On Friday I wrote a post about how on-site changes can have larger effects on rankings for some sites than others. I outlined why I believe this is the case – one way links from quality sites lead Google to trust the content on your site.

Therefore there seems to be a form of ‘ring of trust’ in Google’s eyes. Once you get into that ring of trust then you can rely less on outside sources.

So how do you become a member of the ‘ring of trust’?

Well, quality is governed through automatic detection but Google does not seem to place 100% trust in its own automatic quality system and therefore relies on some outside sources - sources where human judgement is added to the mix. Here are some ways you can pass Google’s human judgement:

Submit (and get accepted!) to DMOZ

DMOZ is an open directory project. Entries are screened by human administrators – if your site is half finished or generally awful in all sorts of ways then it won’t get accepted. It is said that Google relies heavily DMOZ for choosing which sites to trust because of its strict human administrators. If your site gets into DMOZ then you have passed a human quality test in addition to its own system and Google will reflect this accordingly in its rankings.

Get involved with trusted organisations

Run a campaign in association with a trusted local or national organisation. This could get you links from what are known as ‘authority sites’ – sites that also relied upon heavily for their human enforcement of Google’s quality laws. Due to the nature of these organisations, Google trusts them implicitly not to link to poor quality sites.

More to be added - anybody else got any further ideas?

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Google, SEO, Search Engine Optimisation, content, seo tools