How much does Domain Authority effect the keywords I can rank for?
-
I've been doing some keyword research and i've found a few gems. My site is currently sat at a 18 domain authority up from 12, so it's great to see the improvement. Although I was wondering, if my domain authority is sat a 18, can I compete with keywords that have a difficulty of 50-60?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Sam
-
DA is a metric by Moz and not by Google. If you want to rank on Google, there are over 200 ranking signals (not disclosed by them even today) to rank for just one keyword on SERP and DA is not one of them. What you should be focusing on is the keyword's relevance and answering genuine user queries around your keyword.
The quality and comprehensiveness of your content along with other signals will determine the keyword ranking and in most cases, if you aim for long-tail keywords with good potential along with in-depth coverage of the topic, you will be able to surpass even higher DA sites without many backlinks on your target page.
Improving DA should be a focus but it should not be correlated to rankings on SERPs in any way.
-
I often hear the question - what is considered a good domain rating (authority)? Generally speaking, the higher the "authority" of your domain, the better. But it is important not to judge it in absolute terms. Because domain ranking is, by definition, a relative metric. You can't say that a good domain rating is 30, or 50, or 60, or 70. Everything is relative. It's important to remember that this score is an evaluation of a third-party service, not a search engine. When you use some DA validation tool, it is always developed by some company and data from different services may differ. I hope I didn't confuse you.
-
Hello sammecooper ,
The Domain Authority (DA) is important, but you should also consider other KPIs when analyzing the bigger picture. In the case of net linking, for example, you need to determine if the site is on the same domain if it receives natural traffic, and if it is ranking for relevant keywords. My recommendation is to never track only one metric
-
@sammecooper Bonjour,
Thanks for your question.
to rank well with keywords even if difficult you have to make back links on DA sites more than 50, you can position well on search engines (from my little experience). -
Of course Domain Authority (DA) is important but you also need to look at the bigger picture based on other KPIs. For example, if you do Netlinking, you need to look at whether the site is in the same field, whether it is getting natural visits and whether it is ranking on interesting keywords. Never watch only 1 metric, that's my point of view
-
Hi @sammecooper! As I'm sure you know, the higher the Keyword Difficulty Score, the harder the keyword will be to rank for. A higher DA does correlate with a higher likelihood to rank BUT when using DA, it's important that you are comparing your site to your true search competitors— sites w/in the same category and of the same caliber. We actually have a video that explains this in more detail if that helps. https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority
Personally, I'm a fan of going for low-hanging fruit first: keywords that have lower difficulty and still have decent value. Then, once you've tackled these, you can aim for those harder ones. We have a great resource all about keyword research, The SEO Keyword Research Master Guide that may help you in your quest for keyword gems.
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
-
When I use the Google search console to discover keyword phrases being used to drive visitors to my site I see some keywords that have the city name repeated (ex: web design sarasota sarasota, fl). Why?
When I use the Google search console to discover keyword phrases being used to drive visitors to my site I see some keywords that have the city name repeated (ex: web design sarasota sarasota, fl). Why does this happen?
Keyword Research | | Noblemoz1 -
I understand it's been asked before, however moz staff is telling me keyword's capitalization is treated as a separate keyword.
So there I was looking through my rankings like every other day, when I see a lowercase and uppercase version of a keyword. Most times I see this, I see them with the same rankings, and even researched this about 5 months ago, when I came to the conclusion that google treats them the same way. However, this day I saw them as different ranks, same keyword, only capitalized 1st letter of the 2 word keyword. I asked moz staff about this, as I felt it was an error. But was met with the answer that google does indeed treat these keywords differently. My line of thought was that the rank checker didn't check both the lowercase and uppercase keyword at the same time, and SERPs happened to change when the second word was checked for rank, returning a different rank. So now, I am in doubt again, as to uppercase and lowercase keywords being different or the same in google's eyes? I honestly don't know why a uppercase keyword would have different motive from searcher than a lowercase when many time not, searchers can't even spell the keyword correctly.
Keyword Research | | Deacyde0 -
How to identify negative keywords in a campaign?
Which keywords are negative and harmful for a website, how to identify? And how to remove those type of keywords from campaign? If you have any type of tool for identify to negative keywords, then please suggest me?
Keyword Research | | surabhi60 -
Plural of exact domain name
Hello, I have the opportunity to buy the plural of an exact domain name in a niche I am interested. I would like to know if it helps to rank on the singular version of the keyword. To illustrate, is the domain cars.com good to rank for the word car? Or online datings for online dating? Thanks a lot.
Keyword Research | | EndeR-0 -
Google Keyword Tool
Hello, Is the Google Keyword Tool the only reliable source for stats on keyword search volume on Google? The tool returns "no data" results for keywords I would expect to have some, if not much, search volume. I would like to cross-check these results, if possible. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | nyc-seo0 -
Website no.1 on Google for keyword but why?
Hi Guys, I'm trying to figure out why a site is ranking for a keyword. Keyword is "guitar strings" They have only implemented the following techniques: -Chosen keyword is within Meta title -Chosen keyword is used 8 times within content What else would make them rank so highly? Thanks, Dan
Keyword Research | | Sparkstone0 -
How can I find a page ranking?
On the ranking page Seo Moz displays words/pages in the top 50. How can you find where that word/page is ranked if it's below 50 and say up to 200?
Keyword Research | | lindsayjhopkins0 -
Why are my keywords not being crawled
In my google web tools. the keywords that are about my site are not being crawled. I have them in my Meta descriptions and keyword meta, but still arne't showing in significant keyword list for google.
Keyword Research | | TheGroom0