Moz Domain Authority represents Moz’s best prediction for how a website will perform in search engine rankings. Domain Authority combines other Moz metrics (MozTrust and MozRank) with other factors into a value between 0 an 100, on an exponential scale.

How can you use Domain Authority?

Since Domain Authority is primary based on links, it’s often used in link building campaigns. Links are an important part of Google’s algorithm, and always will be. If you want to successfully reach new customers from an organic search marketing campaign, you’ll need to build links from other websites. Which ones? Domain Authority can help us make those decisions. For example, let’s say you have the opportunity to get a link from or You can use the Domain Authority (DA) to help pick the best site. If has a DA of 45 and has a DA of 34, you know the links from will help you more.

Not only does DA help you measure the value of links, it could also predict a website’s ability to receive traffic from the search engines. If a website has a high Domain Authority, you could also receive traffic from your link.

Domain Authority can also be used to judge a site’s ability to compete in the search engine results. If you own, how hard will it be to beat Domain Authority can tell us. Let’s say has a DA of 23 but has a DA of 32. In that case, you’ve got a lot of work to do, to catch’s ability to be served in the search engines. Remember: Domain Authority is provided in an exponential scale. That means has to do more than just increase by 9 points of DA. It’s 9 to the nth power higher.

Domain Authority could also help you decide on which website you should advertise. If you advertise on a higher Domain Authority site, that site might receive more traffic from the search engines than a site with a lower DA.

How you should NOT use Domain Authority

Do not make increasing your Domain Authority a primary effort of your marketing campaigns. Just because you have a high DA, or a higher DA than your competitor, doesn’t mean you’re really getting more traffic. Even if it does result in more traffic, that doesn’t mean those visitors are becoming new customers. That’s the point, after all, right? Don’t be distracted by DA.

Focusing on Domain Authority might also distract you from other, productive marketing efforts. Since DA measures a website’s potential for organic search rankings, you might overlook the potential value from a PPC or email marketing campaign, for example.

Higher-up (C-level) executives often like to over-simplify marketing efforts into one metric. Don’t let your boss distill your marketing efforts into Domain Authority alone. Such a narrow focus will hurt your company, in the long-run.

How does Moz Domain Authority compare with other Moz web metrics?

How does Domain Authority compare with other web metrics?


The Bottom Line

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