Why we stopped taking link-driven guest posts, and what a listing must be to stay

Why we stopped taking link-driven guest posts, and what a listing must be to stay

A year ago TrustList was an ordinary directory. It took guest posts from almost anyone, let businesses describe themselves in their own words, and counted its pages more than it read them. The site came back after about a year offline, and on 25 September 2026 our AdSense application was refused for thin, low-value content. That refusal was fair. Around 17 September, 24,350 of our live listings, about a quarter, had fewer than 50 words of profile text, and 82% of the older company profiles with 50 or more words (54,541 of 66,473) were written in the business's own voice.

It is now a curated directory, with written rules for who may post, what may be listed and what a page has to say. Between 26 and 29 September 2026 we archived 52 paid guest posts, parked 15,238 thin listings that had nothing we could source, and rewrote 29,722 of 72,564 live company listings to one standard. This article explains the rules behind that change, and how to contribute or list properly if you want to.

It is written for two audiences. If you are a reader, it tells you what the pages you see have been through. If you run a business, it tells you which door is open, which is shut, and why we think that is fair to you as well.

What went wrong with guest posts

We ran an audit of the whole site on 26 September 2026 (our own records, dated). At that point we had 61 guest posts live. They were already excluded from search results and hidden from the sitemap, but they were still published and still linked from our own pages.

We read them one by one. Of the 61, we archived 52: 51 were promotional and one was spun from other articles. Promotional meant the usual things. Backlinks to the author's own firm, "hire us" paragraphs, press releases dressed as advice, and in one case a seller of links contributing three pieces of its own. Several businesses had contributed many articles in a row, which is not what someone with something to say looks like. It is what a link-building campaign looks like.

The same audit turned up an article published under our own Editorial label that was an unfinished generator stub. Its text told the reader to set a key "for a fully written article" and then listed raw scraped blurbs. That was our mistake, not a contributor's, and we removed it the same day. We mention it because a rule about quality means little if the person writing it exempts themselves.

Why link-driven posts do harm

There are three reasons, and only one of them is about search engines.

The first is the reader. A buyer comparing suppliers wants to know who has judged whom. If a page on our site is written by a vendor and reads like neutral advice, the buyer is being sold to under our credibility. That is the opposite of what a directory is for. Our trust page sets out how we try to earn that credibility, and guest posts written for a link spend it.

The second is search. Google's public spam policies describe link schemes and thin content made to manipulate rankings, and its guidance on helpful content asks whether a page was made for people first. We cover our own search traffic history in an earlier piece, our search traffic journey, so we will not repeat it here. The short version is that a site can be judged by the worst of what it hosts. Removing link-driven posts was partly a matter of self-respect and partly a matter of not being a site that hosts them.

What we publish instead

We did not close the door on outside writers. We changed what comes through it.

The rules for contributions are on our contribute page. In our words rather than theirs, a contribution must be:

• Researched, with sources at the point of the claim. Every price, benchmark, market figure, date or quote links to a named source a reader can check. No source, no claim.
• Original and the author's own. Written by the named author for TrustList, not published before (including on their own blog), not spun or assembled from other people's work. AI writing tools may help with a draft, but the research, the judgement and the facts have to be the author's and checked by them.
• Substantial. At least 2,000 words of real prose, one main heading and at least four section headings, under a descriptive title of 20 characters or more. Length is a floor, not a target.
• Honest about interest. If the author works for, invests in or is paid by a company they mention, they say so in the first paragraph.
• Not an advertisement. A contributor may mention their own product where it is genuinely relevant, once, with the same scrutiny given to competitors. Articles that exist to promote one vendor or to carry a link are declined.
• Not titled like one of our rankings. More on that below.
• Serving the reader with links. Sources, documentation and further reading are welcome. Affiliate links, link exchanges and links to pages that exist only to rank are not, and we may mark outbound links nofollow.

The articles that meet this bar are published under the author's own name and carry a label, Community for outside contributions and Editorial for our own writing. The label is there so that a reader can always tell whose voice they are reading. We would rather a reader discount a Community piece appropriately than mistake it for our own view.

Titles that look like our rankings

One rule surprises people, so we will explain it. We do not allow articles or listings to be titled "Top", "Best", "Leading" or "#1", or to end with "in" followed by a place.

Those patterns belong to our ranking pages. A ranking on TrustList is something a business earns a place on, and it follows a method we publish. If a contributed article is called "Top 10 App Development Companies in Bangalore", a reader reasonably assumes it is one of our rankings. It is not. It is an opinion, possibly a paid one, wearing our clothes.

So we rename or decline such pieces, whatever they say inside. The alternative is easy: name the thing the article actually is, or say what it explains. "How to compare app development firms when you are buying for the first time" tells the reader something. "Best App Developers" tells them nothing and borrows authority it has not earned.

The same idea applies to which ranking pages exist at all. On 28 September 2026 we changed the site so that a ranking page exists only when we have created it and a real listing sits behind it. Before that, 68,678 category and term pairs had at least one live listing, but only 11,962 had at least five that were not thin. Fewer, better pages is the same principle as fewer, better guest posts.

What a listing has to be

Guest posts were half the story. The other half is the directory itself, and here too we tightened and wrote things down. The full text is on our listing guidelines. The main tests are these.

It has to be in scope. Until 24 September 2026 our guidelines said nothing about what TrustList lists at all. That gave us no line between an agency, which belongs, and a removals firm, which does not. We now say it plainly. We list business software of every kind, technology services, digital and creative agencies, recruitment and outsourcing, consulting when the work is about technology (SOC 2 readiness, IT contracts, software tax credits), and funders of technology companies.

We do not list shops and consumer products, vapes, gambling, trading and consumer loans, essay-writing services, local trades and venues, manufacturing, general accountancy, payroll and legal firms whose work is not about technology, adult content, or the sale of medicines. The test for unclear cases is one sentence: if a business would not compare it on TrustList when choosing software, a technology supplier or a service bought alongside technology, it does not belong here. Where a firm offers both, only the in-scope part is listed. Software built for an industry is in scope, though the industry is not: a pizzeria's till system yes, the pizzeria no.

It has to be authorised. You create listings for your own business, your own products, or content you wrote. If a listing already exists, you claim it rather than duplicate it.

It has to be verifiable. No invented ratings, awards, client names, revenue figures or benchmark numbers. If you cannot point to where a fact comes from, leave it out. Contact details must be real too: a working website, a working email, an accurate location. Redirects and placeholder pages get the listing removed.

It has to say something. A company or product needs a description of at least 120 characters, between one and 20 categories, and a working website before it can be published. Drafts are never blocked; the bar applies when you publish.

It has to use the specific category. A listing filed under the right vertical gets found. Adding every category and every town does not widen reach. It dilutes the pages that other businesses earned their place on, so we trim listings that do it.

Its title must not imitate a ranking. The same rule as for articles, applied to listings.

Profiles are people, not adverts

In September we discovered that our public profiles, the pages meant to introduce a reviewer, buyer or practitioner, were being used as advertising space. A check of the 34 public profiles on 24 September found that most were businesses rather than people. Fifteen promoted businesses that are plainly outside what we list: vapes, forex and prop trading, essay writing, jewellery and gift shops, a wedding venue, removals, building supplies, worktops, industrial valves. Several used links labelled with search phrases, such as a service name followed by a town.

We hid those profiles and archived the company listings behind the worst of them. Then, on 29 September, we found that 16 profiles were public again, thirteen of them businesses posting themselves as people. The name was the company, and the headline was a slogan such as "best" plus a service plus a place.

The cause was partly our fault. Nothing on the profile form said what a profile was for. Its only guidance read like an invitation to a business. So we did three things.

• We said it on the form. A profile is about you as a person, under your own name. Your headline is your role, not a slogan. Your About is about you, not sales copy. Links go to your own site, your professional profile and your firm's TrustList listing. The same wording now appears in both of the places a profile can be edited.
• We added a confirmation. Before a profile first goes public, its owner ticks a box saying it is about them as a person, is not an advert, and makes no "#1" or "best" claims. The server refuses the switch without it, so the rule holds even outside the form.
• We took the thirteen down and made the takedown stick. Hiding a profile used to be reversible by its owner, who could tick "make my profile public" again. Now staff can hold a profile so the owner cannot republish it. The pages return "not found", and nothing is deleted, so a mistake can be corrected. We also fixed a bug where a hidden profile kept displaying from a stored copy for ten minutes afterwards.

When someone claims to be "#1"

Among the thirteen was a profile whose headline called its owner the number one SEO company in a named Indian city. We never endorse claims like that. Nobody is ranked on TrustList for what they say about themselves: our rankings come only from our own method.

So we now add a note of our own beside such claims. It quotes the wording and says that we do not endorse it, that we have not verified it, and that it is the profile owner's own language. The note is worked out from the text each time the page is read. The owner cannot edit it. The only way to make it go away is to remove the claim.

The detector deliberately errs towards missing things: "best practices" and "leading to" are ordinary English, not claims.

We have not yet extended this to listings. The same kind of claim appears in old listing descriptions that businesses copied from their own websites years ago, and putting our note on all of them would touch a large share of the catalogue. We want to be sure of the wording before we do.

What this means if you run a business

None of this is aimed at businesses acting in good faith. It is aimed at the shortcut. Here is what works.

• List the business itself. A free account covers one listing. Write the description in your own accurate words, choose the categories that describe what you do, and give a working website. See our page for vendors for how it works.
• Claim, do not duplicate. If your business already has a page, claim it.
• Say what you can prove. A named customer needs to be real and agree to be named; a figure needs a source. If you cannot show it, leave it out.
• Contribute something that stands without your link. If you know your field, write the piece a buyer would actually want, with sources, honest about your interest, at length. Read the contribute page first. If your article would be no worse with the link removed, it is probably the kind we want.
• Do not call yourself the best. You may believe it, and it may be true. But the way to be found in our rankings is to be reviewed and assessed under the published method, which you can see through the best pages.

The process for a contribution is simple. Create a free account, open the Growth Hub, go to Articles and Add article, and confirm you have read the guidelines. Write in the editor (Markdown is fine), save drafts as often as you like, and publish when the counts are met. Our editors then review the published piece against the rules, usually within five working days. It stays live during review unless it plainly breaks a rule. If we edit for clarity, need a source or have to unpublish, we email you with the reason.

What this means if you read us

You should be able to assume that a listing is a business we actually cover, that a profile is a person, and that a page with "Top" or "Best" in its title is one of our own rankings, following our method.

We cannot promise the catalogue is perfect. The audit of 26 September counted roughly 1,130 listings written by us, against about 74,000 older listings with 50 or more words that are largely in the business's own voice. We are rebuilding the oldest and thinnest entries and retiring those that have gone. By 29 September, 29,722 of 72,564 live company listings had been rewritten in our own words, with more publishing every day. That gap is our biggest job.

Before and after, in numbers

Each pair below is dated and comes from our own records.

• Guest posts: 61 live on 26 September 2026, taken from almost anyone -> 52 of those 61 archived that day, and contributions now held to a written standard.
• Thin listings: around 17 September 2026, 24,350 live listings had fewer than 50 words -> by 27 September, 6,165 were rewritten from the business's own site and 15,238 with nothing to source were parked, which is reversible.
• Voice: around 17 September, 82% of older company profiles with 50 or more words (54,541 of 66,473) spoke as "we" and "our" -> by the afternoon of 29 September, 29,722 of 72,564 live company listings had been rewritten in our own words.
• Rewritten share: on 28 September, about 11,500 of 81,127 live, active listings were in our own words (14%) -> the 29 September figure above, with about 19,000 more queued to publish that day.
• Spam: before 26 September, it sat among the listings -> by 27 September, 164 wholly spam and 24 partly spam listings archived, and 7 reviews blocked.
• Dead sites: 2,675 listings whose domain had no DNS record or was parked were taken offline, and 4,530 were flagged so that their pages never link a dead site.
• Ranking pages: about 18,000 in the sitemap, many built from import tags, and 68,678 category-and-term pairs with a page but only 11,962 with five or more listings that were not thin -> on 28 September, a /best page exists only when a published ranking backs it, about 12,000 in all. Category pages without one answer 404 and nothing links to them.
• Profiles: on 24 September, most of the 34 public profiles were businesses -> on 29 September, 13 business profiles taken down and held so that owners cannot republish them.

Every rewritten profile now follows one standard: what the business offers, who it works with, and key facts. It uses only facts from the business's own site and our records, and it passes automated checks for length, copying, hype, invented numbers or names, prices and contact details.

For a reader, the change is that a page on TrustList has been through a test. A listing is a business in scope, a profile is a person, and a ranking page exists because a published ranking backs it. Fewer pages carry a company's own sales copy, and none link to a site we know is dead. The numbers above also show how much of the catalogue is not yet in our own words. What has changed is that the rules are written down and the counts are dated, so you can check us against them.

Sources

The pages this article relies on:

• TrustList listing guidelines
• Contribute to TrustList
• How TrustList earns trust
• TrustList for vendors
• TrustList best pages
• Our search traffic journey
• Google AdSense programme policies
• Google spam policies for web search
• Google guidance on creating helpful content

Figures about TrustList come from our own records, dated: the scope and profile work of 24 and 25 September 2026, the site audit of 26 September 2026, the ranking-page change of 28 September 2026, and the profile clean-up of 29 September 2026. Rules quoted or paraphrased are those published on the listing guidelines and contribute pages at the time of writing.