Raising Domain Authority
-
Hi everyone, I'm looking to find out if there are any tried and tested ways to raise DA.
We have regular articles, a good backlink profile, we post regularly to social media, but we seem to be stuck at DA27.
One of our competitors who has no real backlinks, only backlinks from citations and no social media posts has a DA of 31 which we find quite confusing.
Thanks in advance!
-
First, let me say something that may sound strange coming from a Moz employee. Don't try to raise DA. DA is a proxy for your link authority, and if you get obsessed with trying to raise that score alone, you may find yourself link-building in artificial ways. This isn't unique to Moz -- I'd say the same thing about raising toolbar PR in the old days.
In a broader, conceptual sense, DA attempts to measure your overall authority. Ultimately, this is a product of PA and means getting high-quality links to a variety of pages (ideally). From a pure DA perspective, that means links from high-DA domains and a diversity of domains (not thousands of links from a handful of sites). From a broader perspective -- which DA doesn't measure -- pursuerelevant links that will drive traffic and produce value.
So "How do you raise domain authority?" really becomes "How do you build high-quality links?" and that's a tremendously difficult question to answer. Or, maybe better to say that the answer isn't one most people want to hear, because it's going to require a lot of time, energy, and probably money.
I will add this -- don't get tunnel-vision on links from super-high-DA sites. Not every link has to be from the New York Times. Links from low DA sites that are relevant and legitimate are perfectly fine. Plus, it's going to be much easier to approach these sites and build relationships with them, especially in your own industry. Find the sites that would naturally want to link to you, because you offer something of value to them. They don't have to be mega-sites that dominate the web.
-
Thanks for the replies! That all makes sense, and certainly Nikki we will work on getting links which are of a higher DA. A lot of our links have been from sites which have similar DAs to us, so getting links from higher authority websites is certainly something for us to try where possible.
-
If your current backlinks also average DA 20-30, that may be preventing your site to go any higher. Try obtaining links that are in the DA 40-50 range or higher. Having those quality sites consistently linking back to you should move the needle up.
-
DA is not just based on backlinks but the quality of backlinks. Also the longevity of the domain plays apart in authority. So if your competitor has been around awhile and has a few backlinks from high quality websites then he very well could have a higher DA then you. Maybe their backlink profile can shed some light on some backlinks you might try to obtain.
Thanks,
Don Silvernail
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Our Domains DA has dropped from 52 to 17
Hi,
Link Explorer | | JudyLam
Our domain's DA (www.tricorglobal.com) has dropped drastically from 52 to 17 on Mar 2019. And has only gone up to 21 now. Is there a reason why this happened. On the other hand, our competitor's score has increased. Is there a valid reason for this? How can I find out what is hurting our DA and how can I fix this?1 -
Moz error with domain and page authority if no www in my domain
Hello, so our domain is website.com and we do not use www in our domain. Now moz shows our page authority as huge (website. Com) and domain authority very low. But our domain is our page that we rank. Is this due to the fact that we use no www and we rank our main index page? Am I correct? Thanks!
Link Explorer | | advertisingcloud0 -
Root domains that link to the URL or domain
Hello Everyone, I need help understanding how does Moz linking root domains work. My website shows 73 domain pointing backlinks to my domain in google webmaster where on Moz Linking domain it only shows 18 domian. Any help on how this works. Thanks in advance. Sagar
Link Explorer | | wolfeyes1 -
OSE Compare Domains had Gone
So I have not been on Moz for a while but I have always liked the ability to compare multiple domains in Open site explorer. Has Moz removed this feature. if so... why?
Link Explorer | | BryanCasson0 -
Permanent 301 - Domain Authority
Hi, we created a new website which we also gave a new url.
Link Explorer | | DIGIHOUSE
We made a permanent 301 for the complete domain. www.digihouse.at -> www.digihouse-werbeagentur.at Google checked that and we rank minimum as good as with the old domain.
But in MOZ Tools the Domain Authority is very bad now.
So i think the 301 influences Google but not the Moz Tools?
The Domain Authority will not be inherited in Moz Tools? thxChris0 -
Why does the number of the total external links and the followed linking root domains between Open site explorer and the campaign in Moz pro doesn't match?
Opensiteexplorer returns 52.473 total external links and 715 followed linking root domains while my campaign in Moz analytics return 35.899 total external links and 1092 followed linking root domains. Does anyone knows how this is possible?
Link Explorer | | ConversionMobstars0 -
Inbound Links Sorted by Linking Domain
Hi All -- Does anyone know if it is possible to generate a report (or is there a setting) to have the OSE inbound links report sorted by OSE linking domain? Ideally, the report would create a second column in the "Inbound Links" report with "Linking Domain" and then you could create a nice report that cross-tabbed the links. While you could do some excel text manipulation to do this, does anyone know if it's possible to do through the report generator? Thanks, Matt
Link Explorer | | Resolution_Rentals0