Digital Lexicon Hub

The perceived depth, breadth and credibility of a source's coverage of a defined subject area.

Sites that cover a subject in depth tend to earn rankings for a wider set of related queries and more links and citations, so planning content around topic coverage supports durable organic growth.

An agency maps 60 subtopics under marketing attribution, publishes a pillar guide and 15 in-depth articles over 6 months, links them as a cluster, and tracks how many related queries the site ranks for in Search Console.

Topical authority is an industry concept, not a single score Google publishes; Google has described a topic authority system mainly for news. Publishing many thin pages to cover a topic can hurt quality signals instead of helping.

Signals associated with topical authority include breadth and depth of coverage, internal linking between related pages, original expertise and first-hand experience, consistent publication on the subject, and citations or links from respected sources in the field. Google's helpful content guidance asks whether a site has a primary purpose or focus and shows expertise, which aligns with these signals.