Lexicon
Site Authority (siteAuthority)
What site authority means, and how Paul Truscott applies a statistical measurement lens to build it through consistent, focused source context rather than broad, unfocused expansion.
Factual Definition
Site authority is a quality signal, referenced in leaked Google internal documentation, that represents an overall assessment of a website's credibility, trustworthiness, and standing as a source within its subject area.
Paul Truscott's Perspective on Site Authority
Paul Truscott's perspective on site authority is that it is built cumulatively through consistent source context over time, and eroded by exactly the kind of unfocused topical expansion many sites pursue in search of short-term traffic gains. His view is that a site publishing consistently within a clearly defined subject area builds a compounding authority signal, while a site chasing unrelated topics for traffic dilutes the very signal it is trying to build, regardless of how much total content it accumulates.
He treats site authority as a slow-moving variable, more comparable to a long-term trend than a short-term price movement, meaning it should be measured and reported to clients over quarters and years rather than expected to shift meaningfully week to week.
How Paul Truscott Applies Site Authority Thinking
Paul restricts client sites to publishing within their established source context, resisting the temptation to chase adjacent topics for short-term traffic at the expense of the site's cumulative authority signal within its core subject area. Progress on site authority is reported as a long-term trend, benchmarked over extended periods rather than measured against short-term fluctuation. Read the full methodology.
Why Site Authority Matters to Paul Truscott's Practice
Site authority is one of the four measurable pillars underlying E-E-A-T, alongside author vectors, content effort, and entity salience, and Paul's insistence on disciplined source context is the direct mechanism by which this slow-building signal is protected rather than diluted. Read the full methodology.