Domain authority

Domain authority (DA) is a third-party score, popularized by Moz, that predicts how well a website is likely to rank in search results, based mainly on the size and quality of its backlink profile.

What is domain authority?

Domain authority is not a Google metric: Google has repeatedly said it does not use DA, or any similar third-party score, in its ranking algorithm. It is a proprietary metric built by Moz (similar metrics exist under different names from other tools, such as Ahrefs' Domain Rating) that models the relationship between backlinks and search rankings observed across millions of sites, then compresses that into a single score from 1 to 100. A higher score suggests a domain is more likely to rank well, all else being equal, but it is a prediction, not a Google-verified fact.

Moz recalculates domain authority periodically as its underlying link index and model are refreshed, which means a score can shift even when nothing changed on a site itself, simply because the model behind it improved or the competitive landscape it is measured against moved.

How domain authority is calculated

• The number and quality of unique referring domains linking to a site.
• The authority of those linking domains themselves, a link from a high-authority site counts more than one from a low-authority site.
• Link diversity, spread across many domains rather than concentrated in a few.
• Spam signals, since a profile full of low-quality or spammy links can lower the score despite a high link count.

The score is logarithmic, not linear:

Domain authority vs page authority vs Ahrefs Domain Rating

Best practices and common pitfalls

The most common mistake is treating domain authority as a goal in itself, chasing a higher number through low-quality link building, when the score is only a proxy metric, not what search engines actually reward. A domain can carry a modest DA and still outrank a higher-DA competitor on a specific query, because on-page relevance, content quality and matching user intent outweigh authority for that particular search. DA also varies between tools, since each vendor calculates it on a different dataset and formula, so comparing a DA number from one tool against a Domain Rating from another is comparing two different metrics.

Why domain authority still matters for netlinking

Even though it is not a ranking factor, domain authority remains a useful, comparative proxy: it helps prioritize which sites are worth pursuing for backlinks during netlinking, and which existing pages on a site carry enough authority to be worth linking from internally to lift a weaker page.

Domain authority at BeBranded

We track domain authority as one signal among several in the SEO & GEO work we run, using it to prioritize link-building targets rather than as a standalone success metric.