A very interesting thread has been going on at the WebmasterWorld. A lot of webmasters are discussing on the issue that Google might distinguish trust and authority notions!

The discussion resolves in the following manner:

Let us have a look as to what the Search Engine Journal has to elaborate on the whole issue:

Trust: Trust is based on “A hand picked "seed list" of trusted domains."

It protects you from "Google-bowling" campaign against your domain.

It is a Query-independent factor and is attributed to Domain.

Authority on the other hand, is an Overall quantity and quality of inbound external links.

Role in Algorithm: Matters for rankings.

It is a Query- and topic-dependent factor and is attributed to a page.

According to Tedster, WebmasterWorld Category Administrator:

Here's an example of confusing trust with authority. It's been common to read statements such as "this site has Google Sitelinks, so it's a trusted authority." I hope my efforts here shows that no such thing is true.

Sitelinks are a navigational aid that Google assigns to a domain for some queries if the site's architecture is clear enough for them to do so. If sitelinks are displayed for a generic query, and not just a domain name query, then something about authority has come into play - but still, that's not trust.

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