Can website authority explain why leading e-commerce sites rank highly?

Website authority offers one possible explanation for why leading e-commerce sites rank highly, but it should not be treated as the only reason or reduced to “older sites with more pages always win.” An article published by awoo in 2018 interprets authority as a website’s importance to its market and to searchers, explaining major e-commerce sites’ advantages in terms of their brands, services, and shopping experiences. This is the article’s interpretation, not an authority formula published by Google, and it is insufficient to establish why individual search results rank where they do today.

“Insufficient authority” does not explain the competitive gap

The original article describes how small and medium-sized businesses competing with leading e-commerce sites are often told that their websites are too small or lack authority. Yet it also notes that experts do not agree on what authority means. Using this term alone to explain ranking differences still leaves a question unanswered: in what specific ways do competitors better meet searchers’ needs?

The article advocates shifting attention from how long a domain has existed or how often a site has been shared to whether the website helps searchers. Under this interpretation, authority is not an advantage accumulated simply through age, but a concept for discussing the value of a brand and its website. The supplied material does not provide an official score that can be measured and directly compared.

Brand and service offer explanations, but do not directly establish what causes rankings

Using PChome as it was at the time, the article lists factors that might encourage consumers to keep using the site:

• Delivery services and return procedures that address needs during the shopping process.
• Product variety, shopping convenience, and prices that give consumers reasons to buy.
• Points and rewards promotions that encourage repeat purchases.

On this basis, the author argues that a good shopping experience and a strong brand can make a website more important to its market, potentially helping it achieve good rankings even if its interface or SEO structure is imperfect. However, this is an argument made in a 2018 article, not confirmation of the current state of those services, nor empirical evidence that “offering these services will improve rankings.”

It is especially important to distinguish brand searches from product searches. The original article uses the idea that “people looking for PChome should be able to find it” to illustrate searchers’ needs. This can explain the context of a brand search, but it does not establish why the site would lead for all product keywords. The article also mentions experts’ speculation that Google uses interactions to calculate rankings, and the author believes that longer browsing sessions and frequent interactions have a positive effect. However, the supplied material contains no verifiable details supporting these claims, so it does not justify presenting increased time on site as an effective ranking tactic.

A small-site example challenges the idea that small sites must lose, but does not establish that its results can be replicated

The original article cites “Mr. Harris” as an example. According to the author’s account at the time, the site had been running for two years and had just over a hundred pages. It ranked first for “Google Analytics tutorial” and held two results on the first page for “Google Analytics,” with those results achieved in less than a year. This is a case described at the time of the article, not a record of current rankings.

The example supports the point that a website’s age or size alone is not enough to conclude that a small site is bound to lose. It does not prove that all small sites can outrank e-commerce sites within a year. The original article advises smaller brands to create valuable content, implement basic SEO improvements, and improve usability and speed. These are the author’s recommendations for running a website, not a formula that guarantees rankings.