How Does Google Separate Popularity from Authority?
Posted on: August 20, 2014
It is important to know that not all websites carry the badge of authority, some websites may be visited more often than others, but that does not necessarily mean that they have a positive or a reliable reputation. The trick here is learning how to distinguish sites that are reputable enough to link your pages with from those that you should avoid. In this video, Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Search Spam, answers the Internet Marketing question of how Google really separates website popularity from those with authority.
The following points are the highlights of this video:
- Popular websites are those sites that are frequently visited by people. A site’s popularity does not really hold water when it comes to checking for a site’s authority or reputation. Millions of people may be visiting porn sites (which make them really popular, but would not link sites there).
- Less visited websites such as something like a real estate website may be considered an authority because government and other reliable websites may be linked there as well.
- Page Rank is a good way to determine a website’s authority. Determined by inbound links, Google is able to measure reputation.
- In a nut shell, popular websites are websites that people go, authority websites are websites that people linked to it.
- Google will be rolling out new algorithms to help separate popularity from authority.
In order to get higher SEO Ranking you should:
- Be active and let your voice be heard in your areas of expertise. It is important that you monitor your page, post reliable, as well as relevant content on your site and join related forums to make sure that people will know more about you and your page.
- Establish connections. This is where social media really comes in. Make sure that you keep increasing the number of followers your social networking sites have, this will help you establish authority by putting your name out there.
- Details of your web content matters. Check even the smallest detail, which means that obsessing over the content of your page would not hurt. People who go online will definitely check for errors and even the semantics of your content, from the title, how the worlds are spelled and the entire structure of your website.