The periodic table of SEO success factors part 10, trust and authority

In the previous article, I wrote about the fourth column of the periodic table of SEO success factors which was trust. This column of “elements” was the first from the group of Off-Page-SEO. In this article, I explain the rest of this column with two other elements beginning with History.

Th: History

The search engines are constantly visiting all the websites on the Internet and can figure out what a normal behavior is. For example which pages are usually being updated. Are you suddenly linking out to what the search engines call bad neighborhoods or spammy sites? Are you publishing content about a topic you haven’t typically covered? Such things will raise alarm bells.

And usually sites will change for a better one and those changes aren’t taken in isolation. Other factors are also assessed to determine if something worries the visitors.

Likewise, a site that has received multiple penalties due to violating the guidelines of search engines has a hard time to come on the first page of Google and other search engines. We increased the weight of this factor, in part because we’re seeing that Google doesn’t forget things like Penguin easily.

Ultimately, a good overall track record may help you. An older, established site may find it can keep cruising along with search success, while a new site may have to “pay its dues,” so to speak, for weeks, months or even longer to gain respect.

Ti: Identity

Search engines like Google and Bing use different ways to verify sites and also authors of the content. Perhaps the most dramatic attempt was Google Authorship. While Google ended Google Authorship in 2014, the search engine still tries to assess authorship for use with Author Rank in other ways.

Identity and authorship systems will likely continue to evolve. At the moment, among the best ways to tap into identity signals involve Klout for Bing, verifying sites with Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console plus linking your site to Google+.