What Is Domain Authority and How Can You Improve It?
Domain Authority is one of the most talked about metrics in SEO and also one of the most misunderstood. Many site owners treat it as if it were a direct Google ranking factor. It is not. Domain Authority is a useful comparative score created by a tool vendor, not a number that exists inside Google.
Used correctly, it can help you judge relative site strength, understand the competitiveness of a niche, and track the impact of real SEO work over time. Used badly, it becomes a distraction that leads to link schemes and vanity reporting.
This article explains what Domain Authority actually is, what it is not, and what you should do if you want to move it in the right direction while also improving real search performance.
What Domain Authority Really Is
Domain Authority, often shortened to DA, is a score developed by Moz. It predicts how likely a domain is to rank in search results compared to other domains. The score runs from one to one hundred, with higher numbers indicating stronger ranking potential.
Moz calculates this score using signals from its own index, with a heavy emphasis on backlinks. The exact formula is not public, but common explanations and independent analysis agree that it looks at factors such as:
Number of unique domains linking to your site.
Overall volume of backlinks.
Quality and relevance of linking domains.
Elements of link profile health such as spam signals.
Other tools provide similar authority metrics. Examples include Domain Rating from Ahrefs and Authority Score from Semrush. These are not the same as Moz Domain Authority, but they share the same basic goal, which is to estimate the relative strength of a domain based on link data and sometimes traffic.
What Domain Authority Is Not
The most important point is simple. Google does not use Domain Authority as a ranking factor.
Google representatives, including John Mueller, have repeatedly stated that Google does not have a Domain Authority score and does not use DA or similar third party metrics in its algorithms. Moz itself is clear that DA is a predictive score, not a signal that flows into Google.
There are two key implications.
A higher DA does not cause better rankings. It reflects underlying signals that often also help rankings, such as strong links and good content.
Chasing a specific DA number, without improving anything substantive on the site, will not move you forward in search.
Correlation does not equal causation here. Studies that show higher DA domains often rank better are really showing that domains with strong link profiles and good SEO tend to perform better, which is not a surprise.
How To Use Domain Authority The Right Way
Because DA is not a ranking factor, you should treat it as a directional metric, not as a target in itself. Used sensibly, it is helpful in at least three areas.
Competitive analysis. You can compare your domain score to those of competitors to get a rough idea of relative link strength and investment.
Link prospecting. When evaluating potential sites for outreach or digital PR, authority metrics can help you prioritise likely higher value domains.
Reporting. Watching DA move gradually in the right direction, across many months, can complement hard performance metrics such as traffic and conversions.
The mistake is to optimise for the score directly. Your real goals are rankings, qualified traffic, leads, and revenue. DA is simply one way to monitor whether your overall authority is trending in a healthier direction.
What Actually Influences Domain Authority
Because Domain Authority is built on real signals, improving those signals tends to move DA and real search performance together.
Common factors include:
Diversity and quality of linking domains, not just raw link count.
Strength of the overall link profile relative to other domains in your space.
Technical health and crawlability, which make it easier for search engines and link data providers to see your pages.
Consistent publication of content that earns links organically over time.
These are the same ingredients you would expect in a solid SEO strategy even if DA did not exist.
How To Improve Your Domain Authority In A Way That Actually Matters
If you want to see your Domain Authority rise, and at the same time improve rankings and traffic, focus on the fundamentals below.
Publish content that earns links naturally
Authority metrics are strongly influenced by backlinks, so you need assets that people genuinely want to reference.
Practical approaches include:
In depth guides that answer specific questions in your industry.
Data based content such as surveys, studies, or original analysis.
Practical resources such as templates, checklists, or calculators.
High value content earns links over time without constant manual outreach, which slowly increases both real authority and your DA style metrics.
Earn high quality backlinks the right way
Not all links are equal. A single link from a respected, relevant site can be worth more than many low quality links.
Proven methods include:
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Digital PR and thought leadership contributions to industry publications.
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Partnerships with associations, suppliers, or customers that involve genuine collaboration.
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Outreach that offers something useful to the other site, not just a request for a link.
Avoid obvious link schemes, automated directory blasts, and low quality guest posting at scale. Those can damage your trust profile and, in some cases, may even lead to manual action from search engines.
Improve internal linking and site structure
Domain Authority is a domain level number, but the internal distribution of real authority depends on how you link your own pages.
You should:
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Make sure important pages are easy to reach from the home page and key navigation areas.
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Use descriptive anchor text that reflects the topic of the destination page.
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Build topic clusters where pillar pages link to supporting articles and those articles link back.
This structure helps both users and search engines understand your content and can indirectly support stronger performance, which is often mirrored in DA improvements.
Strengthen technical SEO and user experience
Most modern authority guides include technical SEO in their list of levers to grow authority type metrics, because technical weakness can limit crawl coverage and dilute the value of the links you already have.
Focus on:
Crawlability and index health, including sitemaps and error free internal links.
Performance, especially Core Web Vitals, so pages load quickly and remain stable.
Mobile usability, since mobile first indexing means your mobile experience is effectively your primary site in the eyes of search engines.
Better technical health does not raise DA on its own overnight, but it allows your growing link and content signals to be fully visible.
Clean up harmful or irrelevant backlinks
Many tools and guides now point out that obviously toxic or irrelevant links can drag down perceived authority and trust.
You do not need to obsess over every weak link, but you should:
Audit your backlink profile periodically using at least one major tool.
Identify clearly spam like links that have no logical connection to your site.
Use disavow tools carefully if you believe those links pose real risk and cannot be removed.
Cleaning up blatant spam can stabilise your profile and sometimes coincides with improvements in both performance and authority scores.
Common Mistakes With Domain Authority
Many site owners lose time and money by misunderstanding what DA is for. Frequent mistakes include:
Treating DA as a direct ranking factor and focusing on the score rather than on real performance.
Buying links only because the seller promises a certain DA, regardless of relevance or quality.
Ignoring good opportunities on lower DA sites that have real audiences and strong topical fit.
Reporting success as a small DA increase without tying it to traffic, leads, or revenue.
The cure is simple. Use Domain Authority as a comparative and diagnostic metric, not as your goal.
How Long Does It Take To Improve Domain Authority
Authority scores update as tool providers crawl and recalculate their indexes. They tend to move slowly because they are comparative. When many sites around you are also improving, your score may hold steady even while your absolute performance gets better.
Recent guidance from multiple sources is consistent. Growing authority is a medium to long term project. Realistic expectations are measured in months and years, not days.
If you build better content, earn stronger links, improve technical SEO, and avoid shortcuts, Domain Authority usually follows over time. If you focus only on the metric, you are likely to chase tactics that do not stand up to scrutiny.
Domain Authority is a useful modelling metric created by Moz. It predicts how strong a domain is in search compared to others, based mainly on link data. It is not a Google ranking factor and should not be treated as one.
You improve DA in the same way you improve real authority:
Publish material that people actually want to link to.
Earn high quality, relevant backlinks.
Maintain a clear, well linked site structure.
Fix technical issues that prevent search engines from seeing and valuing your content.
Keep your link profile as clean as is reasonable.
If you treat Domain Authority as a directional indicator while you focus on genuine SEO fundamentals, it becomes a helpful part of your toolkit. If you chase the number for its own sake, it turns into a distraction. The difference comes from where you put your effort.