Linking and Authority Sites

Methods for determining authority sites?

[Simsi]

Following on from the external links thread, I'd like to throw out a question for ideas in light of the fact that it is widely believed that who you link to carries significant weight in rankings.

I'm always very careful about who I link to, but I am confused as to how you might determine an authority site. While I have previously depended on rankings and whois data, I noticed a while back that Google also shows extra links for some sites at the top of Serps (as detailed in Webmaster Tools). Do people here feel that that might be an indicator of an authority site? Or does it merely mean the internal linking structure is clear? Or, as I might suggest, both?

So my main quation is: are there any other indicators people use to determine an authority site?

Cheers,

Ian

[tedster]

The one factor I use is whether this site really benefits my target audience. That's the key judgement, in my view.

Sitelinks are query-specific. Most sites will only show sitelinks for a search on the domain or company name - and of course, a site is likely to be "an authority" for its own name. However, if a site does show sitelinks for a more general query, then that is a very powerful authority. However, as the sitelinks algo evolves, this kind of sitelinks display is becoming quite rare. Even Appple does not have sitelinks for the "iPod" search.

[Simsi]

Thanks Tedster. Just to clarify one point: are you suggesting that a site could be deemed an "authority" on certain search terms only?

Or put another way, if you link to a site on a specific term, it could carry more weight than were you to link on a more generic term (ie: it *could* be better to link out with anchor text of "blue widgets" than for example, "click here" if the target site shows sitelinks for the term "blue widgets") etc.

[edited by: Simsi at 9:41 am (utc) on Dec. 19, 2007]

[tedster]

Yes, almost by definition, a site is an authority for a given topic - and not for everything (sorry, Wikipedia!) More specifically, a site becomes an authority for a topic when many other sites about that topic link to it.