Build topical authority with a connected body of work, not a single post, argues SEO strategist Ewelina Podrez-Siama in an updated resource. The guide explains how pillar pages and focused supporting articles can organize coverage around one subject. The English version of the topical authority guide was updated November 1, 2026; it was originally published in Polish on October 4, 2025.
Podrez-Siama defines topical authority as how far a search engine sees a site or person as a credible, comprehensive source on a subject. The author distinguishes it from topical depth, the thoroughness of coverage, and from domain authority. In this account, topic clusters provide the structure: a broad pillar page connects to narrower articles that answer related questions.
What Google Has Said About Topical Authority
The phrase “topical authority” does not appear in Google’s guide to ranking systems, according to Podrez-Siama. The guide notes that Google described a topic authority system for news in 2023, which surfaces sources that specialize in a subject or region. That statement concerns news, and does not establish that Google uses the same named system for every search topic.
Podrez-Siama also points to a 2024 leak of Google search API documentation containing fields called siteAuthority, siteFocusScore and siteRadius. Google confirmed the documents were authentic but said they were incomplete and out of context. The author says the ranking weight of those fields is unknown, so their presence does not establish how rankings work. For readers exploring adjacent questions about AI search results, the site has also examined AI Mode’s knowledge graph results.
The guide makes a similar distinction about E-E-A-T. It describes the framework as a way to assess qualities Google expects from content, not a ranking factor by itself. The practical advice is to demonstrate experience and expertise through useful work, clear sourcing and an identifiable author.
Build Topical Authority Through Useful Coverage
Podrez-Siama lists topic coverage, depth and semantic consistency among the elements that contribute to topical authority. A cluster should cover the important questions in a subject without leaving gaps or orphan pages. Supporting articles can explain specific processes, comparisons, examples and edge cases, while the pillar page gives readers the broader map.
Internal links help connect those pieces when they explain a real relationship. The guide recommends descriptive anchors and links between the pillar and supporting posts. It also identifies relevant external citations, industry mentions and expert references as part of a site’s broader reputation. Readers can compare this approach with the site’s separate discussion of SEO and business credibility.
Depth differs from breadth. A marketing site might cover SEO, advertising, social media and analytics, while a deeper SEO cluster could examine crawl budgets, structured data, search intent and entities. Podrez-Siama argues that depth can show understanding more clearly than a collection of shallow posts. The guide uses a tree as a planning model: a core specialty branches into subjects, then into narrower questions.
Plan, Connect and Update the Cluster
The guide recommends choosing a pillar topic that fits the brand, then outlining the questions that deserve separate supporting articles. Search Console data, keyword research tools and AnswerThePublic are named as ways to identify questions people ask. Each supporting article should answer a defined question and link back to the pillar where useful.
Podrez-Siama advises reviewing existing posts before adding new ones, including opportunities to merge material or improve links. The author warns against clusters that sit unconnected, pillars that are too broad, topics too narrow to support a cluster, excessive linking and neglected updates. Regular reviews can keep the group aligned as the field changes. The site also discusses brand visibility in AI discovery as a related topic.
To build topical authority, the guide recommends mapping unanswered questions and connecting pages that help readers move between them.
