whitenight - 7:08 pm on Sep 29, 2008 (gmt 0)

Many people assume that DMOZ is one, and .gov domains are another. The quote from the patent mentions Amazon, so that would be a third, and I'd guess that most of the .int domains are a fourth area for trust seeds

In the past, i've tested this theory.
I've gotten links from dmoz, amazon, "supertrustedsite.com", etc. and haven't seen any appreciable improvements to the only thing that matters (to me) in this discussion (rankings).

There are some fringe benefits, but those don't pertain to this discussion.
Basically, I think it's overblown.
You can be "untrusted" which is bad, but being "trusted" doesn't seem to play a major role.

"Authority" is a whole 'nother discussion with lots of ranking benefits.