Hi everyone,

Just a question. What makes an authority site have 'authority' and give it it's pagerank?

Is it based in Google's algo (IBL's, age, content), or is it based on the originality of the site and it's content?

There is a reason for my asking this:

If you built a website as the world's leading authority on widgets, with accreditations of that fact and a few IBL's crediting your credentials, could you enhance your pagerank by Google measuring the importance of your site highly due to your unique or leading knowledge and onsite content?

For example, if someone like Tim Berners Lee built a site (and maybe he has), would that automatically be given 'authority' albeit being a new site and with little seo? He's an authority, so outside of Google's algo, he should be given his due position, right?

The reason behind my thinking is link related. If you can effectively 'create' an authority / information site with high PR, surely this would be another way to increase PR on a commercial site by way of using it's link juice.

Widgets.com with PR of 7 due to it's widget authority links to Blue-Widget-sales.com. Bingo! High pagerank!

Thoughts?

Authority is given through links and links only. Forget PageRank. An authority site is a hub for all others looking for information in that industry. For example, webmd.com is an authority site because many highly trusted and other authority sites link to it and many users start their information search by landing on this domain first. You become an authority site through good and useful content.

Cheers Gennaddy

The reason I'm looking at this is because we've got a wealth of information with which we could compile an 'authority' site, and I don't necessarily want to add it to our current sites content because the fact that we are a commercial business tends to 'bias' whatever content it is, but at the same time I don't want to build another site without any benefit (apart from to the community of course).

Interesting that you've made this point about being the 'first point of call' for research. I think you answered my question there.

I'm going to get to work on this and see what it brings.

I'll be on next regarding copyrights............ Ha!

Thanks again.

I currently have a client who is an authority in his small niche. He ranks #3 for a disease name and #1 for the specific disease (kind of hard to explain), plus many other high rankings above most other .gov's, .org's, and .edu's. This is due to diligence, being in the industry since 1995, constant site updates, and a wealth of information on the topic.

- authorithy web site is all about information and quality content first of all
if you will build autorithy web site you need to get many articles about the same topic.

- autorithy web site will help you to get links from others web sites because every one will point to your web site because you have more details about the subject or more tools that will help their visitors and at this moment you will rank well because you have these links from differents people.

- authority web site and pagerank:
pagerank is number game if you have more links from web pages that have a page rank google algorithm will add and will give your page rank.
- interneal linking of an authority web site play a huge important because you will get many web pages from your web site with a page rank and good internal linking will help.

- The end: rank well=more links+anchor text.

PageRank. More links. Right.

Plus internal links. It also helps that .govs, .orgs and .edus move like sloths. When a smaller site has a smaller team it is easier to implement changes which help rankings. Sounds to me like that client is lucky to have you Gennady

No, internal links do not make a site an authority.

Does you client have internal links that contain that disease term?

Also just because you rank well does not mean your site is an authority especially for a specific disease name. I would consider it an authority if it ranked 1st for diseases and had bullets in the results

did you mean internal links alone?

they do contribute

Sure its got internal links with disease in the anchor--but so do many sites.

But because it ranks first does not mean its not an authority either. There are many other factors, as I mentioned earlier.

Having a sitelinks listing requires that you rank first. Are you implying that only #1 ranking sites are authorities?

when i refer to authority sites i mean those with a high ranks (top 5) for a number of related and strong terms which have been sustained for a good while.

a true authority site is not necessarily recognised as being so by a search engine

BUT when looking for reasons to why some sites receive bullets in the results, remember that? Google explains that it gives this to "authority sites" so they clearly define them, which I think are exactly as you describe them"

those with a high ranks (top 5) for a number of related and strong terms which have been sustained for a good while

+high traffic

yes they say give it to authority sites but they dont say they give it to ALL authority sites. therefore, a site without them is not necessarily NOT an authority

hehe...what was the original question??

I dont remember seeing where it says that Google gives the sitelinks listing to authority sites. To my knowledge, it gives them to sites that are undoubtedly exactly what the user is looking for.



!!!!!!!!!!x56904x!!!+!!!!!!!^8937

sorry gennady, ill put it another way, if a site doesnt have these extra links in the SERPs, it doesnt mean it isnt deserving of a gold star for effort

I meant you were right by what I wrote.

Of course not all Authority sites have bullets, I am just saying Google recognizes authority sites and if you ask me the only definition of an authority site is a site Google deems as authority because if a site is not an authority it will not have bullets.

A site can be an authority without bullets simply because their structure isn't friendly enough to Google or their traffic not large enough but Google clearly understands an authority site and only grants these bullets to authority sites so authority sites are recognized by search engines. That's all I meant

Wouldnt it be cool to be an authority site about authority sites

you ought to know by now your expressions are like a foreign language to me light sabre dude

i agree. but mention authority site to a non-seo they dont always get that an 'authority' site is not necessarily seen as one by google so may not be all that effective atm. i just had that little extra thought and decided to stick it on the end.

an authority site about authority sites...errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr "www.google.gov"?

I dont agree. Not all listings with sitelinks are authority sites.

show me one that has bullets and isnt an authority for the term you use to find it. I would be very interested if not floored to see it

So I guess the question here is how you actually define an "authority site." Perhaps here are some examples of sitelinks listings that are not authority sites:

gazebo

wakeup

And my Alma Mater cmsv

On the other hand, I would consider IMDB as an authority, yet is only gets a double listing.

I believe them to all be authority sites for the terms you have given.

Gazebo Depot is an authority site for Gazebos. They have bullets and Google gave them to em.

Same goes for the other terms you list which are actually names of the business, site etc. Of course you had better be the authority for your own name. They also have proper linking and high enough traffic to warrant Google's attention to give the bullets to them.

These bullets are manually added IMO and only high traffic sites warrant their attention. Because of the fact that some bullets in the listing seem to be from key terms found on other sites that link to them, I think their is an automated process for discovering how to display them but their needs to be a switch thrown by Google manually allowing them to create themselves. Only high traffic sites with multiple popular pages will even get their attention.

Saying that, I think the last link you supplied does not have enough traffic and or links, internal structure to get them even though it clearly is an authority for their initials

Thats my opinion, I hope you take it with a grain of salt Gennady.

I stand by my original assumption that only authority sites with high traffic get bullets. And my original point is that yes, Google does qualify a site as an authority if it is.

I think you are skewing the line between authority and highly relevant. A site is not an 'authority' for its own name. Instead, it is highly relevant for its own name. An authority would be a site that is a hub in the industry--that means many inbound links as well as outbound links.

I do not think sitelinks are manually added. Google is known for automation and technology solutions rather than solutions by personnel.

I also do not agree with the high traffic statement. Are you talking high organic traffic? Or high overall traffic? As we know, you can get a high amount of traffic in a myriad of ways and that does not mean a site is good enough to justify sitelinks or even if its indexable at all.


Also dont really agree with this. How many links does CMSV have that have the anchor "about the mount?" Lets check here: www.backlinkwatch.com. I will post that up as soon as its done.

If IMDB is not an authority site, I dont know what is. Is Google an authority site? Yet it only gives itself a double listing. Still think its a manual process? It has a butt-load of traffic and links that use every imaginable anchor. Yet no sitelinks.

So my conclusion: you are confusing relevancy and authority and we do not have a clear definition of an "authority site."

So there is no anchor text links that says "about the mount." The closest one is "about the area." Instead, this page has "About the Mount" as the title and the file name is .edu/about.php. I believe this is the determining factor. Perhaps the sitelinks are generated by the most linked-to page and the text of the site links is then taken from the titling or heading text of that page.

you are the one that supplied me with over 12 articles and references to site links so you should know.

High traffic and automation = yes. A site will not receive site links without high traffic and a few pages frequented by that audience.

google knows all, they have all the REAL traffic stats that none of us will ever see. I looked back on some of Googles reporting about this and see that yes indeed it is fully automated.

Quote from Google.com:

How do you compile the list of links shown below some search results?

"The links shown below some sites in our search results, called Sitelinks, are meant to help users navigate your site. Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they're looking for.

We only show Sitelinks for results when we think they'll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn't allow our algorithms to find good Sitelinks, or we don't think that the Sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user's query, we won't show them.

At the moment, Sitelinks are completely automated. We're always working to improve our Sitelinks algorithms, and we may incorporate webmaster input in the future. "


"Authority does not mean highly relevant?" Of course it does. There cannot be an authority site if it is not relevant.

Not at all. A site can be an authority in the field. Yet it may not be relevant to the search query. For example, I would say that Microsoft is an authority for small business operating systems, correct? Yet it shows up #34 for "small business os." Great example of why relevancy is important. Unless of course you are:

- wikipedia
- ebay
- amazon
- about
- craigslist

Those are the exeptions to the rule.

I agree that Microsoft is an authority for small business systems but their site is not an authority site for the term small business os.

If you take the OS and replace the search with:

small business operating systems you will find Microsoft in 3rd with a double listing as well as a "more results link" so I would say they are working on it.

Looks to me like all Microsoft has to do is tweak their internal structure and create a section with variations of the words small business operating systems in the page titles.

I do not think many people are going to use the search you mention - small business os - it's obscure to the point that it is not even mentioned in Google suggest so that term has very little traffic if any so does not qualify as a good example IMO.

Authority sites = high traffic then more

Sitelinks go to Authority sites if they are built properly

Therein lies the problem with your train of thought. A website is not an authority for a keyword. It is an authority for an industry.