How do you define trust? TheFreeDictionary.com defines it many different ways. SEO professionals should pay particular attention to these two definitions:
1. “Firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing.”
2. “Reliance on something [or someone] in the future.”
The reason these two definitions resonate with me is they both include a human component. Trust is a thing, sure, but this thing ultimately originates in the actions of people. On the Web, where organic search results are driven to a large degree by trust, entire classes of links have been devalued, and rightfully so. Among SEM professionals, it is widely agreed that search engines can tell a great deal about a website by looking at and analyzing the links that point to that website. The most successful SEMs – particularly link-building SEMs – have been those who understand link trust from a search engine’s perspective, and implement strategies that earn content-driven link trust, rather than begging, borrowing, or stealing it.
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