Domain Authority
Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking prediction metric developed by SEO software company Moz. It scores a website from 1 to 100, indicating how likely it is to rank highly on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking prediction metric developed by SEO software company Moz. It scores a website from 1 to 100, indicating how likely it is to rank highly on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Why It Matters
DA serves as a benchmark for quickly assessing a website's overall SEO competitiveness. For example, when two pages target the same keyword, content from a site with DA 70 empirically tends to rank higher than content from a site with DA 25. DA is also widely used in practice to evaluate potential backlink acquisition targets and to monitor the growth trajectory of your domain compared to competitors.
What DA Scores Mean
Moz calculates DA by feeding approximately 40 factors — including the number of linking root domains, total link count, and link quality — from its Link Explorer web index data into a machine learning model. A critical point to understand is that DA operates on a logarithmic scale. This means raising DA from 20 to 30 is significantly easier than raising it from 70 to 80. In general terms, a DA of 40–50 is considered average, 50–60 is good, and 60 or above is excellent. For reference, mega-sites like google.com and youtube.com score above DA 90.
DA is also a relative metric. Even if your site's backlink count stays the same, your DA can drop if competing sites acquire more links.
How to Improve DA
- Acquire High-Quality Backlinks: Earning natural backlinks from trusted domains (news outlets, academic institutions, authoritative industry blogs, etc.) is the most effective approach. Guest posting and publishing data-driven research content are common methods.
- Optimize Internal Link Structure: Systematically linking related content across your site improves crawling efficiency and distributes link value throughout the entire site.
- Remove Toxic Links: Use Moz Link Explorer or Google Search Console to identify spammy or low-quality backlinks, then disavow them through the Google Disavow Tool.
- Strengthen Content Quality: Consistently publishing in-depth guides, up-to-date statistics, and original research that is worth citing increases natural backlink acquisition.
- Improve Technical SEO: Address foundational technical SEO factors such as site loading speed optimization, mobile-friendliness, and correct canonical tag implementation.
Important Notes
DA is not an official Google ranking factor. Google does not use DA directly in its ranking decisions — it is merely a predictive score developed independently by Moz. Therefore, rather than making it a goal to raise the DA score itself, focus on improving the underlying factors that DA measures: quality backlinks, excellent content, and technical optimization.
Services that artificially inflate DA (PBNs, mass low-quality link purchases, etc.) do exist, but these violate Google's guidelines and can result in search ranking penalties. They should be avoided entirely.
Finally, DA is a metric unique to Moz. Similar metrics exist — Ahrefs' Domain Rating (DR) and SEMrush's Authority Score, for example — but each uses a different calculation methodology. Directly comparing scores from different tools is not appropriate. It is recommended to choose one tool and track consistently over time.
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How inblog Helps
inblog supports subdirectory-based blog hosting (/blog), allowing your blog to inherit the main domain's DA.