Authority of a page

[seoug_2005]

What factors contribute towards the authority of a page ?

No. of links to a page  ?

[RobertFisher]

If you use the search tool on SEOmoz site, and put in Page Authority you will get a good answer to this. That said, it is SEOmoz's calculation of how well a page will rank based on the pages global link authority. Along with that, the higher the domain authority of the site, the greater chance that page authority will be higher.

So it is predictive of where a page might rank in relation to others of similar value.

[gfiorelli1]

Mmm... not a line answer question this one

Your answer point to the right direction: "links".

But it is not just the numbers of links to a page. If it was just that you could simply rely on the link you put in a forum signature and then "spam" the forum with usefulness posts.

I warmly suggest you to check the 2011 Search Engine Ranking Factors by SEOmoz, that offers you insights also about the authority of page issue.

To resume, what really count are the unique root domains linking to the page and, to be even more precise, the unique C-Block linking to a page. In fact, the more a page is linked by different sites the better.

But that is just one factor. In fact a page that owns backlinks from authoritative domains will have more authority than a page who receives backlinks from not authoritative domains. Beware that this doesn't not mean that if a page as just one link from one site, even though it is the New York Times, that that page will rank better than other that has 100s of unique domain names linking, even if they are less authoritative.

Finally, if you mean with authority of a page the PA metrics of SEOmoz, remember that it considers also many other factors, between them also on page ones. To understand better what is the Page Authority metric, check this page: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/page-authority

[martyc]

Just to clarify, does unique C-Block importance mean that if you operate two sites and you include one simple link from one to the other it would carry more weight if the sites are hosted from different C-Classes? Thanks.

[gfiorelli1]

Correlations seems to say so. Check slide 17 of this Rand preso on Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/ranking-factors-data-2011-smx-elite-sydney

[seoug_2005]

Thanks.

Does different C-Classes means sites having different C class  IP address ?

Also, when you say  "unique C-Block linking to a page" what does it imply ?

[gfiorelli1]

Exactly

[martyc]

Thanks, slide 17 certainly seems to back this up.

I wonder how much extra weight a link from a different C-Block provides vs. from the same IP / C-Block and whether the extra effort / cost makes it worthwhile?

(again wrt a single link between two of your own sites)