At Kraus Marketing, we are always keeping up with the ever-changing place known as Search Engine Land. One of the ways that Google originally ranked websites was by the amount of credible inbound links a website had. Google would determine their quality score and would rank them on the search engine results page (SERP) as so. The one issue with this is that a website that has a lot of credible inbound links, can be full of misinformation and still rank higher than a credible website that is actually a product of what a user is searching for.

A new research team created by Google has developed a new model which they are implementing that will measure the trust factor of a website page rather than the site’s reputation. This new system, which isn’t live yet, will scroll the pages of the site and count the number of incorrect facts listed on the page. The score that is going to be ranked will be known as the “Knowledge-Based Trust Score.”

This new software works by accessing Google’s fact-checking knowledge bank, created by Google bots known as the “Knowledge Vault.” Using this system, facts that are unanimously agreed upon are considered to be truthful. Any sites that contain information that contradict those facts are bumped down in rankings due to false activity. The accuracy of the Knowledge Vault is becoming a foundation that will allow robots and smartphones like Siri (iOS) and Cortana (Android) to provide answers to questions instead of having to use a search engine to find the answer.

Knowledge Vault works in the same fashion as a database. While a database deals with numbers, the knowledge base will deal with facts. This is how search engines currently get information that users type into the search bar.

Out of the 1.6 billion facts that Knowledge Vault has filed, over 271 million of these are listed as “confident facts.” This means that the quality score of this is over 90% chance of a truthful statement. Knowledge Vault takes the information that it already knows and cross-references it with new facts.

For example, Mark Zuckerberg owns Facebook. That’s a true statement that is verifiable. If a website says that Bill Gates owns Facebook, that site’s credibility will be falsified and will lose rankings. This is a good thing for websites that aren’t being ranked as highly as they should for providing facts and truthful information.

According to Google, the Knowledge Vault will only deal with factual information and not with personal information of anyone.

What does this mean for your company and website?

This means that as long as your site is full of factual information that is verified from Google, your site will go up in the SERP. This also means that items like keywords, title tags and meta information will be an important way to keep your site optimized properly with white-hat SEO techniques. Also, note that on April 21^st, 2015, Google will penalize you for not having a mobile responsive site as well, which could affect your rankings.

If you have questions about your website’s responsiveness, social media, SEO, PPC or any of the other services we offer, contact us at (973) 998-5742 or at www.KrausMarketing.com. We can help you rank higher and get more leads through your website and develop new ways to promote your company and strengthen your brand.