Domain authority tells you how well your website is doing on search engine results. It also tells you why another website rank higher than yours.

But, how do you know your domain authority? What is the best domain rating? How is your domain authority?

Let's dig deeper into this to get an answer.

What is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority (DA) measures the number of relevant backlinks - links from reputable websites. The relevancy of the links affects your score or domain rating.

A domain authority metric created by Moz is used to find out where a website rank on the Google search engine results page.

The tool estimates your website's possible ranking, including linking root domain and the number of links into the DA score. The DA score also tracks the website "ranking strength" over time.

Some brands will naturally get higher DA scores because of the keywords. Take the IMDB website as an example, it has a high DA score because keywords are integrated throughout the website.

This tells us that using the relevant keyword terms can affect your website's DA score.

But, it's not just the keywords and backlinks that can improve your DA score, there are also other factors such as SEO and high-quality content.

Also, Google uses the PageRank algorithm to rank web pages in the search engine ranking.

Why domain authority and backlinks are important?

Google does not factor in domain authority when it comes to ranking. On the contrary, a study conducted by Ahrefs proves the correlation between SERP and DA.

As a result, DA is considered a useful metric that can drive organic traffic to a website.

So, if you want to improve SEO ranking, content marketing strategy, search engine performance, link profile, consider building up your domain authority. You won't get the results right away, but it's a long-term strategy to improve domain rating and website performance.

What's the best DA score?

If your web traffic ranking and SERP are high, you must have a high DA score.

DA scores range from 1 to 100. But, what's the best score?

Look:

When you start a new website, the DA score is 1. According to Moz, sites with many external links and ranking factors may get a higher score and those with fewer inbound links get a low score.

You can measure your DA score by comparing it against similar sites - the score may fluctuate over time and it can be challenging to find out why. Nevertheless, don't give up! Optimization and internal links may need to be looked at.

Several factors influence your DA score.

Moz points out the following factors:

• Your profile hasn't been indexed yet.
• Some links do not contribute to Google ranking.
• Massive growth link increase skews the process, which affects DA score negatively.

Ways to Increase Domain Authority Score

It's not easy, but few tricks can help increase domain authority score such as conducting a link audit.

A link audit is a process of checking the links on your website and making sure that it is valid and no black SEO tactics involved.

Ubersuggest can help you get an idea about your DA score, user experience, number of backlinks, and referring domains.

Bear in mind that backlinks can affect SEO rankings as well - they can hurt you as much as do you good.

How to check domain authority?

Various authority tools can help you. Finding the right one is important to ensure better results.

SEO Review Tools are a great example. It features a basic domain authority checker and looks at authority based on backlink quantity and quality. It also checks website content, such as anchor text.

This tool also checks other metrics such as website age and social media score. Social media score is determined by the number of social media shares and how active your profile is.

Another metric that is measured is Page Authority. It is developed by Moz that predicts the ranking of a specific web page on SERP. Page Authority (PA) uses the 1 to 100 logarithmic scale.

You can also use Linkgraph's Free Bulk DA Checker to check several sites in one go. The tool check for DA and spam metric up to 10 URLs at a time.

And if you want to check more domains, Rankz's SEO Rank Tracker is a perfect option. It allows you to check and monitor backlinks as well as check for domain availability.

Moz offers free domain SEO analysis tools showcasing top pages by links, top linking domains, keywords, and discovered and lost links.

Domain Authority, Linking Root Domain, Ranking Keywords, and Spam Score are shown if you run your website using the Free Domain Analysis Tool by Moz. It also indicates competitors that use your keywords.

Is low DA bad?

Low DA does not mean that your website is lacking.

A site with low DA can still rank on SERP if the competition is less.

As you build up your DA score, it might be hard to go higher. For example, you can easily achieve a DA score of 20 to 30 by integrating the best practices. It can be hard to raise a DA score of 31 to 40 and more challenging to improve from 71 to 80 DA.

Don't expect high DA right away because it takes time to build up. Marketers believe that domain age has a crucial role in accumulating a higher DA score.

On the other hand, if you see a low DA website, it can be an indication of low-quality links and less web traffic.

One thing for sure:

A few changes can help increase the domain authority score.

How to calculate domain authority score?

DA is calculated based on different factors.

Moz revealed some of the factors that influence domain authority score, which are:

• Number of inbound links
• Contextuality of the link and the website link to a domain.
• Content quality and ranking on SERP.
• On-Page SEO score of the website

There are also at least 40 different factors that affect Page Authority and some of them might be the determinant in accumulating a high DA.

Websites with 90+ DA exists, but don't let them demotivate you. There are many ways to improve your score and get to the top of search engine ranking.

How to Increase Domain Authority Score?

Now:

After knowing what domain authority is, learning how to calculate DA score, and checking your website's domain authority, let's see how you can build up a high domain authority score.

• Improve the Off-Page SEO of Your Website

Off-Page SEO involves any SEO tactic done outside the website - link building is a perfect example.

Websites with high DA scores have high-quality referring domains.

Acquiring high-quality links from websites with higher DA than yours is a proven way to improve your DA score.

Also, avoid acquiring links from websites with high spam rate because it can affect your DA score. A higher spam score may also lead to losing website authority.

Spammy linking domains can also hit your DA score badly.

Perform link analysis and remove links with a spam score of more than 30%. And make sure the links on your website are not pointed to spammy domains.

If you're unsure of the website quality that you're linking back to, use the "nofollow" link to be safe.

Use the Google Disavow Tool to disavow the links and improve the DA domain authority of your website.

It is vital to get links from websites with high authority because it sends social signals to Moz algorithms about your website's quality.

Here's how to acquire quality inbound links to your site:

• Natural Links. Publishing link-worthy content is the best way to acquire high-quality links to your website - it can be research-based content or a linkable asset like an infographic or graph. It's time-consuming, but natural links are worth it.

• Broken Link Building. Broken Link Building is another strategy that can help you acquire high-quality links for your website. Perform a broken link audit on websites with high DA and provide better content to link back.

• Unlinked Mentions. Perform brand mention audit using SEMRush and shortlist sites with high DA. Approach companies who may not have linked it back to your website after mentioning your product or brand.

• Blogger Outreach. It is considered the most successful link building strategy. Blogger Outreach is the best practice that can help you build your website DA, especially when you're time-bound. Reach out to bloggers that have a similar niche as yours. Ask them to cover your products - and do the same thing in return.

• Link Reclamation. Find lost links by using Moz, SEMRush, and Ahrefs. Get help from webmasters to fix the lost links for you.

• Press Releases. There are two types of Press Releases - Paid PR and Organic PR. Press Releases can help you acquire high-quality links from websites with high DA.

• Optimize On-Page SEO of your Website

Optimizing your website's On-Page SEO improves search engine ranking and affects your DA score indirectly.

But, there are On-Page SEO factors that do not affect your DA. Be mindful of these factors as it may hurt your DA score if you do the wrong thing.

Optimizing On-Page SEO is also a digital marketing tactic webmasters use to improve web performance.

There are various SEO tools that you can use to improve and optimize your website's On-Page SEO.

• Increase Social Signals

Social signals are one of the factors that affect your DA score.

Google still need to compare if they consider social signal as part of its algorithm system. But, the web pages with top ranking in SERP usually have a high number of social shares.

So?

The best way to increase social signals is by actively sharing great content from official channels. Also, add social media icons to the website for Google to easily understand the signal.

• Improve Image Alt Texts

Image Alt Texts is another factor that determines the quality of the website. The use of focus keywords and LSI keywords has a "positive correlation" in terms of search engine ranking and acquiring a high domain authority score.

Bonus: Increase Your Domain Authority Score in 30 Days with these steps

1. Create high-quality content that is link-worthy.
2. Perform a complete link audit for your website.
3. Remove spammy backlinks.
4. Disavow low-quality links.
5. Conduct an On-Page SEO audit.
6. Conduct a technical SEO audit to fix link issues.
7. Fix On-Page SEO and other technical errors.
8. Start your link building activities.
9. Create outreach content.
10. Share content on social media and other marketing platforms.
11. Repeat the process.

Ways to Integrate DA into Your SEO Tactic

After knowing your DA score and the factors that influence it, what's next?

Give other sites the reason to link to your site!

Provide better information than your competitors.

It is also wise to collaborate with small businesses with whom you can develop a good partnership. Get support from your partnered companies. Swapping testimonials are great ways to improve brand reputation.

Review your existing content to look for link opportunities. But, make sure all the backlinks that you're getting are high-quality.

Few high-quality backlinks are better than tons with low quality. _ _

Guest posting is also another tactic that can help popularize your site. But, be mindful as not all sites are suited for your niche.

Also, check if links are "follow" or "nofollow" - it impacts the link quality and web traffic. Check the DA and PA of the site, how their post is, and their target audience. If their goals are not similar to yours, then the guest post idea is not suited.

However, the most effective way to build your domain authority is to improve your website performance and other aspects contributing to a high DA score.

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