Yahoo Site Explorer died. Does DA and PA Seomoz parameters have all it takes to replace YSE?

[seoneogames]

We're trying to simplify our link analysis job when acquiring a new external link. We're wondering to know if Domain Authority Seomoz parameter is all what we need to take a decision.

Does DA Seomoz parameter takes into consideration 'domain age', 'alexa ranking', 'dmoz links', indexed pages on google', and 'inbound links vs outbound links'?

[RyanKent]

A few thoughts regarding your guidelines:

It can take 60 days for the PA of a new page to be updated in OSE. If the page you are attempting to acquire a link from is new I would not be concerned about the page's PA at all.

The Domain Age is not a factor I would consider at all when acquiring a link.

Toolbar PR is only updated every 3-4 months so you wont know the true PA of a page, especially if it is a new page.

I would recommend the following primary considerations when acquiring links: site DA, popularity of the page which offers the link (if it is a new page, what is the expected PA/PR of the page in 90 days), relevance of site and page and the location of the link (in content, footer, etc).

[seoneogames]

Hi! I've read Matt's blog post Introducing SEOmoz's Updated Page Authority and Domain Authority and now we better understand how PA and DA works. You guys do a really good job!

We check the metrics of hundreds of pages and domains when acquiring new links and that's why is very important for us to make this fast.

Now that Y!SE died and we better understand how PA and DA works we conclude that we'll be checking the following factors before acquiring new links:

• PA: should be 25+
• DA: should be 25+
• IP: links should not be from the same C class.
• Domain Age: at least 1 year old
• Indexed Pages: at least more than 30.
• IP Neighborhood: domain should not have more than 2 spammy sites on its neighborhood.
• Context and Relevance: according to target keyword.
• PR: page rank should be 1+.
• Google Cache: no more than 2 weeks latency.

We thinks that the metrics above are all what we need BUT honestly still too much to check. Seems that nobody has the magic wand!

Are we missing something? Checking more than should I check?

[randfish]

Just figured I'd toss in my $0.02.

As others have noted, Y!SE offered no metrics as to the importance/influence of a site or page in its index, so there's really nothing to compare it with. Google offers PageRank, which Linkscape also has (mozRank). But PA and DA are designed to be predictive algorithms with tons of inputs that try to best reflect how Google.com (US) values links and link metrics.

Matt Peters, our data scientist, has a blog post going up in the next few days with details about how we do this and what PA/DA are from a technical standpoint, but you can basically think of them as the best correlated query/content-agnostic metrics for Google rankings (at least, we've never measured something that could better predict rank position).

[RyanKent]

Will be really useful for the SEO community to see a detail of what specific metrics DA takes into consideration.

The link I shared above shows all the details.

Maybe the DA parameter became the new standard

Many SEOs have used DA as a standard for some time. When there was a problem with the Linkscape crawler a lot of SEOs were quite vocally upset as they even shared DA with clients in reporting, and this reporting was impacted by the issues experienced at the time.

Do you think there's place to improve it? We want only 1parameter for everything.

DA is the most solid form of an all-encompassing parameter. It is far from perfect, and will not be even close in 2012 and likely much longer. There are numerous major considerations which need to be considered such as: impact of social sharing, penalties, link valuation by location (footer vs in content), relevance and more.

The bottom line is Google's algorithm is hidden and likely will always be kept private. It also includes hundreds of factors. It's a struggle in futility and the impossible to mimic Google's ranking. With that said, DA is a solid attempt at a critical metric which is part of that process.

[seoneogames]

Thanks Ryan for your input!

Cyprus, as you said, you can't add into the DA parameter the Link Relevance and Context, but what about other metrics? Do you think there's place to improve it? We want only 1parameter for everything.

Will be really useful for the SEO community to see a detail of what specific metrics DA takes into consideration. Maybe the DA parameter became the new standard

[Cyrus-Shepard]

I really like Ryan's answer, and I'm going to endorse it.

If you are only looking for ONE metric to judge links, then DA or PA wouldn't be a bad choice. Certainly better than the old PageRank. But I wouldn't advise using just one metric.

DA takes all of SEOmoz link metrics into consideration, including MozTrust and MozRank. Of all the metrics out there, it is best indicator of a given domain's (or page's) ability to rank for a particular phrase. We know of no other publicly available measurement that does as good of job.

That said, it shouldn't be the only thing you should look at when evaluating link prospect. Relevance, Context, number of links on the page, position and other considerations should all be brought into play.

Best of luck in your link building!

[RyanKent]

Everything you wanted to know about Domain Authority can be found here: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain-authority

A few other notes:

Alexa Ranking is not a relevant metric for most aspects of SEO. Overall the ranking has been shown to be highly inaccurate for most sites and it is very easy to manipulate. I like to look at Alexa ranking to gain a rough initial idea of a site's popularity, and that's it.

Domain age isn't a relevant metric for most aspects of SEO either. There are brand new domains with high PR and 10 yr old domains with low PR. Any correlation between a site's age and it's PR seems to be simply from the idea that older sites have had more time to earn links.

Open Site Explorer does capture a site's links whether they are from dmoz or any other site. OSE also can differentiate between internal and external links.

I can see the value in adding "indexed pages on Google" to OSE. That request will quickly expand to indexed pages of the various Google sites for each country, and then to Bing as well.

I am all for adding additional metrics to support SEO. I only ask the metrics be relevant information which can be used to understand or improve SEO performance.