What is an "Authority Site"? and how does it differ from a micro niche site?

14 years ago

My understanding is that a micro niche site might be, for example, a 1 to 5 page site on Golden Retriever Training.

But an authority site might be a 50 to 100 page site about everything to do with dogs.

The page number examples are exact, just the idea that small number of pages for micro site and large number of pages for authority site.

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JSProjects

14 years ago

Originally Posted by jakecoop79

My understanding is that a micro niche site might be, for example, a 1 to 5 page site on Golden Retriever Training.

But an authority site might be a 50 to 100 page site about everything to do with dogs.

The page number examples are exact, just the idea that small number of pages for micro site and large number of pages for authority site.

Pretty much agree. Also, authority sites tend to be at least a few years old. ("Aged and trusted" in Google's eyes.)

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paulgl 14 years ago

Authority sites have content and tons of it.
Does not have to be the same subject.

Wikipedia, about, squidoo, hub, etc. are prime examples.

Just did a dog breeds search and found discovery.com
mixed in with wikipedia, as well as of course akc.

Lots of pet sites as well. Pet sites that have authority
on all pets.

A microniche site would not need authority and
probably would not have it. Relevance is different
than authority.

Paul
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Steadyon 14 years ago

Originally Posted by jakecoop79

But an authority site might be a 50 to 100 page site about everything to do with dogs.

And also cats.
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dmtaylor247 14 years ago

Originally Posted by jakecoop79

But an authority site might be a 50 to 100 page site about everything to do with dogs.

Google sees anything less than 250 pages as a small website.
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wolfmmiii

14 years ago

A niche site isn't necessarily small (1-5 pages) but it is tightly focused on a (usually) small niche (think, laptops for students). Niche sites can contain hundreds of pages although most implementations do not.

An authority site is generally synonymous with a larger site with a slightly broader focus (think, laptops). The intent of a webmaster when building such a site is to become an "authority" on the subject matter, hoping to draw in traffic via a following and not just search.

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masterjani

14 years ago

Authority status comes when a site has useful information with several thousand pages indexed in search engines and the site age has some one to two years old.

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yukon

Banned 14 years ago

An authority site is a site that gets direct/repeat traffic, without searching for any keywods besides it's own domain name.

Example authority site Google search:

warrior forum
warriorforum
warriorforum.com

When you start seeing traffic from direct searches for your domain name, your an authority on the niche/sub-niche.

I'm not trying to brag, but I have a +1k page site that gets a lot of direct searches for my sites domain name & No, my site isn't an EMD.

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paulgl

14 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

An authority site is a site that gets direct/repeat traffic, without searching for any keywods besides it's own domain name.

Example authority site Google search:

warrior forum
warriorforum
warriorforum.com

When you start seeing traffic from direct searches for your domain name, your an authority on the niche/sub-niche.

I'm not trying to brag, but I have a +1k page site that gets a lot of direct searches for my sites domain name & No, my site isn't an EMD.

LOL!!! Good one! I forgot about the WF! Boatloads of authority.
That's why these threads rank for a plethora of terms.

Sort of like that Matt Cutts thing with viagra. He mentions viagra
in a blog post, supposedly, and suddenly he ranks #1 at that
time for viagra.

Now that's authority.

BTW: As of this reply, the WF ranks #9 for
what is an authority site

Now that's authority

Paul

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markowe

14 years ago

Also, an authority site will typically get crawled in seconds of posting anything new and often be ranking in minutes, like the example Paul gave with the WF. I have several sites like that, beats the hell out of backlinking, I'll tell you :-)

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retsek

14 years ago

Agree with all of the above.

I'd add...

You know you're an authority when the keyword tools start reporting volume for stuff like this.

training my dog mydogsite.com
how to clean my dog mydogsite.com

....which means people now, are not only searching the keywords but they're also appending your domain name to the query because they specifically want to find your page since you're now recognized as the authority on the subject.

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Web Hosting

14 years ago

To me an authority site is one that is a powerhouse / an authority in its niche. Examples include: Google, eBay, Paypal, Fox News, CNN, Twitter, FaceBook, Amazon, etc etc

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mrsvirtualassistant 14 years ago

An authority site is a large site that provides comprehensive information about specific topics. Authority sites usually contain hundreds of articles, reviews, and case studies. They can be compared with niche magazines. These websites have lots of quality backlinks and receive large amounts of traffic.
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- scottmacair 14 years ago
  
  Various factors that make a site an authority from google's point of view:
  
  Age of site
  Quality of on page design & content
  No of pages indexed
  Quality of links pointing to site
  Variety of links pointing to site
  Age of links pointing to site
  Returning visitors
  
  etc etc
  
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ashishvas

14 years ago

Micro site is one that is easy to create and can get backlinks very easily and then can go for creation of new site
Authority site has lot of content and is frequently updated in order to connect to readers

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SamDermot

Banned 14 years ago

Authority sites have thousands even millions of pages, millions of visitors daily or monthly as well, you can take example of Wikipedia, About.com, HubPages, WarriorForum etc.

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the goat

14 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

Wikipedia, about, squidoo, hub, etc. are prime examples.

For what keywords are these sites authority sites?

Originally Posted by scottmacair

Various factors that make a site an authority from google's point of view:

Age of site
Quality of on page design & content
No of pages indexed
Quality of links pointing to site
Variety of links pointing to site
Age of links pointing to site
Returning visitors

etc etc

Did Google send out a newsletter that I didn't get? Could you post some links to some proof that this is really Googles "point of view" when it comes to authority sites?

Originally Posted by yukon

When you start seeing traffic from direct searches for your domain name, your an authority on the niche/sub-niche.

I'm not trying to brag, but I have a +1k page site that gets a lot of direct searches for my sites domain name & No, my site isn't an EMD.

Could you show me the source you got this from? How exactly is it that you know that Google considers any site that gets searches for its domain name an Authority site?

Originally Posted by markowe

Also, an authority site will typically get crawled in seconds of posting anything new and often be ranking in minutes, like the example Paul gave with the WF. I have several sites like that, beats the hell out of backlinking, I'll tell you :-)

Again, could you link us to the article where Google states that an authority site will get crawled in seconds and ranks in minutes? I'd love to read it.

Originally Posted by dmtaylor247

Google sees anything less than 250 pages as a small website.

Where is the chart that categorizes and labels websites by arbitrary adjectives in regard to the number of pages it has?

It really is incredible how many baseless opinions get passed on as facts around here.

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retsek

14 years ago

Originally Posted by the goat

For what keywords are these sites authority sites?

Did Google send out a newsletter that I didn't get? Could you post some links to some proof that this is really Googles "point of view" when it comes to authority sites?

Could you show me the source you got this from? How exactly is it that you know that Google considers any site that gets searches for its domain name an Authority site?

Again, could you link us to the article where Google states that an authority site will get crawled in seconds and ranks in minutes? I'd love to read it.

Where is the chart that categorizes and labels websites by arbitrary adjectives in regard to the number of pages it has?

It really is incredible how many baseless opinions get passed on as facts around here.

Seriously you need to chill the **** out. Google has no official point of view about large sites or small sites. They'll tell you it's all the same. But clearly their algo favors sites that have built-up brand signals. What brand signals are you going emit with a small 5 page site ?

No where did those guys say that Google "states" anything. Their opinions are obviously based on their experience with authority sites and as you can see that opinion is shared by many here who have such sites including myself.

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the goat

14 years ago

Originally Posted by retsek

Seriously you need to chill the **** out. Google has no official point of view about large sites or small sites. They'll tell you it's all the same. But clearly their algo favors sites that have built-up brand signals. What brand signals are you going emit with a small 5 page site ?

No where did those guys say that Google "states" anything. Their opinions are obviously based on their experience with authority sites and as you can see that opinion is shared by many here who have such sites including myself.

Actually they did claim Google "states" things, go back and read their posts. What you say they didn't do is exactly what they did with statements like: "Google sees..." "From Googles point of view..."

What is it that makes you think I am not chill? I am just pointing out some facts in a very civilized manner.

Any person who claims to know exactly how Google sees, counts, or judges things should have no problem showing us the source of that information before we are expected to take it as fact.

I am not angry, therefore I don't need to "chill", it is perfectly natural for someone to question someone who claims for instance "Google sees anything less than 250 pages as a small website". That is a non subjective claim where the poster is asserting that he knows for a fact that Google does this, and that is the number they use. Why do you have a problem with me asking for a source that proves his statement? Is everyone supposed to just believe everything they hear on the internet?

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think more 14 years ago

A micro niche site is a little website that contains only few pages and micro niche site only focus on specific niche.But Authority site is a large site that discuss various topics.
for example If you have two websites.Fist site is only about Asian recipes and another site contains information about various foods such as Asian,Chinese,European,Arabian recipes.Here the micro niche site is the first one and second one is the authority site.
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yukon

Banned 14 years ago

Originally Posted by the goat

Could you show me the source you got this from? How exactly is it that you know that Google considers any site that gets searches for its domain name an Authority site?

Nope, I get my data from my own sites & non-stop testing.

An authority site is more than just what Google thinks is an authority on a niche. What I posted above is based on real human search queries & my own sites data over the last few years.

Authority as far as Google SERPs is multiple things (examples):

Google Sitelinks on internal pages
Ranking multiple internal pages per keyword

Again, these are based on my own testing, I read very little about SEO. Most of what you read on public web pages is basic SEO, I was bored with basic SEO years ago. If I see something in the SERPs that I like, I reverse engineer what I've found & do my own testing on my own sites & repeat...

Ultimately the traffic needs to know your an authority on the subject, Google is easy to impress, traffic takes more work.

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wolfmmiii

14 years ago

Although goat came off a bit passive aggressive, I don't think there was too much wrong with his line of questioning.

There are many cases where folks state things as fact when, in fact, it is just conjecture. I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with questioning things like it when encountered. I think it can spur very good debate.

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the goat

14 years ago

Originally Posted by wolfmmiii

Although goat came off a bit passive aggressive, I don't think there was too much wrong with his line of questioning.

There are many cases where folks state things as fact when, in fact, it is just conjecture. I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with questioning things like it when encountered. I think it can spur very good debate.

I do come off as a jerk sometimes but it is just so frustrating to hear people casually state completely baseless opinions with no factual proof and expect them to be taken as truth. Google and SEO are the only thing that people just feel free to lecture on just because they heard something somewhere once.

I only picked out a few, bu if one were to go back and carefully pick them out I bet there are over 50 claims of fact that are total and utter bull**** in this thread.

Again, not trying to be jerk or call people out personally, I just really think people should be more responsible about what they pass off as truth on this forum.

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yukon

Banned 14 years ago

Originally Posted by the goat

I do come off as a jerk sometimes but it is just so frustrating to hear people casually state completely baseless opinions with no factual proof and expect them to be taken as truth. Google and SEO are the only thing that people just feel free to lecture on just because they heard something somewhere once.

I only picked out a few, bu if one were to go back and carefully pick them out I bet there are over 50 claims of fact that are total and utter bull**** in this thread.

Again, not trying to be jerk or call people out personally, I just really think people should be more responsible about what they pass off as truth on this forum.

Are you referring to me or my comments above?

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mcatt

14 years ago

I thought it was a site related to your keyword that is a higher page rank with lots of content? That's what I was taught anyway.

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Brendan Carl

14 years ago

An authority site is a big site that covers a whole niche (like camping in general). A micro niche site is targeted to one subniche (or even one product - like camping tents or one specific type of tent).

Also, authority sites have much more posts/articles/information. Micro niche sites usually have below 15 articles.

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the goat

14 years ago

No you added actual first hand experience to back up your theory which is greatly appreciated. I am talking about when people claim they know Googles "point of view" etc.

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Rhadoo7 14 years ago

I agree with most of the replies above, but here is my point of view on this:

Actually you can't compare an authority site with a nice site because they are 2 different things. It's just like comparing a dog with a cat instead of comparing a big dog with a small dog, and a big cat with a small cat

We can say that there are authority sites (huge websites with thousands of articles, links, visitors etc) and small sites.

On the other hand, we can have general topic websites (for example a "carpentry" website) and nice or micro-niche sites (a site on "How to Build a Rabbit House for Big White Rabbits with Black Tail")
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- scottmacair 14 years ago
  
  Google doesn't reveal much and they certainly don't send out letters!
  
  Every view is subjective when it comes to google's algo as nobody knows any details about the exact mechanics of the algo which is constantly changing.
  
  I assume most people here understand this and views are simply an opinion?
  
  So you can read people views and opinions or not - it's up to you. I don't see anyone claiming to know exactly how the latest algo works.
  
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  wolfmmiii 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by scottmacair
  
  I assume most people here understand this and views are simply an opinion?
  
  You may know this and I may know this but many, many newbies do not. They assume because they are in an IM forum that everything said must be fact unless stated otherwise.
  
  Like I mentioned earlier (and goat agreed), he came off a bit harsh but he did make some valid points: "in Google's view" and "Google sees things as" do come off as "facts" to someone who is uninformed. I think that's the kind of stuff he was referring to.
  
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What is an "Authority Site"? and how does it differ from a micro niche site?

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