How Does SEOMoz’s Feed Authority Work?
SEOMoz recently released a brand new tool; the Fresh Web Explorer.
Only available to SEOMoz Pro users, and currently still in the beta stage, it’s been described by SEOMoz software engineer Dan Lecocq as being a ‘giant feed reader’. However, it promises to do a lot more.
What makes Fresh Web Explorer so useful is that it is an aggregate feed reader, pulling in content from millions of different feeds simultaneously. Filtering takes place on the back end through a complex system of indexing, which includes a new metric known as Feed Authority.
Feed Authority is a means by which the influence of a feed might be measured and is one of how FWE can classify feeds as being either important or unimportant.
The Importance of Authority
Google’s algorithms are built around a system of determining trustworthiness. That SEOMoz’s FWE has, at its heart, a means of measuring what they refer to as ‘authority’, should therefore come as no surprise.
The premise employed by Fresh Web Explorer is that a feed which has more people subscribed to it will naturally have a higher authority than others, and will therefore be of more importance to a user searching for a particular keyphrase, word or topic. The integrated Feed Authority search function gives users the option of ordering their search results by how influential a site is deemed to be. Although perhaps not as precise as one may wish it to be, and only able to pull results from the previous four weeks, Fresh Web Explorer still has a lot to offer, even in the infancy of its beta stage.
How Can Feed Authority Help SEO?
Feed Authority has the potential to be immediately useful for link builders and content outreach. It’s a good way of finding out where your target audience are going, and why, and because it provides users with a tool for assessing a site on its influence, as well as its content, its already proving to be a useful way to discover reputable websites which may be used to build a brand’s online reputation. Since site influence is measured by Feed Authority according to the size and activity of a website’s audience, it’s fairly certain that by leveraging these sites one might be able to positively increase your brand’s own audience.
Feed Authority is also a good tool for tracking the success of a competitor. By finding out which sites are commanding the attention of an audience, and how, one may be able to stay abreast of relevant online conversation and build new relationships with online media outlets, which may be leveraged into linking opportunities in the future.