I've been seeing this term, authority, a lot over the past few days. It sounds like something you could measure - some web sites have more of it than others, and it's good to link to and from web sites that have it. A poster called "Stox" wrote this really fantastic bit of text:

"If you have a site that sells dog leads it would be better to have a homepage link from slashdot or the BBC (sites which have nothing to do with dog leads) than a link from another site that sells dog leads."

Now there's no doubt that slashdot and BBC are authoritative, in fact BBC beats CNN hands down. But in the world of human interaction we have a meaning for authority that we can pretty much all agree upon. In web land, things like this are brilliant pieces of math.

So can anybody tell me what "authority" means in the case of web search? Is this a term only Google recognizes, or does it apply across the board? Where does the stuff come from?


PS - Am I the only one thinking of a little fat kid shouting "You WILL respec my authorita!"

Actually the way you mention sites like BBC and CNN is really all there is to it. It really is about trust and in all honesty your own common sense can really guide you a lot.

Measurably it would be the sites that have a lot of links pointing to them. Not just to one page, but to the entire site. I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of links pointing to both BBC and CNN. A lot of people reference both.

It's not only how many links are pointing to a site since a lot of spammers can generate thousands of links and probably not carry much authority.

You really don't need a lot of math or algorithms to figure out which sites carry authority. The search engines no doubt do use both, but for the most part think of your industry and the other sites on your topic. Which ones do you visit for information? Those are likely the authority sites.

I think all the major search engines are using a measure of authority in determining ranking.

Unless you're getting the answer straight from the horse's mouth (i.e. Google themselves) you are only going to get speculation about the definition of "authority". What authority means to you and me might not be the same as what authority means to Google.

As a person, you can gauge the authority of a site by testing the accuracy of the information on that site, how exhaustive the information is there, and other subtle things like whether opinion is presented as fact etc. But that involves understanding the meaning of the content, which is something that search engines can't do. They can't test the accuracy of the information and they can't detect a biased opinion.

So although you as a person might know intuitively what an authority site is, I'm not sure that a search engine does (in the same way).

Unless you're getting the answer straight from the horse's mouth (i.e. Google themselves) you are only going to get speculation about the definition of "authority". What authority means to you and me might not be the same as what authority means to Google.

We don't even know that they do factor in "authority". Though, Given that it would help greatly in thier algo, I suspect they do. I would also suspect that thier definition of authority is similar to ours (mine).

An "AR" (authority rank, i invented it ) could be measured by the "AR" of the sites linking to it. Kinda like how PR works, But less futile and less pointless.

Originally Posted by stOx

Related sites are often no better than any other site, Google looks more at the authority of the site than how related it is.

Originally Posted by stOx

We don't even know that they do factor in "authority".

I'm confused

Okay, this has the potential to be a highly interesting discussion. Or, maybe I'm just a science geek.

We don't know for sure that "authority" is a variable in the algorithm, which is a highly guarded secret, although most knowledgable people seem to think it is. I'll also go out on a limb, and guess that authority isn't the same as link popularity, if for no other reason that people keep using different terms to refer to these things. Even with all the complex ways Google decides one link is more trustworthy than another, it really seems as if authority is something different.

We have a pretty common sense meaning, even when we apply it to web sites. Any reasonable person would say BBC ( continuing on with our example ) is a more authoritative source than Fox News, which reported that Mark Foley ( R-FL ) was a democrat from Florida. We would say this because they omit and misrepresent facts, rely heavily on "weasel words" ( as defined by Wikipedia - "some people say ..." ) and present opinion as fact.

We also know computers can't truly understand content in the way humans can, or put it into context. So either the engines have meetings where they discuss how much "authority" belongs to a lot of different web sites and enter this as seed values, or they guess somehow. Probably using similar guilt / sainthood by association as with "bad neighborhoods" which was another fascinating thread.

Thoughts?

My thought is simple: the idea of worrying about getting a link from an authority site is like the thought of trying to become perfect. It's a wasted effort.

Authority sites (and authority figures) become such by doing their thing regardless of exterior influences. So do what you know is right, and authority will come from that.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

My thought is simple: the idea of worrying about getting a link from an authority site is like the thought of trying to become perfect. It's a wasted effort.

I don't think gaining knowledge is ever a wasted effort. My goal with this question is to learn what "authority" means in the context of web search, and how it's distinguished, not to gain new links.

Using the phrase "authority site" is pretty useless with adding a qualifier for the search phrase or word it is an authority for.

Actually it should really be termed "authority page" because SEs rank pages not sites. So any page can be an authority for any of the phrases that it ranks somewhere for, it may not even be on the first SERP.

The point is, that if you set out to make a page an "authority" you would fail, and in a similar style to the "bad neighbourhood" discussion, while it is impractical or impossible to define what an "authority page" is, you'll probably recognise one when you find it.

It sounds like computers aren't as intelligent as we are, when it comes to thinks like authority, but that they're advancing in that direction. And probably gaining on us.

Also it sounds like we don't really know what definition Google uses to gauge authority, but that when you visit a page, your gut feeling is probably fairly close to what the web gods think of that page? Am I understanding things?

I'm actually not trying to establish myself as an authority on the web - I'm a jack of all trades, but a master of none. Trying to present myself as an authority would be dishonest. I ask because I keep seeing the term, and in a way that seems different from general rankings.

One last question - I guess I'm a little confused about how an authority page would depend on search queries? Maybe that makes sense, BBC is an authority on current events, but not on, say, gourmet dog food. But are you saying BBC might be considered an authority on Sudan, but not on North Korea? Or am I just confusing the issue?

I do think all major search engines measure authority in some way and use those values in their algorithm. I also think that we can look at Google as placing the highest weight on some kind of authority score.

Authority is probably going to be hard for any of us to define, but it's probably enough to say you'll know it when you see it.

Take what I say with a grain of salt since I'm offering opinions and not presenting any kind of proof.

I think in the case of authority it is a site that can matter and not just the page. As you gain links to some of your pages your site as a whole can grow in authority and pages on your site that didn't get those links can end up ranking better because the site as a whole is gaining in authority.

I think when a search engine like Google sees duplicate content on two different domains the one they will end up showing in results more often is the one that they consider to have more authority.

In general I would say authority sites have a lot of links pointing them. They have links pointing to a lot of the pages on their sites and not just one or two. I would tend to think authority sites are larger sites. The more content you have about a given topic the more likely you might be seen as an authority.

I think sites can have a general authority and a topical authority. A site like about.com has content on a lot of different topics and while it may be consider an authority on any of those topics I would also think it would be considered a general authority. A site like Search Engine Watch is going to be seen as an authority on topics related to search engines, but not likely seen as an authority on a topic like automotive repair.

I think links from authority sites do count more than a link from the average site. In part it has nothing to do with search engines. If someone like Danny Sullivan formerly of Search Engine Watch wrote an article linking to an article on my site with a favorable review a lot of people in the seo community are going to visit my page and probably come to it with a bias to think it's good. It would most likely generate a lot of links for my page.

Since a lot of people also read things Danny Sullivan has to say then that link to me also gets seen by a lot more eyeballs than it would on your average site.

I think search engines will give more weight to a link from a page on an authority site than they will on any old site. If a web page has thousands of links pointing into it then the links pointing out of that page are probably worth more than the links pointing out of a page with a handful of links pointing to it.

I think when it comes to authority the same though in the page above extends to the entire site. If two web pages link to my page and neither of those two pages has any links pointing into it other than their own internal links i think the site that has more external links coming into it will be the one that will give more juice to my page.

Again keep in mind these are my opinions. I can think of an example that would go against everything I said above.

I also think this is an interesting discussion.

Originally Posted by gringo

I'm confused

What's there to be confused about? The first point was regarding what people suspect google do and the second was a reply to your comment about what definition of "authority" google use.

Originally Posted by stOx

What's there to be confused about? The first point was regarding what people suspect google do and the second was a reply to your comment about what definition of "authority" google use.

I'm confused because in the first post you say that "Google looks more at the authority of the site than how related it is." - that's pretty definite. But in the second post you say "We don't even know that they do factor in "authority"".

Which one is it?

We don't even know that they do factor in "authority" means there has been no official word from google that they do use "authority" in thier algo.

Originally Posted by stOx

We don't even know that they do factor in "authority" means there has been no official word from google that they do use "authority" in thier algo.

If that's the case, then you shouldn't be telling anyone that "Google looks more at the authority of the site than how related it is."

Why not? Just because theres no official word on something doesn't mean we aren't able to see evidence of it.

Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with SEO will know that a link from a site like the BBC will be better than a link from a "related" site.

If you "don't even know that they do factor in "authority"." then you can't validly say "Google looks more at the authority of the site than how related it is."

In the first quote you are admitting that you don't know that authority is used but in the secod quote you are saying quite definitley that authority is used.

I was saying we don't know in response to your point about not getting it "straight from the horse's mouth".

You were implying we don't know anything for sure unless google tell us it, I was saying if you were right (which you were not) then not only is googles definition of authority not known but neither is their use of "authority" in thier algo, As neither have come "from the horses mouth", Though evidence and logic suggests they do use it.

Nevertheless, you can't maintain two conflicting stances at the same time:

1) we don't know that authority is used
2) we do know that authority is used

You can see that those statements are mutually exclusive? You can't know and not know at the same time unless you are in a severely dissociated state. It's the absinthe isn't it?

i will explain to you what that word means (take from dictionary.com):
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/authority%20

Have fun