Google’s Martin Splitt explains why low-quality traffic doesn’t affect a website’s trustworthiness.

Google’s Martin Splitt responded to a question about website trustworthiness and whether competitors could harm it. He explained how Google evaluates site trustworthiness and clarified that factors like links and site traffic don’t negatively impact Google’s view of a site’s trustworthiness.

Can a Competitor Create Negative Trustworthiness Signals?

A concerned user recently asked whether a competitor could harm their website’s trustworthiness by sending bot traffic, potentially making the site appear untrustworthy to Google’s algorithm.

This concern may stem from the idea that Google uses click metrics to rank web pages. However, most research suggests that clicks validate search results rather than for ranking purposes. This distinction is crucial for understanding the question posed:

“Do I have to be concerned about bad actors trying to make our site appear untrustworthy by sending spam or fake traffic to my site? Since site trustworthiness is binary.”

In this context, “binary” likely refers to the perception that a site is trustworthy or untrustworthy, with no middle ground.

Martin Splitt, a Google representative, addressed this concern by downplaying the notion of trustworthiness as a binary quality and firmly stating that traffic from questionable sources does not influence how Google views a site. He clarified:

“It’s not binary, and just by sending traffic from questionable sources to a site, that site won’t be ‘tainted.’ Spam or fake traffic is not something that can negatively influence trust.”

Martin further explained that if a site engages in spammy activities, it will naturally be perceived as spammy. However, he confirmed that external factors like incoming traffic or links do not impact a site’s trustworthiness in Google’s eyes. He emphasized:

“If a site itself does shady things, such as spam or malware, sure, that’s a problem. But nobody gets to choose or control where traffic or links are coming from, so that’s not something Google Search will look at to judge a website’s trustworthiness.”

Bot Traffic Doesn’t Affect How Google Sees a Site

Nearly every website faces frequent visits from hacker bots probing for vulnerabilities or repeatedly hitting non-existent pages. This is just the reality of the web, which all sites experience.

Given this, Martin Splitt’s reassurance that third parties cannot make a site appear untrustworthy to Google is logical. All websites encounter low-quality inbound links and bot traffic, yet these factors do not influence how Google perceives a site’s trustworthiness.

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