How to Fix Your Website Trust Percentage
A member recently spoke of a rather high trust rating for his relatively new website that shocked me so much as to test my much older business website’s trust value. I was shocked to learn that my site’s trust rate was only 37%... so, I set out to investigate.
Having (thankfully) done this in previous years, I truly thought my site was “clean” but I have learned that some of the websites I left comments on in 2010 and 2011 have since been left unattended, and are now accumulating spam, or been penalized for thin content, etc... having their site ratings decreased due to these penalties.
Like good link juice... their bad ratings are now affecting my site’s rating.
Here’s what I did to fix this...
First, I used Moz’s research tool to see what my trust rate is presently at.
Once I entered my website’s URL in the textbox provided, and then clicked the Search button, I was provided with my website’s Domain Authority, Page Authority, and Established Links as well as my site’s Spam Score which was sitting at 3/17.
Placing my cursor over the bars shown beside the 3/17 value, I got the following:
Grrrrr Google and their constantly changing the rules... but then... if I want to play in their “sandbox”, I have no other choice.
Scrolling down the page I could see a list of inbound links that were causing my site’s decrease in trust. Because I was using the Moz research tool in FREE access mode, I was only being offered the Spam Score of 5 of the websites that I had left comments on. The rest of the list was grayed out. You may wish to sign up to gain full value of the priceless tool.
Clicking on the URLs that were shown in my list with a high Spam Score, I was able to learn rather quickly that I had left a related comment on their website (back when their rank was HIGH!) with a backlink to my website.
When I clicked on the DA in the Moz list of Spam Score, and I was presented with another URL that was not listed in the PA list. These sites were penalized for things like thin content, as well as the same issues my site was dinged with.
Upon further investigation into the sites listed with High Spam Scores, I discovered that a couple of them are now left unattended... so, now what do I do? How do I get those backlinks removed?
First, I got busy emailing the websites that I could contact (one I had to learn of an email address to use from the site’s chat feature). In each email, I made sure to provide the URL where my backlink appears asking that the link be removed a.s.a.p. due to their website’s penalty now affecting my site’s trust percentage.
Now, what about the sites I could NOT contact... or that their email address bounced... or that the email sent was never responded to?
Google has exactly the “bandage” needed to fix this issue, and they call it Disavow backlinks. You need to be aware, that this option comes with a warning:
For those of you who need to do the same thing as I have and because of this warning, I will leave you the link to Google’s Disavow backlinks tutorial rather than offer you the procedure here in my words. It will be much safer for you.
Being able to contact the website owners and have them simply remove the link is sooooo much easier. And, most times having a link removed can happen with a simple email sent to a webmaster. However, remembering my rather loooong list of bounced emails from my previous cleaning, I did both options.
After submitting my TXT file of links, I will need to wait at the very least 30 days to see if this helped to increase my site’s trust percentage.
Cleaning up my websites structure to suit Google will obviously work to further increase my ratings... or will it? That will the REAL test.
Hope this helps you fix your website's trust percentage for the better.
PS: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/triblu/blog/why-do-click-on-...
Recent Comments
41
Thank you for sharing this Trish. For interest sake I will check it out although as a new site I expect the trust is low anyway. More time needed lol.
We need to be a patient lot us affiliate marketers :)
Hey Heidi,
Bets your site's trust is nearing my well-aged business site... which was the reason I was soooo shocked at how low the percentage was. I truly thought it should be much higher than that.
Isn't it true that backlinks through comments are ignored by Google and other big search engines? If so, they should not affect your site trust rate.
Hey Jovo,
Perhaps, though I have seen proof otherwise which is my reason for having these links disavowed.
I checked my links in one site which I have used earlier in SiteComments thread, so I have probably left many links in comments (do not remember, I stopped using that tool long ago). Webmaster shows me the list of sites with links to my site and I do not see sites of WA members. So it seems obvious that they are ignored.
By the way, do you have Pro access to that Moz tool? it would be interesting to see how sites of our big names here score. Cannot check myself, get a message that I have passed the limit for the day, and this means 3 only (for my own sites, and my scores are well below your).
I did have previously but am not sure if I do now. Because I had used this tool previously (a year or more ago) to fix a mess I created, I got away with using the free version to create this post with and fix my 'bads' this time too. Thankfully all that showed is all that was.
They are picked up by Google, but treated as no follows so they have no bearing on rankings etc. But they do create an annoyance for sifting through the garbage vs the good stuff linking to your site.
In other words, they are ignored as I wrote in the beginning. This has been so for almost a decade now.
Yes sir! You got it! I just don't like them myself because if I am looking for links to disavow it just fills my link list with a bunch of junk.
The screen print below is meant to show both sides of this debate for those members who come upon this discussion.
Google searching the exact titles under "Read on and learn" point to BOTH sides, with information to back up each claim... and then ieach member can decide for themselves to use follow or nofollow links.
Hi Trish, I think this is not what I pointed out here, I have never paid any attention to this no-follow thing.
In the blog you pointed out urls in comments. Search engines simply ignore such urls. This was introduced long ago to prevent misusing such backlinks. This is automatic regardless of what you do or what the other side does. See in Webmaster and you will realize, there should be no links in the list originating from your comments in the sites of WA members or in any other sites. As I understand you detected such urls in MOZ's tool and not in Webmaster. Well, this is is not the same.
In any case, as I mentioned above, my site trust is far below the value you mentioned at your side. But I would not put much stress on it, this site trust is only one part of the story, my ranking is very good and this is what matters.
Also remember DA and PA is different from tool to tool. It is not a number given by Google but by the tools. So if somebody has a claim of a very high trust score with a new site I would question the tool as it is simply not realistic.
Hey Mikael,
Though you are right, 37% is not bad, my site truly is a very old site.
Considering that one of my customer's sites are as old as my business website and theirs sits at 98%... I would LOVE to have mine be at least close to that high. :-))
Thank you for sharing this valuable post, you must feel relieved to have fixed the problem, what a quite adventure!
I will check my website 's trust percentage to be sure everything is normal.
Jacqueline
Hey Jacqueline,
You are so right, at least my trust rating may improve. Thank you for taking the time to comment. Much appreciated!
Is he Micheal...? I did not know that. Hope I didn't butt in where I should not have with this post. <gulp!>
The webinar looks like it will be about how you run an online business and create trust- not the kind of trust in this post if I understand the description of the webinar correctly
Hi Trish, you are quite the expert at WA and glad you are available to help us new comers! Thanks for the information. Best Regards, George
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I personally recommend never leaving your website in the comments of other sites.
Not only will it falsely inflate your backlinks (and provide no true benefit as they are all No Follow links by default), but it just creates a hassle when looking for true information later as you have to sift through all the garbage.
This is a great way to help you clean that up. Thanks for sharing!
Hey Craig,
Am now of the very same thinking... and only hinted at that in my blog. Also noticed that when we comment on other member's sites from SiteComments, we are NEVER asked for our URL.
Though nofollow links CAN help a website out, you MUST be assured the ranking of the sites with those nofollow links don't suddenly drop in rank... like the sites in my list did.
Thank YOU for reinforcing what today's conclusion PLUS your taking the time to comment here. Much appreciated!