Definition
Authority is a measure of how much trust and credibility a website or page has earned in the eyes of search engines and AI systems. It is built mostly through quality links from other respected sites, along with a track record of accurate, useful content. The more strong sources point to a page, the more authority flows to it.
Use Cases
Search engines use authority to decide which pages to rank first, and AI systems use it to decide which sources to trust and cite in their answers. A page with high authority is far more likely to be quoted by an AI assistant or shown near the top of search results.
Why It Matters for SEO
Authority matters for SEO because it is one of the strongest signals behind ranking and citation. It is calculated from the structure of the web’s link graph, where the value of each link depends on the authority of the page giving it. This is the same idea captured by eigenvector based scoring like PageRank, which is why a few strong links can beat many weak ones.
Related Concepts
Related concepts include the link graph, anchor text, and trust signals. Building authority is the goal of focused link acquisition, and you can see how authority shapes results in our look at whether SEO is dead.