How Does Moz Assign Domain Authority?
-
When I use Site Explorer to test the following URL, http://jennathuening.results.net/site/index.php, it renders a domain authority of 47. (Clients site on real estate host)
- There are no page social metrics:
no Facebook share
no Facebook likes
no Twitter tweets
no Google+ plus 1's
no "just discovered" in 60 days
no one has made a post in 3 weeks
much or most of the content is duplicate content across all affiliate sites
inbound links - only one link - a 301 redirect http://jennathuening.results.net/
Images - 18 (Alt tags missing: 18)
Created - 1998-10-15
Registered Org - REMAX RESULTS is associated with ~416 other domains
Whois SEO Score 68%
AND YET IT HAS A ROOT DOMAIN OF "47" and page authority of 33
More confusing, its page authority of 33 is at that top on blue background and then page 30 just listed below.
When I use Site Explorer to test the following URL, http://www.homedestination.com, it renders a domain authority of 26. (Site personally owned and continually update with highly optimized fresh, relevant, quality content with grade "A" moz ranked pages and blog posts)
92 Facebook share
68 Facebook likes
13 Twitter tweets
420 Google+ plus 1's
2 "just discovered" in 60 days
Images 25 (Alt tags missing: 0)
inbound links - on 48 Root Domains
Created - 2002-08-15
9 new indexed blog post so far in August / 19 new indexed blog post in July
Whois SEO Score 100%
AND YET IT HAS A ROOT DOMAIN OF "26" and page authority of 36
While I am sure there are many other factors as well; it still is hard to see where a "smaller guy" could ever be given an even opportunity to play in the same SEO arena. Could you help me understand better? I like to build a stronger marketing and optimization strategy as we are just beginning AdWord campaigns.
| SEO Score | 100% |
-
I am ramping up the Local Search, using Moz's paid Local Search and will see what happens. Thank you both for your responses.
-
DA and PA are numbers that help you see how you're doing relative to competitors, and they can change with each update, depending on our index. They are something interesting to look at and can give you a rough idea of how you're doing, but they are numbers that Moz developed, based on our crawls. The search engines don't use our metrics, as they have a much bigger dataset, more statisticians than we have employees, and many more factors they take into account. EGOL does have a good approach here.
-
Again, thanks for the insightful comment, EGOL.
Can anyone from MOZ help me better understand my question and the example provided?
Thanks advance if you can take the time and offer help.
-
For real estate you must get really good at Local SEO. And when you do local SEO then, in my opinion, DA and PA have even less importance.
If I was going into local SEO, I would hire a local SEO consultant to get me started in the right direction. Local real estate rankings can be highly competitive in large cities and in smaller communities where major players or really smart people have a presence.
Knowing how to win is the first step.
-
EGOL,
You highlight a chief concern of mine: this real estate client is dynamite. Yet, did I "pick the right niche" in trying to help her? Here her unattended, disregarded for typical SEO features, etc, site on the super star parent company is given more credence, that tremendous effort on her personal web site has.
What organic SEO practices can ever nudge Google's ranking needle when in the same niche as brand giants that spend mega amounts on paid search?
-
Here is all I can say.
I run small publishing and niche ecommerce biz with three full time people (counting me); help from a couple smart consultants for technical work and SEO; two people working very part time on admin stuff; and occasional help from freelancers for artwork or programming.
The small guy can survive if he has expertise in a business niche, can present ideas well on the web and has the ability to get all of the technical details right or hire someone to get them done right. But you gotta work hard, pick the right niche, and have a nose for what people want, need or don't realize what they want or need. All of those stars must come together to make the constellation.
-
In my opinion, DA and PA, because they correlate with the observed ranking ability of a page or a domain, can be used as a general measure of a site's ability to rank.
You can use that to monitor the progress of your site over time or to compare your site with other sites in a very general way.
I don't use them.
If I want to know how I stack up with another domain I check Google's rankings. And, if I want to compete for a keyword or a set of keywords that cover a product or an industry, I just jump in. I am not going to allow a third party metric to encourage me or scare me off.
Being honest, I am confused about why moz publishes these numbers and provides very little guidance on how they can be used for practical purposes. DA and PA are in my opinion, the most frequent topic of angst in Q&A.
People spend so much time trying to understand why they have a higher DA then the guy who ranks above them when the answer is... DA and PA have nothing to do with your google rankings... get to work improving your website... that will impact your "rankings and bankings".
-
Why do you thing MOZ puts an emphasis on it if DA & PA have no merit or influence?
-
Hi Egol,
Yes, I have heard this comment often too. The point being, how can a "smaller guy" could ever be given an even opportunity to play in the same SEO arena?
-
lol "ranking or banking"... nice.
-
I agree. Just like page rank, the DA & PA don't have any influence on ranking or banking
-
AND YET IT HAS A ROOT DOMAIN OF "26" and page authority of 36
Why are you so worried about domain authority and page authority?
They don't influence the ranking of your site in google or produce income.
What, beyond these numbers are you trying to achieve?
-
Thanks for the response SilverDoor. I agree - those are three go-to-places to try learn more. I have combed them for some time, and yet, honestly, I am hoping to gain a more insights.
Especially as to establishing Domain Authority and Page Authority. What weight is given in my example above (to the simple fact that the site that has so much less going for it) to the simple aspect of being related to a nationally recognized brand.
This is fascinating: "Page Authority is a machine learning model inside our Mozscape index that predicts ranking ability from links and, at 0.39, it is the highest correlated factor in our study."
But how is Page Authority really measured? Again, if the example above were to be interpreted literally, then certainly fresh content, original content, and social metrics can't have much value. We put a tremendous amount of time into creating new blog posts, new optimized web content, pushing our content out, media news, social engagement, etc. and wonder what credence is really given it. We are picked up by Google News, Yahoo News, and various news aggregators weekly, our number of indexed pages in Google continues upward, and yet our Moz trust score is going down.
Baffled.
-
Hi,
Unfortunately, nobody will be able to tell you exactly how Moz calculate their PA and DA. These are algorithmic and intentionally kept secret.
However, there are several sources on their site that can at least provide some insight into the things they may be using
- What is Domain Authority?
- What is Page Authority?
- Search Engine Ranking Factors (This will probably give you the most insight into elements they take into consideration within their algorithm.
Sorry there's not a more specific answer to your question.
Hope you find this useful.
SilverDoor
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
-
Moz DA is not improving my site DA why?
Hello Moz community, I have created a lot of high domain authority backlinks for my official service website but my DA still less than 15, why my site DA does not increase as I have created huge backlinks.
Link Explorer | | Ijiubu7680 -
MOZ link explorer is not showing any result
Whenever I am searching in link explore, it is only showing the blanks with default zero value. It was showing data for my website 1 hour ago but now not showing. SYphSNw
Link Explorer | | gb.select4you3 -
If I migrate to a new domain, does my Domain Authority score get migrated also?
For business reasons, I migrated my domain with a DA score of 85 to a new domain. After some time, the DA score on the new domain is only 45. My migration plan and redirects went smooth and all redirected with best practices in mind. I am still ranking well for almost all of the keywords where I've 301 redirected old URL to new. Any feedback welcome!
Link Explorer | | KenSchaefer1 -
How to index backlinks in moz?
hello my website has some backlinks from high authority website that has been indexed by google but moz is not indexing my backlinks and also my pages so what should i do?
Link Explorer | | yuewiioweiwjksa38320 -
Can't make sense of OSE and MOZ.
I checked this site on my OSE and it shows only 7 inbound links a DA of 14 and no social activity whatsoever yet when I check it on Majestic it shows ExternalBacklinks 71 ReferringDomains 20 Referring IPs 19 Referring Subnets 19 . And.. the page is #1 on google search for hypnotherapy michigan. How can it rate so poorly on MOZ, show so much more on majestic and rank so high on google? I thought MOZ data was supposed to be among the best and that top rated pages on google should also rate high on MOZ. here is the site http://hypnotherapy-detroit.com Additionally, when i look at the site, i notice that most of the backlinks are exchanged links and this site's link exchange page isn't even linked from the home page. Now I thought that kind of link exchange game was now discounted by Google. I don't get it. No social pages at all... low page rank... no new content.. so by MOZ standards there is no justification for this page to be anywhere near page one let alone at position #1. Can someone help me make sense of all this?
Link Explorer | | HypnoPro0 -
Learn how to use Moz's Link Intersect tool to build your link profile. Get your Daily SEO Fix!
The quantity and (more importantly) quality of backlinks to your website make up your link profile; one of the most important elements in SEO and an incredibly important factor in search engine rankings. In today's Daily SEO Fix, How to Use Link Intersect to Build Your Link Profile, Tori shows you how to use Moz's Link Intersect tool to analyze the competitions' backlinks plus, find opportunities to build links and strengthen your own link profile. This video is one of our last videos in The Moz Daily SEO Fix tutorial series--Moz tool tips and tricks in under 2 minutes. To watch all of our videos so far, make sure to visit the Daily SEO Fix channel on YouTube. And, if you have suggestions for future tutorials, please let us know via the comments below. Thanks!
Link Explorer | | kellyjcoop2 -
Why is Moz not crawling my backlinks
Hi my website www.dealwithautism.com is 3 months old and has been on DA 1 and PA1 ever since, even though the site is actively developed with quality content (a couple of posts already have 1k+ fb likes acquired editorially, while that doesnt necessarily improve SERP, it sure tells you that the post is engaging). In contrast another site of mine, www.deckmymac.com which is hardly ever managed, not have more than 15 posts and just 1 backlink, has DA 14. Running an on page analysis on www.dealwithautism.com I observed that Moz has not identified any backlinks nor social signals (except G+). However, according to Webmasters, I have 57 links, 51 of them to the root. Even Majestic is able to report 32+ backlinks. So what am I missing? Certainly, at this stage my website doesn't deserve DA 1, or does it?
Link Explorer | | DealWithAutism0 -
Why doesn't my site show up in Moz Site Explorer
I started this website about 2 months ago, www.guyetteroofing.com. I know it still needs a lot of work, but I can't find any information on it on the site explorer tool.
Link Explorer | | billyguyette1