What Is Domain Authority? A Complete Guide

What Is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). It is scored on a scale from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating a greater ability to rank.

How Domain Authority Works

Domain Authority is calculated based on multiple factors, including the total number of backlinks, the quality of referring domains, and overall link profile strength. It’s not a metric used by Google, but it is widely used by SEO professionals as a comparative indicator of ranking potential.

• A brand-new website may have a DA of 1.
• Highly authoritative websites like Wikipedia or Google have a DA close to 100.

Why Domain Authority Matters for SEO

A higher Domain Authority generally means:

• Better visibility in search engines
• Greater trust and credibility
• Higher potential for referral traffic

While it doesn’t guarantee rankings, DA is a useful benchmark to measure your website’s SEO progress and to assess the strength of competitors.

How to Improve Domain Authority

• Earn high-quality backlinks from reputable websites
• Create valuable, shareable content that attracts links
• Remove or disavow toxic links that could hurt your domain’s reputation
• Improve internal linking to distribute page authority
• Optimize for technical SEO (site speed, mobile-friendliness, clean URLs)

Domain Authority vs. Page Authority

While Domain Authority refers to your entire website’s potential to rank, Page Authority (PA) measures the strength of an individual page. A website can have a high DA, but a specific blog post with low PA may still struggle to rank — and vice versa.

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