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
-
How to tell moz about the domain redirects?
If I redirected my previous domain to my new domain, how can I tell moz that the previous domain is redirected?
Link Explorer | | LannaRosse0 -
Expired Domain Redirect
hi guys have recently bought a few expired domains with good juice and redirected them to help boost pages on my site how long will these take to show in the moz link explorer?
Link Explorer | | Staunton_Rook0 -
What's the easiest way to see a list of domains ranking well for a keyword with its DA and traffic numbers?
Hi. I'm trying to figure out how to easily see, for a given keyword, the ranking domains, their domain authority, and their traffic. Is it possible to get this all on one screen?
Link Explorer | | scott.thomason.scott80350 -
Page Authority different between Moz Open Site Explorer and On Page analyser
I have a client who has an old URL with 3 linking root domains and 4 links, with a PA of 24. This is on the open site explorer. There is a 301 redirect in place to direct this old url to the new url. When he uses the Moz bar on page, it shows that he has a PA of only 1 with no LRDs or inbound links? Can anyone please explain why this is happening and if this could affect further page links across his site? It would be appreciated. Kind regards
Link Explorer | | lisa_rothery0 -
How is Moz Page Authority Calculated?
Can anyone refer me to a document that explains the measures that go into the calculation of Moz Page Authority? I'm chiefly interested in what counts and what doesn't -- follow links, no-follow links, internal and external, what (if any) on-site factors, etc.
Link Explorer | | GlennFerrell0 -
Top Pages Report References URLs from a Different Domain
I am running a Top Pages Report using Open Site Explorer and it's returning that the top pages for examplesiteA.org are examplesiteB.com. Important to note that examplesiteA.org was a dormant domain for a few years. We recently purchased it and are in the process of reviving it. Has anyone experienced this before? Would this suggest that canonical link elements were put in place prior to it going dormant and that the top pages for this site are now assumed to be on examplesiteB.com?
Link Explorer | | seoaustin0 -
Do other sites linking to my page with a low domain authority affect my rankings?
Hello, my page authority 30, I see other page with an authority of 21 for example linking to us. Is this good or bad, does this affect our ranking? A lot of these don't have anchor text, I'm guessing we should reach out to these webmaster to include anchor text with the keywords we want to drive traffic to this page or make as descriptive as possible? Thanks! Laura
Link Explorer | | lauramrobinson320 -
Moz can't crawl domain due to IP Geo redirect loop
Hi, I'm trying to crawl our domain www.salvationarmy.org.au via my Moz account and it only ever returns results for one page when it should be crawling more than 3,000 pages. In talking to support, they have said that because of the redirect we have in place it is creating a 302 loop and therefore not delivering results. Usually in this case I would obtain Moz's IP addresses and add them to the redirect settings as an exception, but Moz have said they use cloud-based services for crawling so the IPs change all the time. Does anyone have any idea how to solve this issue? At this point I've paid for a year's subscription to a product I can't use. Thanks, Mel
Link Explorer | | SalvationArmy0