Domain Authority is a term that's frequently repeated in the world of SEO. If you're a website owner or SEO specialist, you've likely come across it a lot, whether in foreign articles or popular SEO tools. But do you really know what it is?
If your answer is no, then you're in the right place. In this article, I'll provide you with everything you need to know about domain authority and how you can best use it to achieve your online goals, such as outperforming your competitors and increasing traffic to your website or your clients' websites.
All you have to do now is prepare your cup of coffee, grab a pen and paper, and start reading the article.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority (Domain Authority) is a general term in SEO that refers to the strength of your website's domain and its superiority over competing domains. It's an indicator that attempts to predict your website's ability to rank highly in search results.
It rates your site on a scale of 1 to 100 based on several factors, such as the quality of your backlinks, the total number of sites linking to your domain, and dozens of other factors.
Now I need your attention:
As I mentioned, domain authority is a general term in SEO, but SEO companies and tools have begun to design tools that measure it to make it easier for website owners to identify the quality of their sites and compare their performance to that of competitors.
The most famous of these is the Domain Authority (DA) from MOZ, which is the first and most popular metric on the internet.
But it's not the only one. There are also:
And many other tools designed for the same purpose, which are very similar to each other, but differ in very small details in this measurement process.
In this article, we'll focus much more on the MOZ tool because it's the most popular, but almost everything we'll say about it applies to the other tools.
What is the Score of Good Domain Authority for Websites?
As we mentioned, if you try to find out your website's domain authority—for example, using MOZ's Domain Analysis tool—the tool will give you a score from 1 to 100.
You'll probably wonder: What does this number mean? Is this a good score? Does this mean my website is performing poorly? The answer to these questions is simple: It depends.
Yes, it depends on your website's domain and your competitors' domain authority. For example, if your website scores 35 while your competitors score less than 30, then your score is good and your website is performing amazingly.
However, if your score is lower than your competitors', it means they are outperforming you, and you need to improve your website's SEO to beat them.
Domain Authority scores alone mean nothing. Even MOZ itself says that domain authority is more of a comparison tool than a benchmark.
The algorithm compares websites to each other, and the domain authority score alone means nothing unless it's compared to the scores of other websites.
To further understand this idea, look at the websites with the highest domain authority scores. You'll find that Google, Blogger, and YouTube, for example, have a score of 100, while LinkedIn has a score of 99, and so on.
Does this mean you should also reach a score of 100 or above 90, for example?
Of course not. You will most likely never reach this number, no matter how hard you try, and perhaps 99.9% of websites cannot reach more than 80.
Because the AI algorithm that measures DA takes into account the number and quality of backlinks to websites, large websites with millions of backlinks will be at the top of the list.
Therefore, you should not focus on competing with and surpassing them, but rather on surpassing your competitors in your field and getting more traffic from them.
Why is Domain Authority Important?
Domain authority is important for every website owner and SEO specialist. It will help you:
- Understand your website's performance by comparing it to your competitors.
- Analyze your competitors and find out why they're achieving better results and traffic than you.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of your SEO strategy and campaigns in improving your website's performance.
- Evaluate domains before purchasing them.
- Choose which websites you want to build links with.
This metric is variable, not static. For example, if you do something positive for your website's SEO, you'll find your rating increases, while if you do something that harms your website's SEO, your rating decreases.
But there's one important thing I want to draw your attention to:
Sometimes you'll find your domain authority score decreases even though you didn't do anything that harmed your website's SEO. How is that possible?
Domain Authority algorithms measure and compare all websites on the internet to each other, ranking them on a scale of 1 to 100. This means that if many websites improve significantly and their performance becomes higher than usual, the rest of the websites and domains will see their scores drop, even if their performance remains consistent and of the same quality.
How Can I Increase My Website's Domain Authority?
To summarize: Domain Authority = your website's SEO performance, so if you want to improve it, you'll need to improve your website's overall SEO.
You'll simply need to:
- Get high-quality backlinks from trusted sites.
- Get rid of bad backlinks that harm your website (we'll discuss this in detail in a future article).
- Improve and update your website's content regularly.
- Pay attention to your on-page SEO.
- Analyze your competitors and identify their strengths and weaknesses to outperform them.
But before I move on, there's one important thing we need to talk about:
Domain Authority is a logarithmic metric, not a linear one. Simply put—and without further ado—a Domain Authority of 60 is not just double that of 30, but is actually many times that.
That is, the effort required to raise your domain authority from 55 to 56 may be much greater than raising it from 20 to 30.
So, if you've improved your SEO, but the increase in domain authority is small, don't think there's anything wrong. This is normal for websites that are already good and receive a lot of traffic.
Because if you want to raise your score, you'll have to compete with major sites like Google, Facebook, YouTube, The New York Times, and others.
Frequently Asked Questions About Domain Authority
1. What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority is a metric used by many major SEO tools to assess the overall health of your site and predict whether it will outperform other sites in search results.
Although Google doesn't recognize it as a ranking factor, it relies on several proven factors, such as high-quality backlinks, the number of backlinks, and more.
Therefore, it can provide you with a statement or explanation of the overall status of your website compared to other competing websites in the same niche.
2. Is domain authority important?
Yes, absolutely. Domain authority helps you:
Understand how your website is performing compared to other competing websites.
Analyze competing websites and identify their strengths and weaknesses.
Monitor the results of your SEO efforts.
Evaluate different websites to build links with them.
All this, in addition to dozens of other important things that will help you as a website owner or SEO specialist.
3. How do you know your website's Domain Authority?
There are several tools that will help you determine your domain authority score, the most popular of which are:
- MOZ Domain Analyzer.
- Ahrefs Website Authority Analyzer.
- SEMRush Domain Analyzer.
4. Why is my Domain Authority constantly changing?
One of the things that worries many website owners and SEO professionals is that their DA score changes for the worse, even though they haven't done anything wrong that has harmed their website's SEO.
The answer here is that various domain authority algorithms periodically analyze websites on the internet, so with the significant improvement of thousands of websites on the internet, your website's score may drop slightly.
However, this is usually not a cause for concern unless your score drops below the scores of competitors you were outperforming. This means they are optimizing their website more effectively and more efficiently than you.
5. How do I increase my website's Domain Authority?
The short answer: You need to improve your website's SEO, which means you need to:
- Update old content on your website.
- Add high-quality content.
- Get high-quality backlinks.
- Improve on-page SEO and off-page SEO.
And other things you can learn more about through the free SEO course we've published on our website.
6. What's the difference between Domain Authority and Page Authority?
Domain Authority is a measure of the strength of your domain (your website) as a whole, and attempts to predict whether it will rank highly in search engine results.
While Page Authority is a measure that focuses on the strength of the page itself (the page itself, not the entire website), and attempts to predict its ability to rank highly in search engine results for your targeted keyword.
Conclusion
Although Domain Authority isn't a proven ranking factor on Google, it's a very important indicator that helps you determine whether your website will rank highly in search results and outperform your competitors.
Therefore, you should understand it well, monitor it constantly, and work to improve it over time... whether your competitors are outperforming you or even if you're ahead of them.
In this article, I've gathered everything you need to know about domain authority, its importance, how to use it, and how to optimize your website to rank highly and outperform your competitors.
I hope you enjoyed the article, and if you have any questions or comments, please ask them in the comments below and I will answer them immediately.