Corroboration

Corroboration is agreement between independent sources on the same claim about an entity, and it is what promotes a claim into a fact the Knowledge Graph will hold.

Corroboration is standard vocabulary in entity SEO and in information retrieval, and is one stage of the ECHO framework created by one of this book's authors.

The term is borrowed from evidence law, where it carries the same meaning: one source asserts, several agreeing sources establish.

Corroboration is agreement across sources you do not control. Consistency is agreement within your own material. The graph weights the first far more heavily.

A backlink passes a signal. A corroborating mention states a fact. The book's argument is that the second is now the point of the first.

The book's formulation is that your entity home is your submission and corroboration is the evidence that gets it accepted, and that the graph discounts self-declaration for the same reason people do, because everyone says nice things about themselves. It is equally direct about the fake version: invented awards, purchased mentions and sock-puppet citations fail against cross-referencing systems and teach them to discount your genuine record, and there is no reconsideration request for a graph that has learned to distrust you.

Read about the book's argument.