Google: You Don’t Need To Be An Authority To Rank

According to Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller, not all websites must be perceived as authorities in order to rank well in search results.

This was stated during the December 10 Google Search Central SEO office-hours hangout.

Brian Harnish joined the Livestream to ask Mueller a follow-up question about a Reddit comment about website authority.

Mueller believes it is difficult to call a website authoritative after publishing 30 articles on a single topic.

With that in mind, Harnish wonders how Google views single-page websites.

As a result, Mueller provides more context to his Reddit statement, stating that it is not necessary for every website to position itself as an authority.

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In the section below, you can read Mueller’s full response.

John Mueller of Google Discusses Website Authority

Mueller claims that it is possible to create good single-page websites.

His remark about needing more than 30 pages to be considered an authority was in reference to critical, high-level subjects.

For example, a website cannot be viewed as having the same authority as a doctor simply by publishing 30 articles about a medical condition.

Mueller states:

“I think you can make good one-page sites. So from that point of view I’m not too worried about that.
I think the Reddit post, as far as I remember, was something along the lines: ‘I created 30 blog posts, and they’re really good, and therefore my website should be authoritative.’
And from my point of view, you going off and creating 30 blog posts does not automatically make your website authoritative.
And especially for the higher or the more critical topics, it’s something where you can’t just create 30 blog posts on a medical topic and then say: ‘I am a doctor I’ve written 30 articles.’ So that was the direction I was headed there.”

Most websites do not need to worry about being an authority. They can still publish content and have it appear in search results.

Mueller uses a small business selling a product or service as an example. Customers will find the company’s products even if it is not the foremost authority in its field.

“And for a lot of websites, it’s not that you need to be seen as an authority. You essentially put your content out there. If you’re a small business you’re selling something. You don’t need to be an authority.
And especially things where like one page websites they’re often very focused on this one thing and you don’t need to be an authority to do that one thing.
To sell, I don’t know, an ebook, or to give information about opening hours for a business. It’s like, it’s just information.
So from that point of view, having a one page website, I think it’s perfectly fine.”

Mueller goes on to say that while a one-page website is a good place to start, it can always grow from there.

Consider how more pages can be added to the site in the future to avoid getting stuck in a situation where new content is constantly being added to the single page.

“With regards to starting out with a one-page website, I think that’s fine, but I would think about where do you want to go from there at some point.
Maybe you do want to create more pages and try to find a way that you don’t paint yourself into a corner by saying, well, I have to put everything on one page all the time. But rather expand when you see that it fits.”

Hear Mueller’s full response in the video below: