What Is Domain Authority and How Can You Improve It?

Domain Authority is one of the most talked about metrics in SEO and also one of the most misunderstood. Many site owners treat it as if it were a direct Google ranking factor. It is not. Domain Authority is a useful comparative score created by a tool vendor, not a number that exists inside Google.

Used correctly, it can help you judge relative site strength, understand the competitiveness of a niche, and track the impact of real SEO work over time. Used badly, it becomes a distraction that leads to link schemes and vanity reporting.

This article explains what Domain Authority actually is, what it is not, and what you should do if you want to move it in the right direction while also improving real search performance.

What Domain Authority Really Is

Domain Authority, often shortened to DA, is a score developed by Moz. It predicts how likely a domain is to rank in search results compared to other domains. The score runs from one to one hundred, with higher numbers indicating stronger ranking potential.

Moz calculates this score using signals from its own index, with a heavy emphasis on backlinks. The exact formula is not public, but common explanations and independent analysis agree that it looks at factors such as:

Number of unique domains linking to your site.

Overall volume of backlinks.

Quality and relevance of linking domains.

Elements of link profile health such as spam signals.

Other tools provide similar authority metrics. Examples include Domain Rating from Ahrefs and Authority Score from Semrush. These are not the same as Moz Domain Authority, but they share the same basic goal, which is to estimate the relative strength of a domain based on link data and sometimes traffic.

What Domain Authority Is Not

The most important point is simple. Google does not use Domain Authority as a ranking factor.

Google representatives, including John Mueller, have repeatedly stated that Google does not have a Domain Authority score and does not use DA or similar third party metrics in its algorithms. Moz itself is clear that DA is a predictive score, not a signal that flows into Google.

There are two key implications.

A higher DA does not cause better rankings. It reflects underlying signals that often also help rankings, such as strong links and good content.

Chasing a specific DA number, without improving anything substantive on the site, will not move you forward in search.

Correlation does not equal causation here. Studies that show higher DA domains often rank better are really showing that domains with strong link profiles and good SEO tend to perform better, which is not a surprise.

How To Use Domain Authority The Right Way

Because DA is not a ranking factor, you should treat it as a directional metric, not as a target in itself. Used sensibly, it is helpful in at least three areas.

Competitive analysis. You can compare your domain score to those of competitors to get a rough idea of relative link strength and investment.

Link prospecting. When evaluating potential sites for outreach or digital PR, authority metrics can help you prioritise likely higher value domains.

Reporting. Watching DA move gradually in the right direction, across many months, can complement hard performance metrics such as traffic and conversions.

The mistake is to optimise for the score directly. Your real goals are rankings, qualified traffic, leads, and revenue. DA is simply one way to monitor whether your overall authority is trending in a healthier direction.