Off-page SEO
Domain Authority
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What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority (DA) is a proprietary score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website is likely to rank in search engine results, on a scale of 1 to 100. It is calculated using a machine learning model that incorporates the quantity and quality of inbound links, the linking root domains, and other link-related metrics. A higher DA score correlates with greater ranking potential in competitive SERPs.
It is important to understand that Domain Authority is a third-party metric — it is not used by Google itself. Google does not have a publicly exposed domain-level score analogous to DA. SEO professionals use DA (and similar metrics like Ahrefs' Domain Rating) as a proxy for estimating site authority and evaluating the relative value of potential link acquisition targets.
Why it matters for SEO
Domain Authority is widely used as a benchmarking tool for comparing your site's authority against competitors and for qualifying prospective link-building targets. While not a direct Google signal, it provides a useful relative measure of the link equity a site has accumulated over time.
Example
Two websites pitch a guest article to the same outreach manager. One has been publishing industry research for years and is linked from universities and trade publications; the other is a six-month-old blog with a handful of links. A third-party authority score such as Moz DA or Ahrefs DR will typically rate the first site much higher, which helps the manager prioritise, although neither score is used by Google itself.
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