Which factors can increase the trust of the domain name in the search engine?

Over the past two years, domain trustworthiness has played a significant role in Google's ranking algorithm. Often, large, highly trusted websites can easily dominate keyword rankings on internal pages. The most prominent example of the power of domain trustworthiness is Wikipedia. To create a successful website, it's crucial to start by choosing the right domain name, as it can make your work much more effective. Let's explore some factors that can increase a domain's trustworthiness in search engines.

1. Backlinks from other highly trusted websites:

Google's initial explanation of TrustRank involved manually selecting a set of highly trusted seed websites, likely including well-known, high-quality sites like Yahoo, The New York Times, and Wikipedia. Then, they assessed which other websites these high-quality sites linked to, thereby identifying the second-tier trusted domain names. In other words, if your domain is linked from websites like Yahoo or The New York Times, your domain gains a second-tier trust level.

This concept is somewhat similar to PageRank (PR), both based on links, but it's not PR. The most trusted websites at the core number only around 100 or so. They are manually selected, not measured by PR value. Domain trustworthiness is also calculated on a domain basis, not by individual pages. Therefore, domain trustworthiness is not determined by the quantity of links, especially not by the number of low-quality links. This emphasizes the importance of link quality over quantity.

2. Domain History:

This includes the domain's original registration date and the first time Google crawled its pages.

It's quite evident that domains registered earlier tend to be more trusted. It's a simple yet effective factor. If you have a domain registered for ten years, it can be a powerful asset. If you possess a domain registered for 15 years, regardless of its current use, it's likely to have substantial authority.

Personally, I own domains that are only six years old at most. That's why, even though I'm not entirely satisfied with the domain hosting my daily SEO posts, I don't plan to switch. Even a domain with just two or three years of history is something new domains can't replicate. It's an irreplaceable resource.

3. Originality of Website Content and Update Frequency:

The selection of the core 100 or so trusted domains is a manual process. It's safe to assume that a significant emphasis is placed on the originality of content, and these websites are regularly updated. Algorithms can be tricked, but humans can't be fooled, especially in such a critical matter.

It's hard to imagine that scraper sites (websites that collect content from other sources) would be considered highly trusted websites, at least not initially. Originality should be the primary focus at the beginning. Once a certain level of trust is established, incorporating some curated content may not be detrimental.

Of course, there are other details that can influence domain trustworthiness, but I believe these three conditions mentioned above are the most critical factors.