Knowing your domain authority is essential for creating or improving your marketing strategy. But how do you determine your domain authority?
Let’s have a look at what this statistic is and how to choose the best domain authority checker for your company.
But first, you must comprehend how Google’s PageRank, DA, PA, and DR function!
Rank on Google
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How do DA, PA, DR, and Google’s PageRank work?
The number of relevant backlinks to your website from other respectable sites is referred to as domain authority (DA). The relevance of those backlinks also factors into your overall score.
PageRank (DA, PA, DR, and CF) of a website
Search engines, such as Google, rank websites primarily based on the quality of their content. To rank the billions of web pages on the internet, Google must employ a variety of approaches. PageRank, which was invented in 1998, is one of them.
Google’s PageRank is a set of hyperlink analysis tools that counts links to web pages as votes. It measures the value or authority of web page content.
Google PageRank:
A website will gain more links from other pages the more significant it is. However, it also carefully considers a number of other criteria. Today’s PageRank is far more complicated and nuanced.
Currently, something much more remarkable powers Google. As a result, they permitted the PageRank patents to expire in 2019. However, the market is ready to accept fresh link-building and authority strategies. These include domain Authority (DA), page authority (PA), trust rank (TR), citation flow (CF), and domain score (DR). They no longer like or accept the Google improvements. They expressly employ links as a ranking component, too.
Moz Domain Authority (DA) & Page Authority (PA) of a Website
The inbound links connecting to your domain, also known as backlinks, are the most important aspect that Moz takes into account when calculating your domain authority (DA).
Well, a website’s Domain Authority, which varies from 1 to 100, predicts where it will rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). The number and caliber of inbound links pointing to the domain as well as other on-page and off-page factors all play a role in determining the score.
Moz gets this information from its regularly updated Link Explorer index. Sites with more backlinks and unique referring domains are more likely to have higher DA ratings.
Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR)
Ahrefs created the Domain Rating (DR) statistic. It forecasts the strength of a website in terms of backlinks. The Ahrefs DR score goes from one to 100, with higher values indicating stronger ranking ability.
When you have a better understanding of the terms for which you are considered authoritative, you can better optimize your site.
But it’s not only keywords—the higher the quality of your backlinks, the better your chances of improving in DA.
The logarithmic scale is used to determine domain authority. As a result, solo metrics will not always enhance or reduce the score to the same extent. The greater the importance of a metric, the larger the impact it is expected to have.
Why Is Domain Authority Important?
Although domain authority (DA) and SERP ranking are not directly correlated, a study by Ahrefs indicated that they are.
The findings of this study imply that DA might be a useful statistic for estimating how much organic traffic from Google you might get.
Consider stepping up your domain authority plan if you want to improve your SEO ranks. But building authority can take time, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results right away.
What Does a Good Domain Authority Score Mean?
There are 1 to 100 domain authority ratings. Increases in web traffic and SERP rankings are more likely to occur when you have a higher domain authority score.
The domain authority of a new website is one when you launch it. According to Moz, large-scale websites tend to have higher domain authority (DA), whereas small-scale websites and websites with fewer inbound links typically have lower DA scores.
Comparing your website to other comparable or related websites can be a good way to evaluate its performance. With so many moving elements, it can be difficult to pinpoint why your DA altered over time. Your DA may fluctuate. But keep trying.
Moz lists a number of elements that can affect your score.
One possibility is that their index hasn’t yet caught up with the increase of your link profile.
Another happens when sites with more authority see rapid increases in the amount of links, which may skew the scaling process. The lower end of the domain authority spectrum may be more strongly impacted by this type of change.
Additionally, you can have acquired links from websites that don’t help with Google ranking. Results can be impacted if Moz crawls fewer or more link domains than it did the previous time it visited your site.
How Can You Improve Your Domain Authority Score?
Raising your DA is a lengthy process, but there are various approaches you can take.
First, conduct a link audit. This method include ensuring that links to your website are valid and do not use black-hat SEO tactics. Use Ubersuggest to learn about your website score, current backlink count, and referring domains.
Backlinks, or links from other websites to yours, have an impact on SEO rankings—but not all backlinks are made equal.
Do you know how to get high-quality backlinks? To get started, try our free backlink tool, Backlinks. It will show you which sites are linking to your competitors rather than you, among other things.
What Is the Best Way to Check Your Domain Authority?
Are you curious about your own website’s Domain Authority score? You have numerous alternatives. Here are three examples:
- Moz’s Domain SEO Analysis Tool
- Linkgraph.io’s Domain Authority checker
- Ahrefs’ Website Authority Checker
SEO Review Tools includes a simple domain authority checker. It considers authority (based on the quantity and quality of backlinks) and content.
This program also measures the age of a website and its social media score. Your social media score is determined by how active your social profiles are and how many times your material is shared.
Page authority is also calculated. This statistic is similar to DA, but it examines individual pages rather than entire websites. Page authority is also calculated on a scale of one to 100.
If you wish to check numerous sites at once, Linkgraph’s Free Bulk DA Checker could be ideal. This application lets you check the DA and spam metrics for up to ten URLs at once.
If you want to check hundreds of URLs at once, use Rankz’s SEO Rank Tracker. In addition, they provide a backlinks checker, a backlinks monitor, and a domain availability checker.
Moz offers a thorough free domain SEO analysis tool. Top pages by links, discovered and lost links, top connecting domains, and keywords by estimated clicks are all displayed. Of course, Ubersuggest can help you find some of this information as well.
The tool then categorizes the most essential pages on the site based on page authority and other top-linking domains. Top-ranking keywords, keywords by estimated clicks, top highlighted snippets, branded keywords, and other analytics are also available.
You can also get a list of competitors who are utilizing your keywords. The competing domains can then be entered into a bulk checker like the ones mentioned above.
Domain Authority: what you really need to know
So, what exactly do website owners and digital marketers need to know about Domain Authority?
If your primary goal is to simply gain new clients through search, it is not necessary to understand the intricacies of this computation. Domain Authority, on the other hand, has numerous practical applications to developing a good SEO strategy. Here are the key points to remember regarding this site authority metric.
Domain Authority is not a ranking factor
Although DA can be used to estimate ranking potential, it is not factored into Google’s ranking formula.
This is why newer or smaller websites with lower Domain Authority scores can still outrank rivals provided they produce premium, educational, up-to-date, and user-relevant content.
However, several of the elements that Moz takes into account when calculating Domain Authority are also used by Google to determine rankings, such as the volume of linked root domains and pages. Because of this, there is frequently a positive correlation between DA scores and other SEO performance indicators like keyword rankings, average position, and organic traffic.
Domain Authority is not the only site authority statistic.
The Domain Authority measure from Moz is not the only one available to SEOs. Other well-known SEO companies and keyword research tools with vast link indexes have created their own authority metrics. Some examples you may be familiar with are:
- Majestic’s Citation Flow
- Semrush’s Authority Score
- Ahrefs’ Domain Rating (DR)
Because each of these companies utilizes its own unique algorithm and link indexes, your website’s results for each measure may differ greatly.
So, while DA is likely the most extensively utilized authority metric in the SEO field, it is far from the final word on ranking potential. It’s vital to know that, aside from DA, there are other measures to assess your website’s health and ranking potential.
Use LOCALiQ’s Free Website Grader to see if your site is optimized to rank.
Google’s PageRank is the original authority metric
Google’s PageRank was the first authority metric long before Domain Authority appeared on the SEO scene.
Google used to display the PageRank of web pages in its toolbar, but when black-hat SEOs utilized that information to boost their rankings, Google now puts PageRank scores under lock and key.
Every time a page links to another, a piece of its PageRank (or link equity) is sent along. That is, pages having a high number of backlinks will pass on more PageRank than others. It appears to be as follows:
Unlike Domain Authority, PageRank is a ranking feature that Google uses to promote web pages. Although Google no longer provides direct access to PageRank, site owners should be aware that every connection still transmits PageRank (or link juice) throughout the internet.
Improving Domain Authority & off-page SEO go hand-in-hand
Because the Domain Authority calculation is based mostly on backlinks, off-page SEO methods such as link building and digital PR are the only means to boost site authority metrics such as DA.
Although enhancing on-page SEO is always a valuable activity for increasing your relevance and quality in Google’s eyes, it does not immediately effect your DA as backlinks do.
Earning backlinks through off-site tactics will, however, be much easier with higher-quality material on your website. In general, a multidisciplinary approach to SEO is more likely to be effective than depending on a single tactic alone.
How to increase Domain Authority (safely)
Because DA is mostly determined by backlinks, off-site tactics such as link building are the best approach to try to raise your score. However, this is not as simple as it sounds because we have no control over whether another website chooses to connect to ours.
Furthermore, some link-building tactics are deemed “black-hat,” which means that Google may punish your website if it appears to be paying for backlinks or engaging in spammy link practices.
However, there are numerous methods for safely increasing the overall authority of your domain and, as a result, your DA ratings. The tactics listed below are some of my favorites for link building because they are both successful and Google-compliant.
Get listed in directories
Getting your domain included in multiple web directories is a high-impact and reasonably priced (less than $100) strategy to raise your domain authority for small and local businesses. These are the top 10 directories to use first.
Local SEO tactics such as citation building are among the most cost-effective growth strategies available. Not only will Google understand the markets and places you service better, but those connections back to your website will assist boost your DA ratings over time.
For more information on local SEO, see LocaliQ Marketing Lab’s free Local SEO course.
Write great content
First and foremost, concentrate on creating content that is so exceptional that other sites will organically discover and link to it (think E-A-T). Write a quality keyword-targeted post that ranks, and a blogger or business wanting to write about that topic will find your post in their research and maybe link back to your site in their piece. I say hopefully because if the material you’ve provided is general knowledge and there’s no way to establish that the writer obtained it from your page, you’re less likely to earn a citation.
However, the more likely you are to receive that backlink if you provide unique research or a thought leadership post on the topic—something that is difficult to reproduce. This method can be used for high-volume keywords or super-niche themes. Just be sure to promote it on social media to get more people to see it.
Contribute guest posts
Contributing blog content, original research, or thought leadership to other relevant, high DA websites in your field is another excellent approach to increase backlinks to your site and hence raise your DA.
Publishers are always looking for exceptional material, and if you supply it for them, you will not only enhance your brand expertise, but you will also frequently gain a backlink to your website in the byline—or even the body of the piece.
Seek out guest writing opportunities in industry-specific publications with relevant relevance to your business to increase your Domain Authority faster. For example, the graphic below compares the subject relevancy of my own brand’s website to one of our top competitors.
Topical Relevance of Backlink Profiles as seen in SearchAtlas
The majority of our competitors’ backlinks originate from business and technology-related websites. Because we wish to surpass their Domain Authority, we concentrate on obtaining guest blogging chances from websites with similar topical importance.
Invest in public relations
Any-sized business can benefit from having a public relations staff, but for enterprise-level businesses, obtaining links in well-known media is critical to competing against other websites with extremely high Domain Authority ratings.
In terms of overall brand awareness, press coverage that does not include a link can still have a beneficial SEO impact because Google uses off-site signals such as brand mentions to determine the authority of your website. However, dofollow links from top-tier publications will have the most impact in terms of increasing DA.
If your company is small or medium-sized and lacks the resources for a public relations team, try joining Help A Reporter Out (HARO). This service connects journalists with industry specialists and can be an excellent method to earn high-quality linking opportunities.
Try broken link building
Broken link building, while a more complicated method that will necessitate the usage of backlink tools, can assist you in locating link possibilities to boost your DA scores. The steps are as follows:
- To locate broken links on other websites, use a backlink analyzer tool.
- Create content that can act as a replacement for the missing resource (or identify that existing content on your website).
- Contact the editor and offer your content as a replacement.
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Other ways to use Domain Authority in your SEO strategy
Aside from an authority flex, Domain Authority scores can be used to create a highly targeted SEO campaign. The comparative aspect of DA might assist you in setting reasonable goals and benchmarking your own SEO success.
Choose keywords according to DA
When it comes to selecting the correct keyword targets, DA can be a useful statistic for determining whether or not your website can compete with those pages that already rank on page one.
I recommend that you optimize your web pages for keywords with a Keyword Difficulty score that is less than or equal to your Domain Authority. For example, if you want to rank on the first page for the phrase “coffee subscription boxes,” you’ll need at least a DA of 60.
This is not an absolute barometer, but it can be highly useful for selecting lower-competition keywords that will provide organic traffic to your website in the short term while you build up your Domain Authority over time.
Identify your SEO priorities
Because DA is a comparison statistic, one of the greatest ways to apply it is to consider your competition.
If your DA is already higher than your competitors’, high-quality material will almost certainly get you to page one. That implies your team should focus its efforts on on-page adjustments, which are less expensive and can often be completed in-house.
Off-site SEO is typically more time, resource, and cost-intensive. If there is still a considerable gap between your Domain Authority and that of your competitors, being proactive with your off-site approach will be essential if you want to compete and make your website more accessible on Google.
Pay attention to Google’s guidelines
While Domain Authority isn’t an official ranking criteria (it’s a Moz statistic), it does indicate two things: E-A-T and backlinks. Brian Dean points out in Backlinko’s guide to SEO in 2022 that Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines state that the developer of the main content has a part in your ranking. This includes ensuring that your blog authors are specialists in the area at hand and have bylines to prove it, as well as that Google can learn as much about your website’s competence and authority as possible through your about page, contact page, privacy policy, and terms of service.
Increase Domain Authority, improve your ranking
Domain Authority might feel like a status symbol in the realm of SEO in some respects. High DA ratings are amazing and difficult to obtain, but keep in mind that your SEO performance is not limited or defined by your Domain Authority.
Nonetheless, increasing DA is valuable because it is based on characteristics that are critical to ranking well in Google, and ranking well in Google means more visitors to your site. Follow the procedures outlined in this post to boost your Domain Authority and demonstrate to Google that your domain is authoritative and well-trusted by other websites on the internet:
- Get listed in directories
- Write great content
- Guest post on other sites
- Invest in public relations
- Try broken link building
At first glance, domain authority may appear confusing. Many elements influence your rating, and examining them all can be difficult.
Nonetheless, once you’ve mastered DA, it’s worthwhile to monitor and optimize for it.
Including this in your SEO toolkit may provide you with a more complete view of your overall digital presence and website health.
Have you been able to increase your domain authority? Let us know in the comments.
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