Domain Authority is a ranking metric developed by Moz which calculates the quality of a domain. There are many other metrics developed by similar companies such as SEMrush and their Authority score. Normally scored from one to 100, it indicates how well your site will rank.
Why does it matter?
DA scores matter because a higher one indicates to Google that you are a trustworthy source. As a result, Google is more likely to rank your site higher for a given search query because it knows the content you are serving up is good.
If a website with a DA score of 30 had exactly the same content* as a site with a DA score of 10, the site with 30 would rank above the site with 10.
*Duplicate content is not a good idea where SEO is concerned, but just for the sake of explanation ignore this…
What makes a good DA score?
There are loads of factors that go into a DA score depending on who’s you are using. Generally, it’s complex algorithms that calculate the DA score, but to give you an idea of what goes into it:
- The number of referring domains pointing to your site
- The authority of each of those domains
- Follow vs. nofollow links pointing to your site
- Follow vs. nofollow links pointing away from your site
- The total number of backlinks your site has
How can I check my score?
Now you know what domain authority is, I’m willing to bet you want to know what yours is. You can quickly check your score for free here. For more detailed information you can sign up for SEMrush or contact me for a free SEO audit.
