Domain Authority

Domain Authority (DA) is a score from 1 to 100 created by the SEO software company Moz to predict how likely a website is to rank in search results compared with other sites. Other tools have similar metrics: Domain Rating (DR) from Ahrefs, Authority Score (AS) from Semrush and Trust Flow and Citation Flow from Majestic.

Written by Paul Hoda, SEO consultant since 2005. Last updated 8 November 2026.

Domain Authority is not a Google metric

Google does not use Domain Authority or any of these third-party scores. Google has its own internal systems for judging the strength of pages and sites, including PageRank. DA and DR are estimates built by tool companies, mainly from their own databases of Backlinks. They are useful for comparison but should never be treated as a goal in themselves.

How these scores are calculated

Each tool uses its own formula, but most are based largely on:

  • The number of Referring Domains linking to the site.
  • The strength of those linking domains.
  • Sometimes traffic estimates, spam signals and other factors.

The scales are logarithmic: moving from DA 20 to 30 is much easier than moving from 70 to 80.

What domain authority scores are useful for

  • Comparing competitors: understanding whether sites ranking above you have far stronger link profiles.
  • Assessing link prospects: a quick, rough filter when deciding which sites to approach for links.
  • Tracking progress: watching your own score rise as you earn quality links.
  • Estimating Keyword Difficulty: seeing how strong the sites on page one are.

What they cannot tell you

  • Relevance: a high-DA site in an unrelated niche may be less valuable than a modest site in your industry.
  • Page-level strength: an individual page can rank well even on a lower-authority domain if it is highly relevant and well linked.
  • Topical authority: depth of expertise in a subject is not reflected in link-based scores.
  • Quality and trust: scores can be inflated by spammy links and manipulated.
  • Local ranking strength, which depends on proximity, reviews and your Google Business Profile.

How to improve domain authority

Because these scores reflect your backlink profile, the way to improve them is the same as the way to improve real rankings:

  1. Earn links from more relevant, trusted Referring Domains.
  2. Create linkable content and run Digital PR campaigns.
  3. Build relationships with industry publications and partners.
  4. Reclaim lost and unlinked mentions.
  5. Use strong Internal Linking so the authority reaches important pages.

Avoid shortcuts that inflate scores without improving real authority, such as buying links from high-DA sites with no relevance. These can harm actual rankings.

A healthy way to use DA and DR

Treat these metrics like a thermometer, not a target. They indicate the general strength of a link profile. Rankings, organic traffic and leads remain the measures that actually matter for your business. When choosing link opportunities, look at relevance, real traffic and editorial quality first, and the score second.

Key Takeaways

  • Domain Authority and similar scores are third-party estimates, not Google metrics.
  • They mainly reflect backlink profiles.
  • Use them to compare sites, not as goals.
  • Relevance and real traffic matter more when judging link prospects.
  • Improve them by earning genuine, relevant links.

Related Terms

Not sure how your own site measures up? Request a free SEO review, or keep learning in the SEO Encyclopedia.