What is Domain Authority?
Domain authority (DA) is a metric that predicts a site’s ranking on Google search results pages. Moz developed and uses it in its SEO software, where it is treated as an alternative to Google’s PageRank.
PageRank is an algorithm that Google uses to determine the quality and quantity of the backlinks pointing to a webpage.
Google used to show bloggers their PageRank but stopped updating it on December 6, 2013, and completely removed it on March 7, 2016. So, Moz uses the domain authority metric to give bloggers an idea of their PageRank.
Moz determines a site’s domain authority by analyzing several factors, including the quality and quantity of the backlinks pointing to the site. It then uses machine learning algorithms to determine the appropriate domain authority score for the site.
It is important to know that the domain authority metric is not a search ranking factor. Google does not use it, and it does not affect your Google rankings.
What is Domain Authority 2.0?
In March 2019, Moz improved the algorithm it uses to calculate the domain authority metric. Moz called the upgraded algorithm Domain Authority 2.0 and added that it considers multiple signals and metrics that the previous algorithm did not.
For example, Domain Authority 2.0 considers your link pattern, Moz spam score, and even the results displayed on Google search results pages when calculating your domain authority. It also uses machine learning to determine the best algorithm to calculate your domain authority score.
Moz said the upgrade was necessary to compensate for the changes in the Google algorithm. Google has adjusted its algorithm over the years, making it crucial for Moz to improve its own algorithm and provide users with more accurate results that give them a better idea of their rankings.
Importance of the Domain Authority
The domain authority metric allows bloggers, SEOs, and businesses to uncover specific metrics, signals, and data about their content, business, links, and competitors. We will now address some of them below.
1 Assess the Difficulty of a Keyword
The domain authority helps estimate the difficulty to expect when trying to rank for a keyword. Sites with a high domain authority typically rank for keywords with a high keyword difficulty, while those with a low keyword difficulty rank for keywords with low difficulty.
2 Evaluate the Value of a Link
The domain authority metric gives you insights into the value of links that point to your site. Sites with a high domain authority score typically pass more link value and are considered more authoritative and trustworthy than those with lower domain authority.
3 Measure the Performance of a Link Building Campaign
The domain authority metric typically improves as a site gains more backlinks. This has made many businesses and bloggers to consider it the go-to tool to measure the success of their link building campaigns.
4 Compare a Site Against Its Competitors
The domain authority metric is a great way to compare your site’s performance against your competitors. It helps you identify how your site ranks against theirs and uncover the strengths and weaknesses of your SEO strategy.
How to Use Domain Authority for SEO
Many bloggers use the domain authority metric wrongly. Moz recommends that you treat the domain authority as a comparative metric. This means you should pay less attention to your individual domain authority. Instead, you should use it when comparing your site against other sites or your current rankings with your previous ones.
1 Compare Your Site Against Other Sites
Your domain authority score gives you an idea of how your site ranks against competitors. For example, if you have a domain authority of 40 while a competitor has a domain authority of 20, you likely rank higher than them on search results pages.
This is why domain authority should not be analyzed alone. Instead, you should review it against that of your competitors. If there is a huge difference between your domain authority and your competitors, then there is likely a significant difference between your link profiles.
If your domain authority is higher, then you will likely rank higher on search results pages. Similarly, if yours is lower, you likely rank lower than your competitors on search results pages.
2 Compare Your Link Growth
The domain authority metric helps you compare your site’s growth over time. This is helpful during link building campaigns when you need to see how well your site has improved.
An increase in your domain authority typically means you have earned more backlinks. Similarly, a drop in your domain rankings over time indicates that your link building campaign may not have worked as expected.
However, this may not be definite, especially if your competitor is also building backlinks. In such situations, your competitor’s domain authority will also increase. If they have more high-quality backlinks than you, your domain authority may remain the same or even reduce.
How the Domain Authority Scoring System Works
The domain authority metric most probably doesn’t work the way you think. It works differently from many other metrics out there. So, it is crucial to understand how it works in order to get the most out of it.
1 The Scoring System is Logarithmic
The domain authority metric is measured on a logarithmic scale that goes from 1 to 100. This means the difference between two successive domain authority scores is not equal.
For example, if you require one backlink to move from a domain authority of one to a domain authority of two, you may need two backlinks to move from two to three, and so on.
This ultimately means that you need more links to go from 40 to 60 than you need to move from 20 to 40. As a result, it is easier to increase the domain authority when low, but it becomes harder as your domain authority increases.
2 100 is Not an Ideal Score
The domain authority score goes from 1 to 100. The higher you are, the better. However, that is relative. This means only the top sites, such as Facebook and Apple, can get a near-perfect domain authority of 100. Every other site will be lower.
So, instead of trying to get your domain authority score up to 100, compare it against your competition. If you have a domain score of 39 while your competitors have 20, 25, and 30, then you are in a good place.
Similarly, if your domain authority is 14 while your competitors are in their 30s, you should work on increasing yours. 100 is a great score, but your site will never get close unless it is very large.
3 There is No Good or Bad Domain Authority Score
Due to the peculiarities of this metric, there is no good or bad domain authority score. 20 is only a bad score if your competitors rank way higher. If your competitors are within the same range, then it is a good score.
This is why you should never use the domain authority as a standalone metric. Instead, use it as the comparative metric to compare how your site is faring against similar sites.
Factors That Affect Your Domain Authority
Moz regularly crawls your site and content to extract multiple metrics and signals. It then feeds these data to its machine learning algorithm, which calculates your domain authority. Like Google, Moz does not reveal all the data it uses. However, here are some that we have uncovered so far.
1 Everyone Else’s Domain Authority
The domain authority is a relative metric. This means that your site’s domain authority affects that of every other site. Similarly, the domain authority of other sites affects yours.
You can think of it like a cake. Everyone gets a share of the cake. However, what share a person receives depends on how much domain authority they have. The higher their domain authority, the more they get from the cake. The lower their domain authority, the less they get.
Some sites, like Facebook, Apple, and Google, are large enough to skew the domain authority of every other site in the system. In this case, a site may observe a drop in domain authority when these top sites suddenly get more links pointing to them.
This is more common with lower-ranking sites, which experience frequent shifts in their domain authority as the top sites continue to build their backlinks.
2 Your Link Profile
Moz analyzes your link profile when calculating your domain authority. Sites with many high-quality inbound links typically have a higher domain authority, while those with lower-quality inbound links have a lower domain authority.
Your domain authority should improve over time as you get more backlinks to your site. Similarly, it would reduce when you have fewer backlinks pointing to you.
3 The Data Points Moz Has About Your Site
Moz requires several data to calculate your domain authority. However, when it cannot access all the data it needs, it calculates your domain authority using what it has available.
This means you may see your domain authority fluctuate as Moz gathers more data about your domain. It also means that your domain authority could change if Moz stops using a data point or replaces a previously used one with another one.
4 Indexing or Algorithm Changes
Moz has confirmed that any changes to its indexing or domain authority scoring system will affect every site’s current and historical domain authority scores. This means that your current domain authority score may be higher or lower in the future.
This is usually not an issue, as your competitor’s historical domain authority scores will also change. However, it is something to remember when comparing your current domain authority score with your previous ones.
You may notice these changes if you store the domain authority score in some external document outside the Moz software. In this case, you should not panic if the domain authority score displayed for historical data in your document differs from that displayed in Moz.
5 Your Moz Spam Score
Moz reviews several factors on a webpage and issues it with a spam score it calls the Moz spam score. Moz takes this spam score into consideration when calculating your domain authority score.
6 The Link Quality
Moz specifically reviews the sources of your links. Sites that engage in link schemes like link buying and private blog networks will typically experience a drop in their domain authority.
7 Your Current Google Rankings
Moz factors in your current Google rankings into your domain authority score. While Moz does not detail how it does this, you should expect your current Google rankings to have an effect on your domain authority score.