Have you wondered how to get your website to rank highly on Google? If so, you may have heard about Domain Authority Score before. For those working on SEO, it’s crucial to understand that Domain Authority Score is one of the top 200 factors that Google uses to determine website ranking.
Whether you’re managing a website, a blog, or an e-commerce store, there’s nothing quite like the thrill of seeing your site discovered organically through a Google search. Sure, you may have been driving traffic through other sources like paid ads, social media, or referrals, but the true satisfaction lies in those organic views that SEO can bring.
This article will explain domain authority, its significance for website ranking, and some tips on improving it.
What is Domain Authority Score?
Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). The score is based on various factors, such as the quality and quantity of backlinks, content, technical optimisation, and overall website authority.
The Domain Authority Score ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating better ranking potential. It’s important to note that DA is a relative metric that compares the authority of one website to another.
It’s crucial to understand that a Domain Authority Score of 50 doesn’t guarantee the website will outrank all others with a lower score. However, it does offer a reassuring indication of the website’s potential to perform well on search engines relative to its competitors.
Domain Authority is useful for website owners and digital marketers as it helps them to identify areas for improvement and track the effectiveness of their SEO strategies.
However, it’s important to remember that Domain Authority is not the only factor determining search engine rankings. Many other factors also play a role in how well a website performs on search engines.
The calculation of Domain Authority is comprehensive, taking into account numerous factors. For example, established websites like Google, Apple, or Microsoft, with their high DA scores ranging between 95 and 100, are a testament to the accuracy and reliability of this metric.
On the other hand, new websites will typically have a lower DA, perhaps between 10 and 20. Moreover, it’s worth noting that improving a site’s Domain Authority Score is easier when it’s between 20 and 30, as opposed to when it’s between 70 and 80.
How to check Domain Authority Score?
There are many online tools available that can be used to check your Domain Authority. Here are some of the most popular ones:
- Moz Link Explorer: This is Moz’s tool, and it’s one of the most widely used tools for checking domain authority. You can enter a website’s URL, and it will provide you with the DA score and other important SEO metrics.
- Ahrefs: Ahrefs is another popular SEO tool that can check domain authority and other important metrics, such as backlinks and organic traffic.
- SEMrush: SEMrush is a comprehensive SEO tool that provides a wide range of data, including domain authority, backlinks, and keyword rankings.
- Majestic SEO: This tool is dedicated to backlink analysis and provides domain authority scores and other important metrics.
- Ubersuggest: This platform allows you to analyse the overall SEO performance of your website, including SEO issues, keyword ranking, backlinks and more. It also tracks your Domain Authority. This is my favourite tool for SEO-related work.
To check your website’s domain authority, visit one of these tools and enter your website’s URL, and it will provide you with the Domain Authority Score and other relevant metrics.
While all of the tools mentioned above are paid and may require a subscription, for the content of this article, I’ll use a free Domain Authority checker – Prepostseo.
Prepostseo allows you to calculate Domain Authority, Page Authority and Spam Score for free.
How is the Domain Authority Score calculated?
Domain Authority Score is calculated by Moz using a complex algorithm that takes into account various factors related to a website’s authority and popularity. Moz uses a machine learning model to predict how well a website will rank on search engines. The factors that are considered include:
- The quality and quantity of backlinks: High-quality backlinks from authoritative websites are important in increasing domain authority.
- Content quality: A website’s content’s relevance, uniqueness, and usefulness can also contribute to its domain authority.
- Social signals: The number of shares, likes, and comments on social media platforms can also be a factor in determining a website’s authority.
- On-page optimisation: Technical factors like site speed, mobile friendliness, and optimised metadata can also determine a website’s authority.
- Overall website authority: This is a general assessment of a website’s trustworthiness, popularity, and reputation.
When it comes to calculating the Domain Authority Score, different tools will use different metrics; however, the result, in most cases, comes up to be the same. Therefore, you can calculate your DA using any of the tools, and the result will be similar or the same.
A website with a high Domain Authority score is likelier to rank higher on search engine result pages, while a website with a low DA score may struggle to rank well.
What is a good Domain Authority Score?
A good DA score depends on several factors, such as your industry, niche, and competitors. However, a DA score above 50 is generally considered good, while a score above 60 is considered excellent. DA scores between 40 and 50 are average, and scores below 30 are considered poor.
However, it’s important to remember that Domain Authority Score is just one of many factors that search engines use to rank websites. It should be used in conjunction with other SEO strategies.
Why is my Domain Authority Score low?
The DA represents the overall quality of the website. Therefore, it is important to understand why your score is high or low. If you notice that your score is low, you should pay attention to the major reasons impacting your result.
This is particularly true if you’ve been producing a lot of content. Sometimes, the low Domain Authority Score may be attributed to websites with low content or newly built websites.
There are several reasons why a website’s Domain Authority may be low. Here are some common reasons:
- Lack of high-quality backlinks: Backlinks are among the most important factors in determining a website’s authority. If your website has few or low-quality backlinks, your DA may be lower than it could be.
- Poor content: If your website has low-quality or irrelevant content, it may not attract many backlinks or generate much traffic. This can result in a lower DA score.
- Technical issues: Technical issues such as slow loading speed, broken links, or poorly optimised metadata can negatively impact a website’s authority.
- New website: If your website is new, it likely hasn’t had time to accumulate high-quality backlinks or generate much traffic, which can result in a lower DA score.
- High competition: If your website is in a highly competitive niche, competing with other established websites may be difficult, resulting in a lower DA score.
- Poor quality backlinks: If you have a lot of websites linking to your content, it’s important to assess them. Not all backlinks are valuable. If your backlinks come from spammy websites or websites with low DA, it may also drag your DA down.
To improve your website’s Domain Authority Score, focus on building high-quality backlinks, creating relevant and high-quality content, fixing technical issues, and optimising your website for search engines. Be patient, as improving your DA can take time and effort.
Is Domain Authority Score important?
In the SEO world, Domain Authority Score is a powerful tool for website owners and digital marketers, especially those who rely on search engine optimisation (SEO) to drive traffic. Understanding its significance can empower you to:
- It’s a predictor of search engine performance: Websites with a higher DA are more likely to rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs) than websites with a lower DA. However, this is not always true.
- It’s a powerful benchmark for comparing against competitors: By using your DA score to compare your website’s authority with your competitors in the same niche, you can gain a competitive edge. This can fuel your drive to improve your website’s authority and rank higher in SERPs.
- It’s an indicator of website quality: Websites with a high DA are generally considered higher quality and more trustworthy than websites with a lower DA. This can help build user trust and potentially increase conversions and sales.
Domain Authority is calculated using various factors such as the quality and quantity of backlinks, content quality, social signals, on-page optimisation, and overall website authority.
You can consider DA an indication of leadership, trustworthiness, and power in the online world. Just as we wouldn’t trust self-proclaimed experts to give us financial advice, we’d not trust unauthoritative websites to make purchases, get advice, or learn.
Improving your website’s Domain Authority can help increase your website’s visibility on search engines, attract more traffic, and potentially improve your business’s online presence.
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While DA is a crucial aspect, it’s important to remember that it’s not the sole determinant of your website’s search engine performance. Other factors like content quality, technical optimization, and user experience also play a significant role. By using DA in conjunction with these good SEO strategies, you can feel confident in your comprehensive approach to improving your website’s performance.
However, Domain Authority Score shouldn’t be the primary concern in your SEO strategy. Pages with lower DA often outrank higher authority websites because Google primarily focuses on the content’s relevance and value.
Observe the ranking of examples below. The keyword used in this search is “content marketing trends”, and we can see that pages with lower DA scores outperform those with higher DA.
How to improve the Domain Authority Score
Improving your Domain Authority Score is not easy and often takes time and effort, but here are some strategies that can help you improve your DA:
- Create high-quality content: Focus on creating valuable, relevant, and engaging content that provides value to your audience. This can help attract high-quality backlinks and improve your website’s authority.
- Build high-quality backlinks: Backlinks from high-authority websites can significantly impact your website’s DA. Focus on building high-quality backlinks through guest blogging, broken link building, or other link-building tactics.
- Optimise your website: Ensure that your website is optimised for search engines, including on-page optimisation, website structure, and technical SEO. This can help improve your website’s visibility and increase the chances of attracting high-quality backlinks.
- Improve website speed: A fast-loading website can improve user experience and help with SEO. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to analyse your website’s speed and make necessary improvements.
- Promote your content: Promote your content through social media, email marketing, and other channels to attract more traffic and potentially high-quality backlinks.
- Monitor and analyse your progress: Regularly monitor your website’s DA using tools like Moz, Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, or SEMrush. Analyse your progress and adjust your strategy as necessary.
While the above-mentioned strategies are the most common, I find concentrating on high-quality content worth linking to particularly helpful when working with my clients. This is something that’s within your control.
Why does high-quality content boost DA scores?
When your audience finds your content valuable, they will likely share it with others. This increases your chances of receiving backlinks from high-authority websites such as educational institutions or government agencies.
On top of that, if you position yourself as an expert in the field, other bloggers and content creators will backlink to your content. Increasing the visibility of your website and driving traffic to specific pages will signal that your website has a higher authority and expertise in the field.
As a result, you’ll enhance your root domains with links from different sources, which can ultimately help increase your DA.
You shouldn’t expect to increase your DA by producing one good-quality webpage. Quite the contrary, you should strive to produce as much content as possible within the same niche, signalling to Google that your website is an expert in the field.
By providing valuable and informative content, you can establish yourself as an authority and expert in your field. This can help build trust with your audience and potentially lead to more content shares.
You have several options for creating compelling content, including articles, detailed guides, videos, infographics, podcasts, and slides. However, you can start by examining your website’s most popular pages and creating similar topics and content formats.
Remember that improving your Domain Authority Score takes time and effort, but by following these strategies consistently, you can improve your website’s authority, attract more traffic, and potentially improve your business’s online presence.
Can you manipulate the Domain Authority Score?
We live in a world of instant gratification and a desire for fast results. It’s tempting to look for shortcuts and play against the rules, as the results may seem worth the risk. The reality is, however, different – the risks outweigh the advantages.
Some clients have asked if there are any ways to manipulate their DA scores and cheat the rankings. Well, the truth is that there aren’t, and there shouldn’t be.
While there are many black hat SEO strategies to boost website ranking on Google, I can only strongly discourage you from taking this path. The reason is simple – sooner or later, Google will know.
Do you remember when empty keyword stuffing resulted in a high ranking on Google? These days are long gone, and content artificially stuffed with keywords will never come high on Google searches. Google gets smarter every day, and sooner or later, any hack to cheat it will result in heavy penalties or banning from the search engines.
Also, you cannot directly manipulate Domain Authority as it is calculated based on multiple factors and is determined by an algorithm that considers various metrics related to a website’s performance.
Attempting to manipulate DA through black hat SEO techniques, such as buying backlinks or keyword stuffing, can harm your website’s reputation and lead to search engine penalties.
It’s nearly impossible to return a banned website to Google search; thus, it’s best to follow the rules.
Instead of trying to manipulate Domain Authority, focus on creating high-quality content, building a strong backlink profile, and providing a good user experience to improve your website’s overall performance and search engine rankings is better. Over time, this can lead to an increase in your Domain Authority Score.
Final thoughts on Domain Authority Score
While DA is important, it shouldn’t be your primary focus. As mentioned, you will improve your Domain Authority Score by practising good SEO strategies, producing valuable, high-quality content, and building your backlinks.
While DA is important for website ranking, there are plenty of examples of websites with lower DAs outranking high Domain Authority websites. This is because Google deems the content worthier and more valuable to the searcher’s intent.
Domain Authority is only one of the metrics used to determine a webpage’s ranking. According to Google, hundreds of other factors impact the webpage’s position in search results.
