What is An Authority Site?

Dictionary.com defines "Authority" as follows:

Authority: Au-thor-i-ty [uh-thawr-i-tee] - noun:

1. An accepted source of expert information or advice: a noted authority on birds; a reference book often cited as an authority.

2. Power to influence or persuade resulting from knowledge or experience: political observers who acquire authority with age.

In internet terminology, an Authority Site is one that has a large empire of high-ranking pages linking back to it. Popular examples include About.com, Wikipedia.org, and so on. These are sites that others look to (and link to) as experts in the field.

In this study, "Authority Site" refers to any site that has been promoted with Authority Site Tools from Jack Humphrey.

Preliminary Study of 56 Randomly Selected Authority Sites

This study started by randomly selecting 56 sites that are being promoted with Authority Site tools. On average, these sites ranked better than 87% of all other sites monitored by Alexa.

A Look at Seasoned Authority Sites

One problem with the preliminary study is that Alexa uses three months of data to calculate its rankings. However, many of the sites listed in the random sample were only a few weeks or months old. So even though weekly Alexa statistics indicated that these sites were ranking extremely high, the three month Alexa ranking was lower. In order to fix this problem, the original list of 56 sites were inspected to see how many months each site had been in existence (as indicated by months of archived blogs). Then, only sites that contained over 4 months of blog archives were analyzed. These authority sites were found to rank in the top 5% on Alexa (on average).

Public Verification of the Results

Note: If you are not familiar with Alexa, please visit www.alexa.com and go to the traffic rankings section. Enter the url for any web site, and it will show where that site ranks within the 11.2 million sites that Alexa monitors. It will also provide a graph that shows a historical picture of traffic to that web site. Please use Alexa to verify the results of this study for yourself by looking up the traffic rankings for any sites that interest you or for any of the 56 randomly selected Authority sites listed below. The statistics were collected on June 25, 2007.

Authority Site URL................................ Alexa Rank........ Archived Months

http://addictionrecoverybasics.com .............135,505............... 6

http://barpubchat.com ...............................1,511,568............. 2

http://blog.esalesguru.com ......................... 205,676.............. 8

http://bugdugle.com .....................................189,845..............1

http://coincollectinginsider.com ...................3,819,470.............1

http://cruise.every1loves2travel.com ................292,408.............9

http://didyousmellthat.com ..............................174,431............2

http://e-businessadvantage.com ...................1,682,034.............1

http://fearlessdreams.com ...........................1,003,899...........12

http://fitnessblackbook.com ...........................2,203,895 ..........1

http://forexlearnguard.com ............................1,798,145............1

http://newpsychicreading.com ......................1,825,970.............1

http://niche-newsreels.com ...........................1,578,478............1

http://onlinesecurityauthority.com/ .....................354,392.........12

http://sayno2odor.com ....................................5,884,207...........1

http://sexandgaming.com ................................3,600,742...........1

http://shoppingcart.instantestore.com ..................72,462..........5

http://trafficmasters2007.com ...........................592,003..........4

http://visalusblog.com ......................................3,012,861..........2

http://www.abundancehighway.com .............1,639,877..........7

http://www.arkanimals.com ...........................1,274,297...........0

http://bestshowticketslasvegas.com .................271,201...........0

http://www.bigmarketingonline.com ..................747,425...........0

http://www.blog.marinerblue.com .....................838,222.......... 3

http://www.cheatcatcher.com .......................2,206,694...........4

http://completediabetesinformation.com .............256,895...........5

http://consumermortgagereports.com .............1,123,968...........4

http://www.copywriting.com .............................266,284..........0

http://www.dreambodynow.com .....................298,349............8

http://www.empowersu.com ........................2,324,067............0

http://www.every1loves2travel.com ...............292,408...........10

http://www.gojdhl.com ....................................1,128,887..........3

http://www.homemusicrecording.com ................604,644.........4

http://www.hotexercise.com ...............................111,673.......10

http://internet-home-business-blog.com ............1,273,082.........2

http://www.jackhumphrey.com .............................23,103........18

http://www.joyofcamping.com ...........................245,569...........2

http://www.lawfuel.com/ ..................................233,616...........0

http://www.lawofattractionsimplified.com .........259,634...........3

http://www.marriagesite.info ..........................1,891,783...........5

http://www.medcarehealth.com ......................2,869,639..........2

http://www.mywealthpuzzle.com ....................5,419,224.........4

http://www.mywritingblog.com ........................1,137,527.......20

http://www.neutralexistence.com ......................529,187.........4

http://www.onlineprofithome.com ...................1,316,275..........0

http://www.simplyantiaging.com/ ........................279,153........9

http://www.socialanxietycrusher.com .............4,823,082........1

http://www.successinspired.com ......................444,016........4

http://www.theassociatereference.com .............193,280........9

http://www.the-football-nut.com .................. 865,654..............0

http://www.the-golf-nut.com .........................455,044..............1

http://www.thelovebunch.com/ ..................2,602,671..............2

http://www.thevideowebsitewizard.com ........715,796...........3

http://www.theweddingwizards.com/ ............931,021............7

http://www.tobe-healthy.com .........................345,167.............. 0

http://www.workfromhomegroup.com ............542,008..............3