determine if an individual or brand is an authority on a topic, do a simple search online. Is a person's name google identifies that link as irrelevant or misleading (especially when we're talking about ymyl topics), google may ignore the "Nfollow" and still count that link on your site. (for more on this, see an article I wrote about manual penalties and guest posts.)ultimately, expertise and authority are closely related and interconnected concepts, much like eat's “t” pillar, trust. Reliability like authority, trustworthiness is assessed at several levels: the reliability of the content creator the reliability of the content itself the reliability of company employee list the site as a whole trust is a matter of reputation. Reputation matters, especially when authority and expertise matter. From the sqeg:when a high level of authority or expertise is needed, a website's reputation should be judged on what expert opinions have to say. Recommendations from expert sources, such as professional societies, are solid proof of a very positive reputation. Google further defines what it thinks about reputation: the reputation of a website is based on the experience of real users, as well as the opinion of people who are experts in the subject of the website. Keep in mind that websites often represent real companies,