In the algorithms of the 4 major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Live, Ask) there is no such thing as an “Authority Site” hence there is no “authority link” to be had! There isn’t a standard definition for “authority site” hence there is no metric for determining the amount of supposed authority a site possess and supposedly passes Image via Wikipediathrough a link. Further more you cannot easily measure whether a link from a supposed authority site is passing value in any form at all. Search Engines don’t recognize “Authority” and have placed zero value to such a misleading concept. Don’t design your site based upon this fallacy instead design your site as a resource!

The concept of an “Authority Site” was first coined by Jack Humphrey in his Black Book Product series. It has some credibility in the sense of how a Website is perceived by the Internet Marketing community.  It is now thrown around by the ill informed  as a value that has some sort of a meaning to the search engines. It’s a fallacy of the highest order! Repeated ad infinitum on Internet Marketing forums and blogs like it has some weight in SEO reality.

Links Pass 6 types of Value
1. Traffic
2. Visibility
3. Crawling
4. Trust
5. Anchor Text
6. PageRank (Not Toolbar)
That’s it, nothing else. It just amazes me the amount of hysteria surrounding the subject of links and how much naivete, ignorance and bad advice exists in the Internet Marketing community when it comes to link building.

Do yourself a favor and ignore 100% of the comments on this subject when you visit an Internet Marketing Forum or blog. Well, unless the advice given is “Don’t do that.”

Tags: Google, Internet marketing, Jack Humphrey, Promotion, Search engine optimization, Web Design and Development, Web search engine, Yahoo