A few months back I posted an entry about website "trust" and "authority". Trust being truthfulness/reliable and authority being particularly useful to web users based largely on linkbacks and visits.

I thought it might be pretty instructive for all of us who have small sites for personal interests or even small businesses who might find it frustrating that the world doesn't know about our sites or Google search result placement isn't as high as we'd like.

Let's throw some scores out there for "authority" for the top 10 companies in a particular industry. I thought it might be fun while we're talking about "trust" to survey results from the top 10 telecom companies in a slightly ironic nod to "trust".


The Methodology

It ain't perfect but we'll use the Website Authority Checker service to judge authority.

Again, these are major companies with lots of users and a real web presence so their scores should be high and approaching a top score of 100.

If nothing else


Top 10 Telecoms & Their Websites

This list is in order of largest companies with their authority rating (0 to 100) in parentheses.

- ATT (90)
- Verizon (90)
- Comcast/Xfinity (86)
- T-Mobile (86)
- Charter Communications (76) ... formerly Spectrum (81)
- Lumen Technologies (79)
- Cox Communications (81)
- Altice USA (59)
- Frontier Communications (77)
- Windstream Communications (74)


Easy Conclusions To Draw

As expected, the larger companies at the top of the list have a little more authority (i.e. backlinks and references) than the ones at the bottom of the list.

Also predictably, those companies who have undergone a name/brand change have lost some authority.

The last thing I would point out is that these are fairly high numbers. Sure, retailers like Amazon and Target have numbers in the 90's. But even boring major companies like these telecoms have surprisingly high authority numbers compared to something you would think that would be large like Taylor Swift's official website, which only clocks in at a 74.


Try It Yourself And See The Numbers

I've got some friends sites with an authority index in the 20's, my weekend band website has a score of 14 which is good considering we really haven't put too much effort into promoting the website at all.

There are more important audits and free website report cards out there that you can be doing. But on the premise that authority = backlinks = better search engine placement, it's worth a quick look - here’s that site again: Website Authority Checker.