What is Domain Authority (DA)
You've heard of Domain Authority, but you don't understand what it is and why you need it? DA is an assessment of the authority of your website on a scale from 0 to 100. The higher the DA, the easier it is to rank on Google. In this article, I will explain in simple language what DA is, how to check your site's score, and 10 real ways to increase Domain Authority.
⚡ Briefly
- ✅ DA (Domain Authority) is a score from Moz: scale 0-100, shows the "authority" of the site (not from Google!)
- ✅ The main factor of DA: the number and quality of backlinks (links to your site from other resources)
- ✅ DA 20-40 = normal, 40-60 = good, 60 = excellent (for most sites)
- 🎯 Increase DA: get high-quality backlinks, create content, fix technical errors
- 👇 Read more below - step-by-step instructions with specific actions
Article content:
- 📌 What is Domain Authority in simple terms
- 📌 How is Domain Authority calculated
- 📌 How to check your website's DA
- 📌 What DA is considered good
- 📌 How to increase Domain Authority: 10 Ways
- 📌 Does DA affect Google rankings
- 💼 My experience of increasing DA
- ❓ Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
- ✅ Conclusions
⸻
📊 What is Domain Authority in simple terms
Domain Authority (DA) is a metric created by Moz to assess the "authority" of a website. The scale is from 0 to 100: the higher the number, the stronger the site.
A simple analogy: DA = site credit score
Imagine a person's credit score. The higher it is, the more banks trust you and the easier it is to get a loan.
It's the same with websites:
- 🏦 DA 10: new website, zero trust - like a person with no credit history
- 🏦 DA 30-40: stable website - like a person with a good payment history
- 🏦 DA 70 : an authoritative site - like a millionaire with an impeccable reputation
Google does not use DA directly, but sites with high DA are more likely to be in the top. Why? Because the factors that increase DA (backlinks, content) are also factors in Google's rankings.
⚠️ Important: Domain Authority is a metric from Moz, NOT from Google! Google has its own internal algorithms for evaluating authority, but does not disclose them. DA is an approximate estimate that correlates with positions.
📖 Recommended reading:
Ranking: what is it in simple words and examples
What really happens when Google decides which page to show first? Find out how ranking algorithms work, what factors influence your position in the SERPs, and how to use it for SEO promotion.
Examples of Domain Authority
- 📈 Facebook - DA 96
- 📈 Wikipedia - DA 93
- 📈 BBC - DA 95
- 📈 Medium Blog - DA 20-40
- 📈 New site (0-6 months) - DA 1-10
✅ Quick conclusion: DA shows the "strength" of your site. The higher the DA, the easier it is to compete for complex keywords and rank in the top of Google.
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🔢 How Domain Authority is calculated
Moz does not disclose the exact formula, but the main factors are known.
The main factors of Domain Authority
1. Backlinks (the most important factor - 70-80% of influence)
- 🔗 Number of backlinks: how many sites link to you
- 🔗 Quality of backlinks: 1 link from Forbes (DA 95) > 100 links from unknown blogs (DA 15)
- 🔗 Diversity of domains: 50 links from 50 different sites > 200 links from 1 site
2. Domain age (10-15% of influence)
- 📅 Domain 10 years old = more trust
- 📅 New domain (0-1 year) = low DA
3. Content quality (10-15% of influence)
- 📝 Unique, useful content
- 📝 Regular updates
- 📝 Long articles (1500 words)
4. Technical SEO (5-10% of influence)
- ⚙️ Loading speed
- ⚙️ Mobile version
- ⚙️ HTTPS (SSLcertificate)
- ⚙️ No 404 errors
Logarithmic DA scale
It is important to understand: It is much easier to raise DA from 20 to 30 than from 70 to 80.
👉 Example:
- DA 20 → 30: ~50 quality backlinks are required (3-6 months)
- DA 50 → 60: ~300 backlinks are required (12-18 months)
- DA 70 → 80: ~1000 backlinks are required (2-3 years)
✅ Quick conclusion: DA depends mainly on backlinks. 1 quality backlink from an authoritative site gives more than 100 from unknown sources.
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🔍 How to check your site's DA
There are several free ways to check Domain Authority.
Method 1: MozBar (Chrome extension)
What it is: a free extension from Moz for the Chrome browser.
How to use:
- Install MozBar from the Chrome Web Store
- Sign up for Moz.com (free)
- Open any website - see DA/PA right below the address bar
Limitations: the free version shows DA, but detailed analytics is paid ($99/month).
Method 2: Moz.com
How to use:
- Open moz.com/domain-analysis
- Enter your website URL
- Get DA for free
Limitations: 10 checks per month for free.
Method 3: Alternatives (Ahrefs, Semrush)
If you have access to paid tools:
- 🔧 Ahrefs: shows DR (Domain Rating) - similar to DA, but more accurate
- 🔧 Semrush: shows Authority Score (AS)
⚡ Tip: use MozBar for a quick check. For in-depth analysis, use Ahrefs (if you have the budget).
✅ Quick conclusion: MozBar is the easiest way to check your and your competitors' DA. Install it once and always see DA directly in Google.
📖 Recommended reading:
The complete guide on how a new website can get out of the filter and get TOP rankings
If your new website has been sanctioned or can't get into the TOP, this guide is for you. Learn a step-by-step strategy for getting out from under the filters, analyzing errors, and methods for achieving high rankings faster.
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📈 What Domain Authority is considered good
Don't compare yourself to Facebook (DA 96)! Compare yourself to competitors in your niche.
DA Score Example 0-10 Very low New site (0-3 months) 10-20 Low Young blog, local business 20-40 Medium Stable blog, small business 40-60 Good Authoritative blog, medium-sized company 60-80 High Media, big brands 80-100 Very high Facebook, Wikipedia, Google Realistic goals:
- 🎯 New site (0-1 year): achieve DA 15-20
- 🎯 Site 1-2 years: achieve DA 25-35
- 🎯 Site 3 years: reach DA 40-50
👉 General rule of thumb: if your DA is higher than the DA of your niche competitors, you're on the right track!
✅ Quick conclusion: for most sites, DA 30-50 is a normal indicator. Do not chase DA 70 unless you are a media giant.
⸻
🚀 How to Increase Domain Authority: 10 Ways
Now let's move on to practice - specific actions to increase DA.
1. Get high-quality backlinks
This is the main way to increase DA. But it's the QUALITY that matters, not the quantity.
How to get backlinks:
- ✅ Guest posts: write an article for an authoritative blog in your niche (DA 40 ), get a link
- ✅ Broken Link Building: find a broken link on a reputable site, notify the owner, offer your link
- ✅ Infographics: create a useful infographic, people will link
- ✅ HARO: register on helpareporter.com, give comments to journalists - get links from the media
❌ DON'T: don't buy links on exchanges! Google will punish you, DA may drop.
📖 Recommended reading:
Bot farms: how fake reviews and click fraud kill honest businesses
Learn how organized bot networks manipulate rankings, create fake traffic (click fraud), and destroy consumer trust in honest companies. Get a complete overview of threats and protection methods.
2. Remove Toxic Backlinks
Links from spammy websites are harmful to DA.
How to remove:
- Check backlinks through Google Search Console
- Find suspicious ones (donor sites with DA < 10, spammy content)
- Use Google Disavow Tool (disavow links)
3. Create quality content regularly
What works:
- 📝 Articles 1500-2500 words (long content ranks better)
- 📝 Unique content (do not copy)
- 📝 Regularity: 1-2 articles per week
- 📝 Usefulness: solve readers' problems
4. Improve internal linking
Link to your articles within the site. This helps:
- 🔗 Google indexes the site better
- 🔗 "Distributes" authority between pages
- 🔗 Users stay on the site longer
5. Increase the loading speed
What to do:
- ⚡ Optimize images (WebP format)
- ⚡ Use CDN (Cloudflare)
- ⚡ Enable caching
- ⚡ Minimize CSS/JS
⏱️ Objective: load speed < 3 seconds.
6. Make your site mobile-responsive
Google uses Mobile-First Index - it evaluates the mobile version first.
Test: open the site on your smartphone. If it is inconvenient to read, fix it immediately.
7. Fix technical errors
What to check:
- ❌ Broken link (404) - fix or make a 301 redirect
- ❌ Duplicate content - add a canonical URL
- ❌ No HTTPS - install an SSLcertificate
- ❌ Slow server - change hosting
8. Activity in social networks
Share content on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. Social signals indirectly affect DA.
9. Monitor competitors
What to do:
- Find 5-10 competitors with higher DA
- Look at where they get their backlinks from (via Ahrefs or Moz)
- Replicate their strategy
10. Be patient - DA doesn't grow instantly
Realistic timeframe:
- ⏱️ DA 20 → 30: 3-6 months
- ⏱️ DA 30 → 50: 6-12 months
- ⏱️ DA 50 → 70: 1-2 years
💡 Expert Tip: Don't chase DA for the sake of DA. Focus on quality: content, backlinks, user experience. DA will grow automatically as a result of proper work.
✅ Quick conclusion: the main thing is high-quality backlinks, regular content, and technical optimization. Do this systematically, and DA will grow.
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🤔 Does DA affect Google rankings
The most common question is: will high DA raise my rankings?
The official position of Google
Google officially says: "Moz Domain Authority is NOT a ranking factor. We use our own algorithms."
But: this doesn't mean that DA is useless!
Indirect impact of DA
Why sites with high DA are more likely to be in the top:
- 🔗 Backlinks: the factor that increases DA is also a factor in Google's ranking
- 🔗 Content: quality content increases DA and rankings at the same time
- 🔗 Technical optimization: speed, mobile version affect DA and SEO
Analogies: DA = website health thermometer. The thermometer itself does not cure, but it shows that you are on the right track. 👉 Statistics: Studies show a correlation of 0.7-0.8 between DA and positions. This means that the higher the DA, the more often the site is in the top. But this is a correlation, not causation.
✅ Quick conclusion: by increasing DA, you automatically improve the factors that Google takes into account. Therefore, DA is a useful benchmark, even if it is not a direct ranking factor.
⸻
💼 My experience of increasing DA
I worked on increasing DA for 20 clients. Here are the most interesting cases.
📊 Case 1: Marketing blog (DA 15 → 42 in 9 months)
👉 Starting data: DA 15, 3 months of existence, 20 articles, 5 backlinks.
What we did:
- 📝 Wrote 60 quality articles (2000 words each)
- 🔗 Got 80 backlinks through guest posts on authoritative blogs (DA 40-70)
- ⚙️ Fixed technical errors (speed, 404, mobile version)
- 🔗 Improved internal linking
Result (after 9 months):
- 📈 DA increased from 15 to 42 (180%!)
- 📈 Organic traffic 340%
- 📈 25 articles in the top 10 of Google
⚡ Conclusion: regular content quality backlinks = stable DA growth.
❌Typical customer mistakes
- Bought 500 links on the exchange for $50: DA dropped from 28 to 19 due to spammy links. We had to remove them through Disavow Tool, and it took 6 months to recover.
- Expected DA 50 in a month: The client was disappointed because DA only increased from 20 to 23 in a month. I explained that this is normal - it takes months."
- Focused only on DA: the client was chasing the indicator but ignoring the content. DA grew to 35, but there was no traffic because the content was of low quality.
💡 My recommendation: DA is a consequence of good work, not a goal. Make quality content, get honest backlinks, optimize the technical part - DA will grow by itself.
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❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
🔍 Can DA fall?
Yes, it can. Reasons: loss of backlinks (sites have removed links to you), getting toxic backlinks, technical problems on the site, competitors have increased their DA (relative scale).
🔍 How long does it take to see DA increase? It takes at least 1-2 months to see changes. Real growth (for example, 10 points) takes 3-6 months of systematic work.
🔍Is it possible to increase DA without backlinks?
Theoretically, you can increase it a little (through content, technical optimization), but backlinks are 70-80% of the impact. Without them, DA will not grow significantly. Maximum 5-10 points.
🔍 Which is better: DA from Moz or DR from Ahrefs?
DR (Domain Rating) from Ahrefs is considered more accurate because Ahrefs has a larger backlink database. But DA is more popular and free (via MozBar). For basic analysis, DA is enough, for professional analysis, DR is better.
🔍 Does the number of pages on the site affect DA? More quality pages = more opportunities to get backlinks = higher DA. But 10 great articles are better than 100 mediocre ones. Quality is important, not quantity.
🔍What to do if competitors have a higher DA? Analyze where they get their backlinks from (via Ahrefs or Moz Link Explorer). Repeat their strategy, but make better content. You can outperform a competitor with a higher DA by creating better pages.
🔍Is it worth buying a domain with a high DA?
Yes, but be careful. Check the domain history (whether there were any Google penalties, whether it is a spam site). Expired domains with DA 30-50 can be useful, but risky. It's better to build DA yourself.
🔍How often does Domain Authority update?
Moz updates the index once a month (usually at the end of the month). Therefore, even if you received 20 new backlinks today, DA will be updated in 2-4 weeks.
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✅ Conclusions
To summarize:
- 🎯 Domain Authority is a "credit rating" of a website: a scale of 0-100 from Moz, shows the authority of the domain
- 🎯 The main factor of DA is backlinks: 1 quality link with DA 70 is better than 100 from unknown sites
- 🎯 DA 20-40 = normal, 40-60 = good: don't compare yourself to Facebook, compare yourself to competitors in the niche
- 🎯 Improve DA: quality backlinks regular content technical optimization patience (3-12 months)
- 🎯 DA does not affect Google directly: but factors that increase DA also affect rankings
- 💡 Next step:
💯 Total: Domain Authority is a useful benchmark, but not an end in itself. Create quality content, build honest backlinks, optimize the technical part - DA will grow as a natural consequence of doing the right thing.
📖 Recommended reading:
Ranking: what is it in simple words and examples
What really happens when Google decides which page to show first? Find out how ranking algorithms work, what factors affect your position in the SERPs, and how to use it for SEO promotion.
This article was prepared by the founder and leader of the company with 8 years of experience in web development - Vadim Kharovyuk.
