URL: /rules/eeat/authority-signals

---
title: "Authority Signals"
description: "AI assessment of per-page authority signals: authorship, citations, and outbound references"
---

<Note>**Cloud rule** - requires login (`squirrel auth login`) and costs **1 credit per page**. Skipped when not logged in. See [Cloud rules](/cloud/rules).</Note>

AI assessment of per-page authority signals: authorship, citations, and outbound references.

| | |
|---|---|
| **Rule ID** | `eeat/authority-signals` |
| **Category** | [E-E-A-T](/rules/eeat) |
| **Scope** | Per-page |
| **Severity** | warning |
| **Weight** | 3/10 |
| **Default** | Enabled |

## What it checks

The cloud service reads each page and reports whether an author is attributed, how many claims are backed by citations, and how many outbound references the page makes. A page with **no author attribution and zero citations** warns; otherwise the rule passes and lists the detected signals.

Unlike the pattern-based [`eeat/author-byline`](/rules/eeat/author-byline) and [`eeat/citations`](/rules/eeat/citations) rules, this is a semantic assessment - it understands attribution and sourcing in context rather than matching markup patterns.

## Solution

Pages that demonstrate who wrote them and what their claims rest on earn more trust from readers, search engines, and AI assistants. Add a visible author byline (with credentials where relevant), cite sources for factual claims, and link out to authoritative references.

## Enable / Disable

### Disable this rule

```toml squirrel.toml
[rules]
disable = ["eeat/authority-signals"]
```