At the beginning of the month, Google published a short blog that shares factors helping them to algorithmically trust a news source:
- An article byline linking to a page describing author credentials & expertise
- A publish date (my tip: add a Date Modified too, if applicable)
- Proper categorization of the article type, such as an Opinion or News piece
- Company details like a mission statement, ownership, and specific contact information
- Editorial policies & standards
They evaluate these using clearly-available text and will make exceptions, for example, on sensitive topics where revealing authors could be risky.
While these insights are meant for Google News, they likely build trust for any blog.
Most importantly, this confirms what SEOs have long considered important: associate experts with your content. Just like how a webpage can develop authority through backlinks, it’s likely that authors develop authority too as separate entities.
What lacked in the past though were official statements confirming parts of this process, until recently!