When you can only have one: topical relevance vs. raw authority

When you can only have one: topical relevance vs. raw authority

The oldest tradeoff in link buying, revisited with fresh threads.

— An SEO newsletter argued relevance now outranks raw authority for inserts — a perfectly on-topic insert on a mid-authority site reads more natural and survives scrutiny better.
— Counterpoint from a Reddit thread: a high-authority link from a tangentially related page still moves rankings, and tight niches simply don't have enough relevant donors to fill an order.
— Also circulating: a take splitting the difference by tier — relevance for your core money pages, authority-grabs for broad brand signals.

Editor's note: relevance is the safer bet under tightening quality signals; authority is the pragmatic one when relevant inventory runs dry.

Pick of the week: relevant-and-mid beats authoritative-and-random for any page you're actually trying to rank.