WHAT IS A DOMAIN AUTHORITY RATING AND WHY DOES IT MATTER
If you’re someone who has been looking to improve your SEO ranking on your website, you’ve more than likely come across the term ‘Domain Authority Rating’. But what exactly is it, and why does it matter for your website?
In this article, I’ll break down everything you need to know about Domain Authority, covering what it is, why it’s important, how it's calculated, and actionable tips that you can use to help increase your Domain Authority over time.
What Is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine results pages (SERPs for short). It ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating a greater ability to rank well.
Domain Authority is not a metric used by Google, it’s a third-party SEO tool, but it's widely accepted in the digital marketing world as a benchmark for website authority and a strong metric for search potential.
Why is Domain Authority Important?
While Domain Authority itself doesn’t directly affect your search rankings, it correlates with your website's search engine performance. Sites with higher Domain Authority tend to:
- Rank higher in Google Search results
- Attract more organic traffic
- Appear more trustworthy to users and to search engines
- Get more backlink opportunity from reputable sources
Good marketers and SEO professionals often use Domain Authority to compare websites, assess competition, and measure SEO progress over time.
How is Domain Authority Calculated?
Moz calculates Domain Authority using several factors. These include:
- The number of linking root domains (Unique websites that are linking to yours)
- The quality of backlinks (Links from other high-authority websites)
- Content quality and relevance
- Site structure and user experience
- Spam score (How many links classified as spam point to your site)
It uses a machine learning model to predict how well your website will rank relative to others, which means your Domain Authority Rating score can fluctuate as the algorithm updates or as your competitors improve.
How Do You Get a Domain Authority Rating?
To get a Domain Authority Rating, you can check your rating right now by using free tools online. The best ones include:
- Moz’s Link Explorer
- Ahrefs (which uses its own ‘Domain Rating’ metric)
- SEMrush (which uses its own ‘Authority Score)
These tools can immediately scan your website and analyse your backlink profile (and other SEO factors) to assign a Domain Authority Rating or similar score.
How to Improve Your Domain Authority Rating?
If you’re looking to improve your Domain Authority to gain a higher score, it’s important to understand immediately that it doesn't just happen overnight. It takes time and gradual effort to develop just like anything else. But there are some proven strategies to boost your Domain Authority over time. You can:
Create high quality content
Publish relevant, well-researched and original content that provides real value to the world. Great content earns more backlinks, boosts SEO and drives engagement.
Build your backlinks
Get reputable websites to link to your content. Tap into your existing network of partners and satisfied clients or customers to propose collaborative projects or case studies for mutual backlinking.
Fix your technical SEO issues
Ensure that your website is as SEO friendly as it could possibly be. Make sure your site is easy to crawl, loads fast, is optimised for mobile devices and is free of any broken links or duplicate content.
Improve internal linking
Help search engines understand the internal structure of your website. Having a simple and strategic site map that’s easy to navigate will spread link equity across your domain.
Remove any toxic backlinks
Not all links are good links. You can use tools like Google’s Disavow to clean up any spammy or low-quality links that could be dragging down your Domain Authority score. Keeping an eye on these will benefit your rating positively.
Stay consistent
Your Domain Authority increases over time with sustained effort. Much like anything, if you keep at it, it will improve. A good way to work this into your SEO efforts is to focus on a tailored long-term SEO strategy with trusted partners to build authenticity instead of trying to take shortcuts.
Domain Authority is a Guide, Not a Goal
Domain Authority is a helpful benchmark for many professionals and site owners but it’s not an end-all metric that you should necessarily be obsessing over. Instead of chasing a perfect score, it’s more important to focus on building a strong SEO foundation with great content, authoritative backlinks, and a user-friendly, well designed, well performing website. If you improve those areas, your Domain Authority (and your search rankings) will rise naturally.
