Updated on: 2022-01-03
Name: Domain Authority (DA)
Referred to as DA
Category: On-Page SEO
Correct Use:
A domain authority checker allows you to check the ranking of your website by checking its DA score. It combines your domain’s strength with other measurements such as the number of links (their quality and quantity). Checking your domain authority helps in the determination of your website’s power. The checker allows you to know the status of your website in comparison to your competitors.
You can check your domain Authority on MoZ by checking its Link Explorer. Your domain score appears automatically after entering your website URL. The tool also provides you with other information such as the number of linking domains, inbound links, and the total number of ranking keywords.
Description:
Domain Authority (DA) is an SEO score developed by Moz. It predicts the likelihood of a website to rank in result pages of a search engine. Its score ranges between one and one hundred. The higher the website’s score, the higher the likelihood of the website’s ranking.
The domain authority’s basis is on MOZ’s link explorer web index data. The index uses different factors when calculating the ranking. The calculation involves linking root domains and the total number of links into one DA score. The order also checks the domain’s reliability, the link profile’s strength, and other Google signals. The ranking then compares websites and tracks their ranking over time.
The Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor, and it cannot help increase your ranking on the search engine results page.
Do:
To build your domain authority;
- Use a sitemap to improve the SEO of your website.
- Focus on relevant, authoritative, and quality backlinks in your pages.
- Analyze your backlinks to ensure they have a do-follow.
- Create quality content to get natural backlinks.
- Focus on your key audience during content creation.
- Update unindexed and older content to make it more interesting.
- Do a competitor analysis to understand their source of backlinks which helps improve your website’s visibility.
- Share your web content uniquely through social platforms or newsletters.
Don’t:
Take your time and understand that building your domain authority is a long-term strategy. Do not expect immediate results. Additionally, don’t focus on increasing your score to 100. This is unless you aim to compete with mega-brands such as Facebook, Amazon, or Wikipedia. Instead, focus on learning more about your actual competitors and target similar phrases, keywords, and topics.
Tip:
Instead of increasing your domain score, focus on improving the quality and quantity of your leads. The ultimate goal is to increase the margin between your competitor’s DA and yours. When the backlinks on your website are of a higher quality than those of your actual competitors, your DA score and your ranking potential will improve.
Remember that when there is a change in MoZ’s index to reflect internet updates or a change in Google’s algorithm, everyone experiences a change in their DA rankings. Always compare your website to websites that are similar to yours.