Anchor Text
The visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. In SEO, anchor text signals to search engines what the linked page is about, making it a critical ranking factor for both internal and external links.
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Glossary Category
What is Authority and Trust?
Authority and Trust are the credibility signals,such as E-E-A-T, backlinks, reputation, and entity presence,that search engines and AI systems use to decide which sources to rank or cite. Strong authority increases the likelihood your content is selected as a trusted reference; weak signals can limit visibility in both traditional search and AI-generated answers.
What you'll learn
- How E-E-A-T influences ranking and citation probability
- How backlinks and reputation affect AI trust weighting
- How knowledge panels reinforce entity credibility
- How authority impacts source selection
- How to strengthen long-term citation stability
Why Authority and Trust Drive Citations
Authority determines which sources AI systems trust enough to cite. Even highly relevant content may be excluded if credibility signals are weak. Strong authority increases ranking stability and generative inclusion.
Terms in this cluster (23)
Anchor Text Optimization
Strategic approach to managing clickable link text in backlinks and internal links to maximize SEO value while avoiding over-optimization penalties. Balances exact-match, partial-match, branded, and natural anchor text variations.
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Author Entity Optimization
Author entity optimization is the practice of building and connecting a content author's digital identity across the web-through structured data, professional profiles, publications, and Knowledge Graph entries-so that AI and search systems can recognize and trust the author as a credible source in their domain. Strong author entities improve E-E-A-T signals and increase content citation probability.
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Backlinks
Hyperlinks from external websites pointing to your website. Also called inbound links or incoming links, backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors, serving as 'votes of confidence' from other sites.
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Black Hat SEO
Manipulative SEO tactics that violate search engine guidelines to achieve quick ranking improvements. Includes keyword stuffing, buying links, cloaking, hidden text, and other deceptive practices. High risk of severe penalties including complete de-indexing.
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Brand SERP Optimization
Controlling and optimizing search results for branded queries (company name, executive names, product names). Ensures knowledge panels, sitelinks, social profiles, and owned content dominate page 1 for brand-related searches.
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Broken Link Building
A link building tactic where you find broken external links on other websites, create content to replace the dead resource, and suggest your content as a replacement. Win-win for both parties - you get a backlink, they fix user experience.
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Digital PR
Online public relations activities that combine traditional PR with SEO to earn media coverage, backlinks, and brand mentions from journalists, influencers, and authoritative publications. Goes beyond link building to build genuine brand authority and awareness.
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Domain Authority (DA)
A search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). Scored from 1-100, with higher scores indicating greater ranking potential.
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E-E-A-T Signals
E-E-A-T signals are the content and domain-level attributes that demonstrate Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness to search engines and AI retrieval systems. These include author credentials, first-hand experience evidence, external citations, editorial standards, factual accuracy, and transparent sourcing. Strong E-E-A-T signals are among the most powerful predictors of AI citation selection.
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Entity Recognition
The process by which AI systems identify and categorize named entities within text, including people, organizations, locations, products, events, and concepts. Enables machines to understand what specific things content refers to and their relationships.
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Guest Posting
Writing and publishing articles on other websites in exchange for exposure and backlinks to your site. A relationship-based link building strategy that also builds authority, drives referral traffic, and increases brand awareness.
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Knowledge Graph
A database of entities and their relationships used by search engines and AI systems to understand connections between concepts. Represents information as a network of interconnected facts rather than isolated documents.
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Knowledge Panel Optimization
Knowledge panel optimization is the practice of building and maintaining accurate, comprehensive entity data in Google's Knowledge Graph to ensure correct Knowledge Panel display in Google Search and to strengthen the entity signals used by AI systems. Knowledge Panels serve as a primary data source for AI-generated responses about entities, making panel accuracy a direct AI visibility factor.
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Link Equity
Link equity (also called 'link juice') is the ranking value and authority that passes from one page to another through hyperlinks. Inbound links from high-authority, relevant pages pass more equity than links from low-authority or irrelevant sources. Link equity flows through a site via internal links, concentrating on linked pages and dissipating through redirect chains and nofollow links. Understanding link equity flow is essential for both backlink strategy and internal linking architecture decisions.
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Negative SEO Monitoring
Continuous surveillance of your website's backlink profile, brand mentions, content duplication, and technical health to detect malicious SEO attacks early. Enables rapid response before ranking damage occurs.
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Online Reputation Repair
SEO strategies to suppress negative content in search results and promote positive brand assets. Combines content creation, link building, and technical SEO to push down harmful content that can't be removed legally.
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Page Authority (PA)
Moz metric (1-100 scale) predicting how well a specific page will rank in search results. Based on link profile strength including quality and quantity of backlinks. Similar to Domain Authority but page-specific rather than site-wide.
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PageRank
PageRank is Google's foundational algorithm, originally developed by Larry Page, that measures the importance and authority of a web page based on the quantity and quality of pages linking to it-treating links as votes, with votes from important pages counting more. While PageRank remains a core component of Google's ranking systems, its public Toolbar PageRank was discontinued in 2016. Third-party metrics like Domain Authority and URL Rating approximate PageRank-like signals but are not the same measure.
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Toxic Link Cleanup
The process of identifying, removing, or disavowing harmful backlinks that could trigger Google penalties or ranking drops. Critical defensive strategy against both negative SEO attacks and historical bad link building.
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Unlinked Mention Outreach
Unlinked mention outreach is the link building strategy of identifying existing web references to a brand, product, or content that mention the brand name without hyperlinking to the website, then contacting the publisher to request they add a link. These are among the highest-converting link acquisition opportunities because the publisher has already demonstrated awareness of and interest in the brand-the only step remaining is adding the hyperlink.
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White Hat SEO
Ethical SEO practices that follow search engine guidelines and focus on providing value to users. Includes creating quality content, earning natural backlinks, proper technical optimization, and building sustainable long-term rankings through legitimate strategies.
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Wikidata Entity Optimization
Wikidata entity optimization is the practice of creating and maintaining accurate, comprehensive entity records in Wikidata-the free, structured knowledge base that serves as a primary data source for Google's Knowledge Graph, Wikipedia, and AI language model training data. Well-maintained Wikidata entries strengthen entity recognition by AI systems and improve accuracy of AI-generated brand representations.
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Strengthen Your Authority Signals
Benchmark your citation profile against competitors and improve trust signals influencing AI visibility.