Understanding Domain Authority (DA) And Why It Won’t Influence Your Rankings

Want to understand what Domain Authority (DA) is all about? You’re in the right place.

In this post, I’ll explain what DA is, the problem with focusing on increasing DA for your own website, the true value of this metric, and more.

Let’s get into it.

What is domain authority?

Domain Authority (DA) is a third-party metric created by Moz.

It uses machine learning algorithms to estimate a website’s ability to rank in Google Search. It isn’t a ranking factor.

It scores sites on a scale of 0-100 and scores are heavily influenced by sites with the highest scores. When large sites get a lot more links, it pushes down the scores of smaller sites.

I like how Moz explains this; DA is a comparative metric, not an absolute one.

A quick bit of history:

Moz developed this metric originally a long time ago and it was revamped entirely with version 2 in 2019.

Originally, Google had its own public PageRank checker which helped people to understand their domain’s authority. But Google shut off public access in 2016.

That led Moz’s DA metric to quickly become one of the defacto metrics in the SEO space.

Just remember that this metric was not developed by Google and your DA score will not influence how your website ranks in Google Search. Not one bit.

That leads me onto…

Why you shouldn’t focus on increasing your DA

Here’s the deal:

Moz’s DA metric can be helpful when used in the right context. But it should never be used to inform important decisions.

The main reason for this is that correlation doesn’t equal causation.

You may see websites with high DA but that doesn’t mean they’ll rank high. It’s an estimation. A likelihood that they’ll rank. Nothing more.

Trying to increase your DA is a waste of time in most cases.

However, your site’s DA will naturally increase as you do other things to improve your SEO and grow your brand’s presence in Google Search.

What should you focus on instead?

Winning at SEO isn’t about increasing your DA—it’s about focusing on tactics, strategies, and tasks that will move the needle for your brand.

That means—more traffic, better rankings, and more customers.

So, what should you be doing with your time?

1. Do what established brands do

Chances are that you’ve heard the term EEAT thrown around a lot. It stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

This is what Google wants to be able to rank sites based on and it makes sense why they’d want that.

That isn’t to say that it’s a ranking factor though. Because it just isn’t.

But it’s an approach that I think all brands should strive for because the benefits go far beyond Google.

And that’s exactly how you need to approach SEO and marketing in general. You’ve got to do the things that’ll help you rank, sure. But you also need to do the things that would make sense if Google didn’t exist.

You can’t just approach SEO like it exists in a vacuum or like it’s the only thing you need to do.

That’s how we reduce reliance on Google and build redundancies into our marketing strategy.

Besides, SEO is more than just Google anyway. Especially considering that YouTube is one of the most used search platforms. And more young people are starting to use TikTok to search for information.

And if you do enough of what established brands do, your brand will eventually reach that point.

Although there is one caveat when it comes to SEO specifically though. Google treats sites of different sizes differently. You cannot do what Forbes can do because you don’t have over 1.5 million referring domains and you won’t have the same reach they do.

What that means for the rest of us is that we will typically have to stay in our lane and not cover every topic under the sun. But that strategy makes the most sense generally anyway because it will allow you to become a staple in your industry. And that’s what most brands need.

2. Publish people-first content

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Google’s priority is to deliver the best possible results for users. That time ended when Ben Gomes was deposed.

But generally speaking, the best content is that which is written for users first and algorithms second. Generic cookie-cutter content or AI slop can only get you so far.

So, focus on understanding user intent and offer more value than your competitors. You’ll need to cover the obvious stuff that competitors are covering in their articles but always add your own “secret sauce” to give your content the edge.

In hyper competitive industries, this will get more difficult. Especially when everyone is at the top of their game.

3. Leverage in-house expertise (or hire)

Let’s get real for a second.

Generative AI is being abused for content creation right now and that’s set to continue. But it cannot create expert-level content.

I could have written this article with AI. But you deserved better than a generic cookie cutter article covering the basics of Moz’s Domain Authority metric.

So, that’s why I’m sitting here doing this properly.

And that’s what you need to gain a competitive edge. Expert-level content written by people that understand the topic.

By all means, use AI to speed up your workflow where possible. But it’s important to understand its limitations and how abusing AI isn’t going to win you any points with your audience.

All it does is predict the next word in a sentence. There’s no real intelligence or understanding behind it.

So, if you’ve got in-house experts, get them involved in your content creation process.

And if not – the web is full of content creators that can deliver expert-level insights.

4. Continuously update and improve your content

It isn’t enough to hit publish and hope that your content ranks.

You need to promote it, sure, but you also need to maintain that content over time.

So, revisit your content every 3-6 months and do what you can to improve it.

If your content is performing well, you likely won’t need to make any changes. Just do the basics like ensuring factual changes are taken care of. This is because any changes can affect your rankings.

If your content isn’t performing well, you’ll need to make more significant changes. This could include general updates, or an entire rewrite.

For example, I often rewrite articles entirely when they look dated enough.

And as part of that process I will re-optimize it for search.

You can easily do this with a tool like Frase.

The true value of Moz’s Domain Authority

Now that you’ve got an idea of what you should be focusing on rather than improving your DA, let’s take a quick look at the best ways to use this metric.

Some of its most practical uses include:

• Benchmarking against competitors: DA can be used as a relative metric to compare your site to competitors. If your DA is lower, it may indicate that your site has fewer quality backlinks or that competitors have a stronger overall link profile. Either way, you’ll know how you’re doing. If you’re falling behind, you’ll need to look at specific strategies you can use to gain a competitive edge.
• Evaluating link opportunities: This is my favorite way to use DA and similar metrics. Think of it like a barometer to gauge the potential value of a backlink from another site. I used the word potential because there is no guarantee. I would also recommend incorporating traffic estimation metrics into your evaluations. This approach is useful because the web is full of link opportunities but you can only go after so many link targets.

Just remember that DA is a relative metric. It’s not an absolute indicator of ranking potential.

Final thoughts

Now you know exactly what Domain Authority (DA) is, how to use it, and how to spend your time instead of chasing this specific metric.

Remember, that this metric is not created by Google and will not influence your rankings.

If you truly want your website rank higher in search, focus your time on SEO tactics that will actually move the needle.

Your DA will likely improve as a byproduct.

But don’t forget that SEO doesn’t exist in a vacuum and Google isn’t the only search engine. It should be part of a cohesive marketing strategy that covers multiple channels.