url + rip off] etc. just to get some testimonials.

 

If its a site that I will be buying from, I like to check out resellerratings.com. Scroll down to the "Store Ratings" search and enter the domain name. That should give you a good idea about the company.

 

If it reads purly wiht lost of spellngin mistaces it tells me all I need to now.

 

The about us page is important, but I'm not too concerned about 1.800 numbers as many very legitimate businesses/sites (especially smaller ones) do not have these. PageRank and Alexa rating are useful for advertising purposes, but lately Alexa has gotten all screwed up because of the billions of pages/sites generated by sub-domain spammers. Until Alexa finds a way to filter out these spammers, their stats will be seriously depressing the Alexa rank of legitimate sites. I think PageRank is being depressed for the same reason, however, not as badly.

Searching for back links to a domain can be much more revealing than just evaluating PageRank and Alexa ratings as it can give one an idea of the types of sites that link to the domain.

Another thing I do is a whois of the domain name to me a "private" domain is a red flag. To me someone using a private domain is trying to hide something. Doing a whois on the IP address for the domain name can also be very revealing.

 

Don't really care about the Alexa rankings.I'll probably do a whois check and I'll definitely google the website.Just to see if there are any feedbacks on the website.

 

I must admit to having several sites where the who.is info is hidden. It's not because I've anything to hide from honest people, it's just I'm naturally quite a private person who doesn't want his personal details and phone number available to all the identity thieves, nutcase, weirdos and scammers who prowl the net. The number of phishing emails I get daily as a result of one somewhat busy site I run is truly scary.

That's an excellent point KLB.

 

I have a specific email set up for my domains (e.g. ), which helps protect my core email addresses. As far as other details go, I believe that if one is in business and wants to conduct business (e.g. get me to give up my personal information, pay for something, etc), they had better have real contact information in their whois.

 

It depends on how much is changing hands, but generally speaking customer support response times, contact details on the website, and general professionism of the site are good indicators for me.

 

Thanks for all the imput guys!

 

In terms of looking at a sites credibility try looking at the Page Strenth tool, http://www.seomoz.org/tools/page-strength.php it'll tell you a lot more than PR or Alexa ranking.

Otherwise, if you want to find out about the company itself just pick up the phone and give them a call

 

I have a web site that I would actually like to see get into the Alexa rating. And while my site isn't at the bottom of the charts compared to some of the few that are similar to mine I'd like to find ways of driving traffic to it. I do check its popularity in Google MSN etc.

 

Alexa rankings can easily faked, though getting higher in the Alexa rankings isn't really going to give you any benefits other than fooling potential advertisers.

 

The main thing I look for is the content of the site and the sorts or adverts they are showing.

No quality site will have paid links to rubbish sites in the footer.

 

Google PR represents credibility

 

Not really, it just repesents that another site links to it. Links can be bought though I wouldn't say you can buy credibilty.

 

Are you making a dig at co-op links?

 

I'm making a dig at 90% of the sites who seem to sell links.

My thoughts are that if a site is willing to make a few hundred dollars extra cash from selling links (or adding coop links) then its obviously not making much money elsewhere.

 

For true content sites, usually 100% of revenues come from advertising as we don't sell stuff ourselves. Selling links allows a site to diversify ad revenues such that the loss of one piece of advertising (e.g. AdSense) doesn't hurt so badly. Besides, the amount of money I personally make each year by selling links directly to advertisers is nothing to sneeze at, it is very substantial.

 

I guess it depends on the wort of links you are selling. Irrelevant links can devalue a site and most people wouldn't add them.

On the other hand from a siteowners point of view its all about making money so why not sell links if they can give you a good income.