Domain Authority
Quick Definition
Domain Authority (DA) is a score from 1 to 100, developed by Moz, that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine results. Higher scores mean stronger ranking potential.
What Is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority (DA) is a metric created by Moz that scores websites from 1 to 100 based on how likely they are to rank in Google search results. A brand-new site starts near 1. Wikipedia is close to 100. Most WordPress sites fall between 10 and 50, depending on their age, content quality, and backlink profile.
DA is calculated using a machine learning algorithm that analyzes over 40 factors, with the most important being:
- Linking root domains — How many unique websites link to yours (quality matters more than quantity)
- Total backlinks — The overall number of links pointing to your site
- Link quality — Links from high-DA sites carry more weight than links from low-DA sites
- Content and site structure — How well your site is organized and indexed
Two critical things to understand about DA:
- It is NOT a Google ranking factor. Google does not use Moz's Domain Authority in its algorithm. DA is a third-party prediction tool — useful for benchmarking, but not something Google looks at.
- It uses a logarithmic scale. Moving from DA 10 to DA 20 is relatively easy. Moving from DA 50 to DA 60 is much harder. Moving from DA 70 to DA 80 is extremely difficult. Each point gets exponentially harder to earn.
Other SEO tools have their own equivalent metrics: Ahrefs uses Domain Rating (DR), Semrush uses Authority Score, and Majestic uses Trust Flow. These are all different calculations — a site with DA 40 might have DR 55 or Authority Score 35. They are useful for relative comparisons, not absolute judgments.
Domain Authority in Practice
The most practical use of DA is competitive benchmarking. Instead of chasing a specific number, compare your DA to your closest competitors. If they are at DA 35 and you are at DA 20, you know you need more high-quality backlinks and content to compete for the same keywords.
For a new WordPress site, expect DA to stay in single digits for the first 3–6 months. It typically takes 12–18 months of consistent content creation and link building to reach DA 20–30. The fastest ways to improve DA:
- Earn backlinks from reputable sites — Guest posts, original research, free tools, and link-worthy content
- Create high-quality content — Content that answers real questions attracts natural links over time
- Fix technical SEO issues — Broken links, missing canonical tags, and crawl errors all hurt your perceived authority
- Remove toxic backlinks — Spammy links from link farms can drag your score down
You can check any site's DA for free using Moz Link Explorer or browser extensions like MozBar.
Why It Matters
Domain Authority gives you a quick, at-a-glance sense of how strong your site is compared to competitors. While it is not a Google metric, it correlates well with ranking ability because the factors that increase DA — quality backlinks, good content, solid technical SEO — are the same factors that Google actually rewards. Think of DA as a health indicator for your organic traffic potential.