What is link authority? 

Link authority says something about the quality of the website that places a backlink to your website. A website with a high domain authority will also have a higher link authority. These are websites that have a lot of visitors, rank high in the search engines and often share unique and newsworthy information. These are often already clearly visible if you enter a frequently used search term yourself and see which websites are at the top of the search results. But what does this mean for you? What is link authority and why is it important to take it into account when working on search engine optimisation? 

Definition of link authority 

The link authority does not directly say something about the value of the link, but about the website that places this link on their page. In other words: how much value (authority) does the source have? This is essential for building a strong link profile. The more valuable a certain website is, the higher the link authority will also be. 

For example, have you launched your own diet programme and is it shared by a popular news site? Then the link authority will be much higher than when it is shared by a local diet blog. Such a backlink can therefore be of exceptional value for your website. The more links with a high authority are placed to your website, the better your results within the search engines. If many websites with a high authority link to your website, Google assumes that your website is of great value. So actually you take over a piece of their authority.

How is the link authority determined?

It is not always clear how the link authority is determined exactly. Although many things can be measured, think for example of PageRank, that is not the case with link authority. You can't express the link authority in exact figures. In addition, few people know how this is assessed exactly. What is clear is that the quality of the website plays a very important role. A link from a local blog will yield much less authority than from a news site or other quality website. 

It is not only difficult to find out how authority is determined, but it also changes very often. Google's algorithm has changed so often over the years that even the best SEO specialists sometimes find it difficult to keep up with all the changes. Moreover, not all changes are shared with the general public. Only the people behind the search engines can really answer this question. However, we can make a reasonable estimate ourselves of what influences the link authority and the value of the website.