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Key Takeaways A few years ago, I redefined what trust signals mean for brand builders. A few weeks ago, I Googled the term and got my exact definition back — no author, no source.
The AI knew the history. It just didn’t lead with it. The concept got adopted widely, and once it did, it became “standard industry knowledge” rather than a specific author’s contribution.
When you’ve done the work, you feel like the position is established. But in the AI era, you have to actively defend your position by continuously publishing substantive work on the topics you want to own.
For decades, “trust signals” were a conversion optimization concept — the SSL badges, BBB seals and security icons that gave skittish online shoppers enough confidence to hand over a credit card number. Useful, tactical and almost entirely confined to your website.
Then, in 2020, it hit me: Those badges and seals were pointing to something much bigger. Before any purchase, every buyer is really asking the same question — whether they can trust the brand they’re considering. I organized the full body of evidence buyers use to answer that question into three categories: website trust signals, inbound trust signals and SEO trust signals. I published the argument, built a site around it and eventually wrote a book.
A few weeks ago, I typed “trust signals” into Google to see how the term is understood today. The answer came back using my three categories with my exact labels. No author. No source. Just my definition, presented as received industry wisdom.
So I followed up, asking Google’s AI why the definition hadn’t been attributed to anyone. The response was worth reading carefully because it got something right that the original answer got wrong.
Google acknowledged that while the term “trust signals” had existed before I expanded the definition, the specific three-category structure was mine — and it explained, with some precision, why I wasn’t credited in the first place. The concept was logical enough that it got adopted widely, and once it did, it became “standard industry knowledge” rather than a specific author’s contribution.
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