Trust is commonly understood to be a standalone quality that is passed between sites regardless of link neighborhood or topical vertical. What I’m going to demonstrate is that “trust” is not a thing that trickles down from a trusted site to another site. The implication for link building is that many may have been focusing on the wrong thing.
Six years ago I was the first person to write about link distance ranking algorithms that are a way to create a map of the Internet that begins with a group of sites that are judged to be trustworthy….

![[CITYPNG.COM]White Google Play PlayStore Logo – 1500×1500](https://startupnews.fyi/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/CITYPNG.COMWhite-Google-Play-PlayStore-Logo-1500x1500-1-630x630.png)