[SEO Dictionary] Definition of Authority

Authority is the amount of weight a site or page carries for a search query. It’s also referred to as trust – and Google, Bing and Yahoo will only deliver pages to searchers that they feel have authority or that they trust to provide accurate information.

A website or webpage with significant authority will show up higher in the search engine results pages than a site with very little authority will.

Although you may see sponsored links at the top of a search engine results page, those aren’t accurate predictors of a site’s authority or trust. Instead, they’re only a signal that website owners want to pay for visibility on the search engine results pages.

The organic results – those below the ads – are listed in order of the amount of authority they carry.