Domain Authority is a score from 1 to 100, developed by Moz, that predicts how likely a website is to rank on search results pages compared with competitors. It is a third-party metric, not a Google signal. This page defines the score, explains how it is calculated, compares it with Domain Rating and Authority Score, and lists what moves it.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority is a score from 1 to 100, developed by Moz, that predicts how likely a website is to rank on search results pages compared with competitors. A higher score indicates a stronger link profile relative to other sites.
The score belongs to Moz, a software company, and appears in Moz’s Link Explorer and in browser toolbars. It describes a whole domain, with a matching Page Authority score for single pages. Practitioners use it to compare sites: to qualify a guest post host, to benchmark against a competitor, or to describe a link’s quality in a report. Moz calls the score a comparative metric. A DA of 40 means little alone; against competitors at 25 it means a lot.
How is Domain Authority calculated?
Moz calculates DA with a machine learning model that focuses mainly on backlink data, including the number of linking root domains and the quality of those links. The scale is not linear, so growing from 20 to 30 is easier than growing from 70 to 80.
Moz introduced Domain Authority 2.0 in 2019. Moving from 20 to 30 is easier than moving from 70 to 80. DA can change without any change to your site, because shifts in other sites’ scores move the relative scale and because Moz updates its algorithm.
Is Domain Authority a Google ranking factor?
No, Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor. Moz states that Domain Authority is not a direct ranking factor in Google’s algorithms; it is a comparative score built from Moz’s own link index and predicts nothing Google has confirmed.
Google has stated repeatedly that it does not use third-party authority scores. Domain Authority correlates with link-profile strength because both reflect how many trusted sites link to a domain, but the score itself never enters Google’s systems. The practical consequence: raise the underlying links and the score follows; chasing the score without the links produces nothing Google reads.
What is a good Domain Authority score?
A good Domain Authority score is one above the competitors you compete against for the same queries. Absolute numbers carry less meaning than the gap, because the score is relative and every vendor’s scale differs from the others.
| DA band | Typical profile |
|---|---|
| 1 to 20 | New sites and small local sites with few referring domains |
| 21 to 40 | Established small-business and niche blogs |
| 41 to 60 | Strong niche publishers and regional brands |
| 61 and above | Major publishers and national brands |
The bands above are our working heuristic for sorting hosts, not a Moz or Google threshold. Because guest post sellers price by DA band, the guide to link pricing benchmarks shows what each band costs per placement.
How does Domain Authority differ from Domain Rating and Authority Score?
Domain Authority, Domain Rating and Authority Score are three separate metrics from three vendors, each built on that vendor’s own link index and formula. Scores do not convert between them, so compare sites only within one vendor’s metric.
| Metric | Vendor | Scale | Based on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain Authority (DA) | Moz | 1 to 100 | Machine learning model, backlink-focused |
| Domain Rating (DR) | Ahrefs | 0 to 100 | Backlink strength of a domain, with link value shared across the domains each site links to |
| Authority Score | Semrush | 0 to 100 | Link Power, Organic Traffic and Natural Profile (spam checks) |
The same site scores differently on each. Pick one metric per workflow and compare only within it.
How do you check Domain Authority?
Check Domain Authority by entering a domain into Moz’s Link Explorer, which reports the score and the referring domains behind it. Free accounts allow a limited number of lookups each month, so batch your domains into one session.
Checking one site takes seconds. Checking a list of prospects does not, and the bulk DA/DR checker returns Domain Authority and Domain Rating for many domains in one run, which suits host qualification during outreach.
How do you increase Domain Authority?
Increase Domain Authority by earning backlinks from more unique, higher-authority domains and by removing links that pass no value. No on-page change affects the score. Only the link profile feeds it, so the work is acquiring links.
The work is link acquisition. The guide on raising the score sets out the full sequence. Backlink Agency’s DA increase service builds links toward that goal and reports each placement; no service controls Moz’s calculation, and none guarantees a specific score. Different source types widen the profile: YouTube Video SEO Backlinks add links from a platform with a very high authority score, and YouTube applies a nofollow attribute to description links by default, so the value is referring-domain breadth and referral traffic.
Related: gap-based link replication, blogger outreach with approved prospects, link packages by authority tier, how spam score is read, and what Domain Rating adds.