♥️ Trust Becomes The Most Important Ranking Factor?

Damn reading this is truly mind boggling:

https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/hobo-strategic-seo-2025.pdf

That one PDF fundamentally changes how I see SEO now.

I expected this sort of quality to be behind at least an optin.

TLDR version is basically focus on providing trust signals aka accurate about pages, external references like a real brand does.

Transparency is key it seems.

No trust = best links + best content won't matter.

No more hiding behind fake author bios anymore.

if you think about it logically in a world full of ai generated content trust becomes substantially more important so it would follow that Google would prioritise trust signals.

@splishsplash's twitter had a few replies to this Shaun Anderson guy posts so I decided to finally do a bit of reading.

Thoughts?



PS: I could be completely wrong but I'm always open to being corrected and subsequently learning.

You might say no hiding behind fake author bios? I just got given a book,, you might have heard of it, "How to tell if you cat is plotting to kill you" its a NY times best seller. Yet the author goes by a toon pic on the back and name "The oatmeal" lol nowhere outisde or inside is his real name actually written. You could probably find out, if he wanted you to know, and left a trail. But i don't think "hiding" behind a good brand name is going away any time soon, thankfully.

100% and no need to read these 100's of pages. PR & Branding will be the most important thing in GEO within next 10 years. Not any other things.

The introduction hooked me, and I will skim through the PDF quickly. Apart from that, it has been established numerous times that Google focuses on EEAT for ranking websites. So, no wonder what they're looking for is trust.

Since google introduced EAT later EEAT, trust has been a critical ranking factor. In the realm of AI we must focus on branding the author or individual if you want to rank better. That is why more and more compays are focusing on branding nowadays. Who is saying is more important than what is saying.