Domain authority (DA) is one of the most important factors in evaluating a website, and it’s a metric search engines use to determine a website’s quality and relevance.
To determine a site’s domain authority, the metric counts the number of links from high-quality websites to a particular domain.
When you understand your domain authority, you see how your site compares with competitors. The higher a site’s authority is, the more visible you are, which can factor into SEO. Of course, that extra visibility has advantages. Most notably, your site’s ranking on the first page, searchers are more likely to find you, leading to increased awareness and conversions.
- Let’s dive into this metric and some tips for picking the perfect domain authority score checker for your business.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain authority (DA) is the number of relevant backlinks to your site that come from other reputable sites. The relevance of those backlinks also contributes to your domain authority score.
SEO company Moz created the Domain Authority metric to help businesses figure out where they may rank on search engine results pages (SERPs).
It estimates a page’s possible ranking via several channels, “including linking root domains and the number of total links, into a single DA score. This score can compare websites or track the ‘ranking strength’ of a website over time.”
Perhaps you’re wondering what domain authority means for your website? Well, have you ever noticed how some brands look authoritative without trying? This is because the keywords that naturally exist on their websites carry some weight.
For example, movie site IMDb has a high DA because relevant keywords are naturally integrated throughout the site. Secondary related keywords are also prevalent.
Simply put, when you know which terms give your site authority, you can optimize your site better.
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However, it’s not just about keywords. The better your backlinks are, the better your chances of increasing your DA.
It’s a logarithmic scale that determines your ultimate domain authority score. This means solo metrics won’t always increase or decrease the score to the same degree. The more important a metric is, the greater effect it’s likely to have.
Why Should I Care About Domain Authority?
Although Google doesn’t use domain authority in its rankings, there are still some great reasons to work on this area. For example, a high domain authority score:
- means that your website is likely to rank well in the SERPs. This can result in more clicks and leads for your business.
- indicates your website is authoritative and trustworthy. This can help you attract more customers and generate more sales.
- means that Google and other search engines are more likely to index your site more frequently.
Research also backs up the benefits of a high DA. For example, a study by Ahrefs found a correlation between domain authority and SERP ranking.
According to the results of this study, domain authority may be a useful metric to estimate how much organic traffic you may receive from Google.
What does this survey mean for website owners?
It means you should think about improving your domain authority strategy if you want to grow your SEO rankings. Nonetheless, remember that developing authority takes time, so don’t worry if you don’t see results right away.
What is a Good Domain Authority Score?
Domain authority scores range from one to 100. When you have a greater domain authority score, it’s more likely you’ll see increases in web traffic and SERP rankings.
When you debut a new website, its domain authority is one. Moz points out that sites with many external links are usually higher when it comes to DA, while small business sites and those with fewer inbound links generally have a lower DA score.
A strong gauge for your site is to measure it against other comparable or similar sites. Remember, though, your domain authority can fluctuate over time, and with so many moving parts, identifying the reasons behind these changes can be challenging.
Moz highlights several factors that can influence your score.
- The Moz index hasn’t seen your link profile growth yet.
- Higher-authority sites experience massive growth in link numbers, which may skew the scaling process. This kind of fluctuation may more significantly impact domain authorities on the lower end.
- You may also have earned links from sites that don’t contribute to ranking on Google. If Moz crawls a different amount of link domains than it did last time it went through your site, results may be affected.
How Can You Raise Your Domain Authority Score?
There are several things you can do to improve your website’s DA score.
- Conduct a link audit: This process involves making sure that links to your website are valid and don’t include black-hat SEO tactics. Try Ubersuggest to get insight into your domain score, the current number of backlinks, and referring domains.
- Backlinks, which are links from other websites to yours, affect SEO rankings—though not all backlinks are equal.
- Build an audience: you can do this by publishing high-quality content relevant to your target audience, participating in industry forums and blog commenting, and guest posting on other websites.
- Optimize your website: make sure your website is optimized for search engine visibility. Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions for your pages, and include keywords in your URLs. Add social media buttons to your website so that visitors can share your content with their friends and followers.
- Use a tool: Our free backlink tool, Backlinks, gets you started. Among other things, it shows you which sites are linking to your competitors rather than to you and its various filters make it easy to assess which opportunities are best suited to your needs.
- Get help from a professional: Finally, if you want to take more aggressive steps to improve your Domain Authority score, you can invest in SEO services or hire an SEO expert to help you out.
It’s also beneficial to search for local directories or “best-of” lists, like Google My Business, as these all help to build authority.
How Do You Check Your Domain Authority?
There are several link authority tools out there. How do you know which one is right for you? Here are a few tips:
- Look at the tool’s features. Is it something that will help you achieve your goals?
- Read round-up review posts to see the features and pricing at a glance, and narrow down your choices.
- Is the tool user-friendly and does it integrate with other apps/tools you use?
Here’s a selection of tools for getting started with your search: SEO Review Tools has a basic domain authority checker and it gives you a social media score relating to how active your social profiles are and how many shares your content receives.
The tool bases authority on backlink quantity and quality, and measures other metrics like website age and social media score. Finally, SEO Review Tools measures page authority. This metric is like Domain Authority, except it looks at a specific page rather than entire sites. Page authority also uses a one-to-100 logarithmic scale.
For testing several sites at once, Linkgraph’s Free Bulk DA Checker may be the perfect option. This tool allows you to check DA and spam metrics for up to 10 URLs at a time.
Semrush has an extensive list of tools as well, including a backlinks checker, SERPtracker, and social media marketing.
Then there’s Moz, which has a comprehensive free domain SEO analysis tool. It showcases top pages by links, discovered and lost links, top linking domains, and keywords by estimated clicks.
For example, when you search for the domain authority of neilpatel.com on Moz, it shows it’s 90, and there are 106,400 linking domains (i.e., backlinks). There are also over 229,000 keywords for which the site ranks, and the spam score is 1%.
The tool then breaks down the site’s most important pages according to page authority and other top-linking domains. You can also find:
- top-ranking keywords
- keywords by estimated clicks
- top featured snippets
- branded keywords
- and more.
You can then take the competing domains and plug them into a bulk checker like the ones noted above, and see a breakdown of competitors using your keywords.
Of course, you can also find some of this information using Ubersuggest as well.
How Do You Integrate Your Domain Authority into Your SEO Strategy?
Once you know your domain authority score and the factors influencing it, what should you do next?
- Start with backlinks. You want to give other sites a reason to link to yours. If you specialize in something unique or offer a new option for a product or service, that could be a great start. Work to provide better information on your niche than your competitors do.
- It may also be wise to collaborate with small businesses with whom you could forge mutually beneficial partnerships.
- Reach out to companies with whom you already have relationships, too. See if there are ways you can support each other’s online presence. Swapping testimonials is just one of the many tactics you could employ.
- You should also explore your existing content for opportunities to add links. For example, if you mention a coffee shop, link to their website. If they’re monitoring their web traffic, they’ll see you linked to them and may feel inclined to return the favor.
- Of course, you want to make sure all the backlinks you receive are of high quality. It’s better to have a few quality backlinks than a ton of ineffective ones.
- Guest posting on other sites may also help get your name and site out there. However, some sites are better suited for this than others. When assessing which blogs to guest for, check if their links are “follow” or “nofollow.” This may impact how much value the link has, though all links will help users get to your website, so also think of links as a branding and referral traffic tool as well.
You should also look at their DA and PA for target pages, how long their posts are, and who their audience is. If their goals aren’t similar to yours, guest posting may not be worth the time.
This aspect of growing your domain authority overlaps with your content marketing strategy. Most companies now have blogs or similar outlets on their websites—so, if you don’t, consider starting something like this.
The more content you create regularly, the more likely you are to rank.
FAQs
What is domain authority?
Domain authority is a metric created by Moz to determine how reputable and authoritative a domain is. It takes a lot of factors into account, including backlinks, traffic, and more.
Why is my domain authority so low?
A low domain authority can stem from a number of reasons. One possibility is that your site has not been around for very long, and therefore does not have as much history or as many links as more established websites. Another possibility is that your site’s content is not relevant to your target audience. If you are trying to rank for a keyword that has no relevance to your business, you may have difficulty achieving a high domain authority.
How long does it take to increase domain authority?
How long it will take to increase your domain authority depends on a number of factors, including the competitiveness of your industry, the quality of your website, and its content. However, if you put in the hard work, you could see significant improvements in your domain authority within six months to a year.
What is website authority?
Website authority is simply another name for domain authority, the metric Moz developed that predicts how well a website will rank in SERPs.
How to increase domain authority fast?
More backlinks and better traffic can help increase domain authority. It’s important to focus on being a great resource for users.
There are a few things you can do to increase your website’s domain authority quickly. First, make sure your website is well-optimized for search engines. Second, build high-quality backlinks from reputable websites. And finally, continue to produce great content that people will want to share.
How do I check my domain authority?
Go to Moz’s domain authority checker tool to determine the number of your current domain authority.
How often should I check my domain authority?
Usually, once a month is a good cadence to check your domain authority.
Conclusion
Domain authority may seem complicated at first. Many factors contribute to your ranking, and analyzing them all may seem daunting.
Nevertheless, once you get the hang of DA, it’s worth monitoring and optimizing for it.
Adding this to your SEO toolbox may allow you to have a more comprehensive understanding of your overall digital presence and website health.
Have you had success in improving your domain authority? Tell us in the comments.
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