Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. My Domain authority dropped 9 points... Does anyone have any suggestions to fix this significant drop.

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    My Domain authority dropped 9 points... Does anyone have any suggestions to fix this significant drop.

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    7
    7
    1644
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • infotrust2
      infotrust2 last edited by

      My domain authority dropped by 9 points and I haven't done anything differently since the last scan. What is going on?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • DonnaDuncan
        DonnaDuncan last edited by

        I noticed some big drops in the sites I monitor this update as well, yet rankings and traffic are business as usual.

        Patrick's link is helpful as are other's comments. The other thing I'd suggest is to monitor traffic, rankings and webmaster tools to make sure nothing is seriously wrong. If nothing arouses your suspicion, wait for the next update. This one was smaller than the last, root domains down by almost 10%. If you have a site with few incoming link sources, you're going to be more susceptible to sampling fluctuations.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Linda-Vassily
          Linda-Vassily last edited by

          You should not look at Moz's domain authority as a fixed number; it will change, depending on their index that month. A good way to look at this number is relative to a couple of your competitors. Track them, and if their number also goes down when yours goes down, it is probably the index.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • MarketPlanB
            MarketPlanB last edited by

            You are not alone, my site dropped 6 points and my competitors that I am tracking also dropped anywhere from 3-5 points as well.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • PatrickDelehanty
              PatrickDelehanty last edited by

              Hi there

              Rand actually just gave some insight to this in another Q+A thread; I recommend reading it!

              Hope this helps - good luck!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • jmorehouse
                jmorehouse last edited by

                I wonder if Moz has recently modified their domain authority algorithm to take into consideration Google's mobile-friendly or "Phantom" updates?

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • BruceA
                  BruceA last edited by

                  Domain Authority is not really something you can control.  It is a view taken by Moz, Google etc using various algorithms.   So now you cannot influence the rank easily.

                  I would recommend stepping way way back and take a broad view of your site and look at some of the key Domain ranking factors that Google (might, as we can guess but they don't tell) use.

                  Dropping a factor of 9 is large, so something must have changed in the bigger picture.

                  Bear in mind that just because the numbers have gone down, does not mean that your site has had a penalty or other such disaster, it could well be that your Pond just became a Sea for some reasons, which you need to take a view on in your broad overview of your industry.

                  Please let us know how you get on as this would be very interesting to all Mozers I am sure

                  Bruce

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • WebMarkets

                    Realistic expectations to increase domain authority

                    A) what is a realistic timeline to increase a websites domain authority by 20 points? B) what are the most important factors to increase a websites domain authority?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebMarkets
                    0
                  • pnb567

                    Is .ME domain is effective in SEO ?

                    I am always listening about TLD. com. org .net but what about the .me domain. Can this will be effective in SEO. Can i able to beat down my competitors, if i choose .me . I also have a .com or other TLD option but if i am making my name than .me is for me but i need your suggestion for the seo purpose. Is there really domain affective in term of SEO.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pnb567
                    0
                  • webbmason

                    Domain Forwarding - SEO Impacts?

                    I have a site that has been active for years - thinkbiglearnsmart.com. Awhile ago I had purchased about 50 domain names that were relevant to my company. I still have those urls and would like to use them to point to different pages on my site - just because they have good key words in the URLs. For example - one is dreamweavertrainingclassesonlinelive.com.  Currently they are all redirecting to my homepage. A. is that hurting me? B. I would like to redirect to the more relevant page. ie the page dedicated to Dreamweaver training (http://thinkbiglearnsmart.com/dreamweaver-creative-cloud-training-course/ ) Will this hurt my Dreamweaver keyword for example because there is already a 301 redirect on that page from a very old Dreamweaver link which was something like thinkbiglearnsmart.com/dreamweaver C. On my hosting account where I can select where the URL forwards to - it has an option for "Location forwarding" and "Frame forwarding" - currently they are set to Frame forwarding - which one is best? Any help is much appreciated!!! Thank you!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webbmason
                    0
                  • djlaidler

                    How do I list the subdomains of a domain?

                    Hi Mozers, I am trying to find what subdomains are currently active on a particular domain. Is there a way to get a list of this information? The only way I could think of doing it is to run a google search on; site:example.com -site:www.example.com The only issues with this approach is that a majority of the indexed pages exist on the non-www domain and I still have thousands of pages in the results (mainly from the non-www). Is there another way to do it in Google? OR is there a server admin online tool that will tell me this information? Cheers, Dan

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | djlaidler
                    0
                  • BrandLabs

                    Redirect old .net domain to new .com domain

                    I have a quick question that I think I know the answer to but I wanted to get some feedback to make sure or see if there's additional feedback. The long and short of it is that I'm working with a site that currently has a .net domain that they've been running for 6 years. They've recently bought a .com of the same name as well. So the question is: I think it's obviously preferable to keep the .net and just direct the .com to it. However, if they would prefer to have the .com domain, is 301'ing the .net to the .com going to lose a lot of the equity they've built up in the site over the past  years? And are there any steps that would make such a move easier? Also, if you have any tips or insight just into a general transition of this nature it would be much appreciated. Thanks!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs
                    0
                  • optimalwebinc

                    Why does a site have no domain authority?

                    A website was built and launched eight months ago, and their domain authority is 1.  When a site has been live for a while and has such a low DA, what's causing it?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | optimalwebinc
                    0
                  • peterwhitewebdesign

                    New Site: Use Aged Domain Name or Buy New Domain Name?

                    Hi,
                    I have the opportunity to build a new website and use a domain name that is older than 5 years or buy a new domain name. The aged domain name is a .net and includes a keyword.
                    The new domain would include the same keyword as well as the U.S. state abbreviation. Which one would you use and why? Thanks for your help!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | peterwhitewebdesign
                    0
                  • KatMouse

                    Some viagra spammer somehow fooled Google into thinking the title and description metatags of a site pointing to me are about viagra. How did they do that? How do I fix this?

                    In performing a link: to my site, I found this: Video Of People Using Viagra - Online Drug Store, Guaranteed Shipping <cite>www.planetherbs.com/affiliate-program.html</cite> - Cached -Block all www.planetherbs.com results1 day ago – Video Of People Using Viagra. Online Drug Store, Guaranteed Shipping. Check Order Status. Natural and healthy products! If you go to that url, you will see it's just an affiliate program page. Some viagra spammer somehow changed the title and description metatags that google sees (not actually) and links from what appears to be spammy pages are pointing to me. I don't want to get dinged for this. How do I fix these for myself and planetherbs.com? And how did the spammer do this???

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KatMouse
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.