How to Fix Every Trust Audit Finding
The Website Trust Audit scores your site across 22 signals in 8 categories. When a check fails, this index points you to the right fix. Some fixes are immediate (add an Organization schema, link an About page); others are slow (domain age, backlink profile) and need a programme of work rather than a one-off change. Below: every finding type, why it fails, and what to do about it.
Domain signals (18 pts available)
📅 Fix failing domain age (under 1 year / under 3 years) LIVE
There's no shortcut for time. Compensate with maximally strong identity and authority signals while age builds. Or acquire an established domain in your niche — domain ownership transfers do not reset WHOIS registration date, so a 10-year-old domain bought today still scores 10 years old.
📋 Fix hidden or unavailable WHOIS LIVE
Privacy proxies are legal and standard post-GDPR but completely empty WHOIS hurts. Use a registrar that publishes at minimum registration date and registrant country. Full anonymity (some .tk registrars) is a fraud signal regardless of intent.
🏢 Fix unidentifiable registrar LIVE
Migrate to a recognised registrar — GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, Google Domains, OVH, IONOS, Hover. Obscure shell registrars used heavily by abusers are themselves a fraud signal even if your site is legitimate.
Reputation signals (18 pts available)
🚨 Fix Google Safe Browsing flags LIVE
If Safe Browsing flags your site as malware / phishing / unwanted software, Chrome/Firefox/Safari show a full-page warning. Immediate steps: identify and remove the flagged content, then request review via Google Search Console → Security Issues. Re-check status weekly until cleared.
🛑 Fix high backlink spam score (30+) LIVE
A high spam score means your backlink profile looks toxic — link farms, PBNs, comment spam, low-quality directories. Audit backlinks via Search Console or Ahrefs/SEMrush. Disavow the worst offenders via Google's Disavow tool. Earn quality editorial links to dilute the spam signal.
Authority signals (15 pts available)
🔗 Fix zero or low referring domains LIVE
Earn natural editorial links via guest posts on industry sites, podcast appearances with show-note links, contribute original research that journalists cite, secure partnerships and supplier listings, get into relevant directories. Focus on quality over quantity — 10 strong referring domains beats 100 directory listings.
📈 Fix low domain rank (under 20) LIVE
Build topical authority via cluster content — pick 3-5 narrow topics where you have a real point of view, publish 5-10 substantial pieces per topic, earn niche-relevant backlinks on those topics. Domain rank is downstream of editorial authority on specific subjects, not breadth.
Identity signals (12 pts available)
📧 Fix missing contact email on homepage LIVE
Add a visible contact email to your footer. Use a domain-matched address (info@yourdomain.com) rather than gmail. Even if you prefer forms for inbound enquiries, the email-as-trust-signal is worth its 4 points. Spam-protect with a simple obfuscation pattern if needed.
📞 Fix missing phone number on homepage LIVE
Display a real phone number, typically in the footer or header. Format consistently with the country code (+44 20 1234 5678). For YMYL (health, finance, legal) businesses this matters most. A virtual number from Skype, Twilio or GoTo is fine; lying about it isn't.
🏛️ Fix missing Organization schema LIVE
Add JSON-LD Organization (or LocalBusiness, NewsMediaOrganization, ProfessionalService) to your homepage. Required:
@type,
name,
url,
logo. Recommended:
contactPoint,
sameAs array of social-profile URLs. Use our
AI Schema Generator to produce one automatically.
📱 Fix missing social profile links LIVE
Link from your footer to your real social profiles — Facebook, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube. Even one or two real profiles improves the signal. Empty / placeholder accounts (zero posts, zero followers) are worse than no link.
Site behaviour (10 pts available)
🤖 Fix missing robots.txt LIVE
Create /robots.txt at your domain root with at minimum: User-agent: * Allow: / Sitemap: https://your-domain/sitemap.xml. Even a basic file demonstrates someone considered crawler policy — itself a hygiene signal.
🚧 Fix blocking all crawlers LIVE
Remove Disallow: / under User-agent: *. Only block specific paths like /admin/, /tmp/, or staging URLs. Blocking all crawlers entirely hides you from search engines AND looks suspicious — most legitimate sites want to be indexed.
🛰️ Fix blocking AI crawlers LIVE
Unless you have a specific content-licensing position (publishers, premium content), allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and CCBot. AI search traffic is a growing slice of discovery in 2026 — blocking it costs visibility in answer engines.
On-page trust signals (10 pts available)
ℹ️ Fix missing About link LIVE
Add an About page with team bios, company history, mission, registered address. Link to it from your main nav or footer. About pages are a basic trust signal Google quality raters explicitly check for — the page existing matters even more than what's on it.
✉️ Fix missing Contact link LIVE
Add a Contact page with email, phone, address (or registered office), and optionally a contact form. Link from your main nav AND footer. Critical for e-commerce, professional services and YMYL.
🔒 Fix missing Privacy Policy LIVE
Required by GDPR, CCPA and most modern privacy regulations. Use our
GDPR Compliance Kit to generate one. Link from footer on every page. Without it you're legally exposed regardless of audit score.
📜 Fix missing Terms / Conditions LIVE
Add Terms of Service / Conditions of Use. For e-commerce, add Refund Policy and Shipping Policy too. Link from footer. Specifies your relationship with users — a basic legitimacy signal and a legal essential.
Technology stack (7 pts available)
⚙️ Fix empty technology detection LIVE
Usually self-resolves — wait 30 days for DataForSEO to crawl and fingerprint your site. If still empty after 60 days: verify your site isn't blocking DFS's crawler, isn't behind aggressive CDN-level bot filtering, and renders meaningful HTML server-side (heavily JS-rendered sites can confuse fingerprinting).
🏗️ Fix unrecognised CMS LIVE
If you run custom infrastructure (most large publishers, SaaS apps), compensate with stronger identity and authority signals — this 3-point check rewards mainstream-platform fingerprints, which custom builds inherently lack. No remediation needed if the rest of your audit is strong.
TLD risk (10 pts available)
🌐 Fix high-risk TLD LIVE
If you're on a .tk, .ml, .ga, .cf, .gq, .top, .xyz, .click — strongly consider registering the same brand on a .com, .org, .net or country-code TLD and 301-redirecting. Premium-priced TLDs see disproportionately less abuse because per-domain cost filters out throwaway operators. Brand-protection cost: ~£10-20/year.
Need to measure first?
The Trust Audit costs £1.99 and runs in under 20 seconds. It tests all 22 signals in parallel and grades you A–F. Run it before reading any specific fix guide — it tells you which fixes will actually move your score.
🛡 Measure your trust score first
Most sites have never measured trust signals systematically. Run the audit, then prioritise the highest-impact fixes.
Run Trust Audit →