Authority links – what they are and why you want them

There is a measure of power that some links possess that is independent of PageRank, and it is the principle of authority links. The principle is closely related to trust. Authority links are links from websites that have established a substantial degree of trust and authority with search engines as a result of their age, quality, and size. Authority is a somewhat subjective concept. Unlike PageRank, neither Google nor the other search engines offer any public reference or guidelines as to what constitutes an authority site or authority link. Authority sites are going to be the market's leading sites, sites representing established government and educational institutions, large corporations, or leading websites. Authority links can bring tremendous ranking power to a website, if one is lucky enough to obtain one or more.

Authority links are the golden eggs of link building. They tend to be extremely difficult links to get, and, for that...