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Topical authority

Topical authority is an SEO concept that describes how strongly a website is recognized as a go-to source on a specific subject, earned by covering it in depth and being cited for it by others. Google documents a "topic authority" system for news queries; the topical authority scores shown by SEO tools are estimates.

Why topical authority matters in AI search

AI answers are built on search. Google says its generative AI features "are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems", so the sources that search systems trust on a subject are the sources AI Overviews and AI Mode can cite.

Topical authority is not the same as size. In a December 2025 study of 75,000 brands, Ahrefs found almost no relationship between the number of pages on a site and its visibility in ChatGPT, AI Mode and AI Overviews (a correlation of about 0.194). Ahrefs' Domain Rating, a site-wide authority score, correlated at only 0.266 with ChatGPT visibility. Publishing more pages does not make a site the reference on its topic.

How topical authority works

Google has documented one system under that name, and it is for news. Its topic authority system, described in 2023, looks at three main signals:

  • Notability for a topic or location: the outlets people turn to for a subject or a place.
  • Influence and original reporting: how often other publishers cite a source's original work.
  • Source reputation: a history of high-quality coverage and recommendations from expert sources.

For other sites, Google points to the same ideas without a named score. Its helpful content guide asks: "Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?" It also warns against entering a niche "without any real expertise" just to get search traffic. The same guide points to E-E-A-T, the framework Google's quality raters use to judge content.

The scores sold by SEO tools are third-party estimates. As Google puts it: "No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems."

Example: Google's local news case

Google's own example is local. Someone looking for news on Nashville high school football will often turn to a publication like The Tennessean, and the topic authority system learns that. If a flood hits a town, the system helps surface publications from that region that regularly cover it, above national outlets covering the same flood.

The pattern holds outside news. Behind a prompt like "best drip irrigation kit for raised beds", an engine can run several searches through query fan-out. A gardening site that has tested kits for years can rank for most of them; a general shopping blog may rank for one.

How to build topical authority

  1. Pick topics you can own. Choose subjects tied to what you sell, where you have real experience, and cover the questions buyers ask, organized as a topic cluster.
  2. Publish material others cite. Original data, tests and first-hand experience earn references; summaries of other pages do not, since they add no information gain.
  3. Get recognized by the field. Coverage in trade media and expert reviews is earned media that confirms your standing.

To see who holds that authority today, Hawkscan lists the pages that ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Google AI Mode cite for your prompts, with how many answers cite each page and whether it mentions your brand. The specialist sites cited again and again are the ones you are measured against.

Sources

  1. Google Search Central Blog, Understanding news topic authority ()
  2. Google Search Central, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content ()
  3. Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search ()
  4. Ahrefs, Top Brand Visibility Factors in ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews (75k Brands Studied) ()

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