Measuring Your SEO Power
When tracking the success of an SEO campaign, business owners often encounter metrics like "Domain Authority" (DA) or "Domain Rating" (DR). While these numbers are widely used in the industry, they are frequently misunderstood.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by the SEO software company Moz. It predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). The score ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank.
Other software companies have similar metrics, such as Ahrefs' "Domain Rating" (DR) or SEMrush's "Authority Score". They all attempt to measure the same thing: the overall strength and trust of your website's backlink profile.
Is Domain Authority a Google Metric?
No. This is the most important thing to understand. Google does not use Moz's Domain Authority or Ahrefs' Domain Rating in its algorithm. Google has its own internal metrics for measuring authority (historically called PageRank), which they keep strictly secret.
DA and DR are simply third-party estimates. They are highly educated guesses based on the volume and quality of backlinks pointing to your site.
How to Use Domain Authority Correctly
Because DA is not a Google metric, you should never obsess over increasing your score just for the sake of the score. You can have a lower DA than a competitor but still outrank them on Google if your On-Page content is significantly better.
The correct way to use DA is as a comparative tool. If you are a plumber in Auckland, and the top three ranking plumbers have DA scores of 15, 18, and 22, you know that if you can build your website's DA to 25 through strategic link building, you have a very strong chance of dominating the market.
How to Improve Your Authority
Because these metrics are based entirely on links, the only way to improve your Domain Authority is through Off-Page SEO. You must earn high-quality backlinks from other reputable, relevant websites.
At Arise SEO, our Technical SEO and link-building strategies focus on what actually matters: increasing your real-world Google rankings and driving revenue, rather than chasing arbitrary third-party scores.