Domain Authority
Score between 0 and 100 developed by tool vendor Moz that estimates how strong a domain is likely to rank in search engines.
Also known as: DA, Domain Strength
Domain Authority is a metric from the vendor Moz that estimates how likely a domain is to rank well in search engines. The score ranges from 0 to 100, with higher values standing for stronger domains. Other vendors like Ahrefs and Semrush maintain similar in-house metrics with different calculations.
How Domain Authority is calculated
Moz considers many signals, including the number and quality of linking domains, the link profile, topical relevance and historic behaviour in search results. The score is relative, meaning a jump from 30 to 40 is much easier than one from 70 to 80. It is a third-party estimate, not a metric from Google itself.
What Domain Authority is good for and not
Domain Authority works well to compare domains against each other, for example for link-building decisions or competitive analyses. It is neither a direct ranking factor nor a guarantee of strong positions. Anyone who optimises the metric in isolation tends to lose sight of content, user experience and topical depth, which matter much more in practice.
In day to day SEO work
In the daily routine, Domain Authority helps as a filter to separate strong from weak link sources quickly. More important than the absolute number is the trend over time and the comparison with direct competitors in the same sector. Cleanly structured content, technical maintenance of the site and organically grown links from a fitting environment deliver more effect in the long run than chasing a high score in isolation.