Topical authority is an SEO idea that a website becomes a trusted source on a subject when it covers that subject broadly and in depth. Google does not define the term, and there is no official metric for it.
What is behind the idea?
The assumption is that search systems treat a site as more reliable on a subject when it offers many connected, good pages on it. Google’s helpful content guidance asks related questions about expertise, such as who wrote a page and whether sources are clear. It does not describe a topic-level authority score.
Google has been asked about the term. According to Search Engine Journal, John Mueller replied “Don’t worry about it” in a Reddit thread in November 2023, after another user argued that topical authority is a new label for relevance and authority that already existed. Whether Google uses topic coverage as a signal has not been shown publicly (assessment).
How do practitioners work on it?
Common methods are a content plan covering a subject systematically (a topical map), several linked pages per subject (see topic cluster), clear author information and mentions from other sites. These are working hypotheses and not confirmed ranking factors.
Difference from Domain Authority
Domain Authority is a score developed by Moz. According to Moz, it is not a direct ranking factor in Google’s algorithms. Topical authority refers to a subject area and is not published as a number.
FAQ
Can topical authority be measured? No official metric exists.
Sources
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