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    1. Home
    2. Moz Tools
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    5. Spam links and Domain Authority

    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.

    Spam links and Domain Authority

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    • BobAnderson
      BobAnderson Subscriber last edited by

      I have a site that I know was Domain Authority 35 but now Domain Authority 25 after someone sent a load of spam links to it, how can this be correct and how can I change it?

      Is it worth doing a disavow and will moz take that into account?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • samantha.chapman
        samantha.chapman Staff last edited by

        Hi there,

        Sam from Moz's Help Team here - thanks so much for reaching out!

        So, a couple of things - when you disavow a link through Google, it doesn't actually remove the link, Google just stops putting SEO weight into it. So our crawler will still find the link. Unfortunately there isn't a way in Link Explorer to "disavow" a link yet so we will still show it.

        Disavowing a link doesn't take it away from our tools, so they will still appear as backlinks to your site. The fact that Google disregards them in relation to your site does not take them off the sites they are on, so best practice is to approach the webmaster first and request the link be removed. If you get no response then disavow with Google:).

        I also want to note a couple of things about your DA drop in general - overall, seeing your DA drop is a fairly common problem and can be attributed to a few things:

        1.Links we previously discovered are now marked as lost.
        2. You've earned more links, but the highest authority sites have grown their link profile even more.
        3. The links you've earned are from sites that we haven't seen correlate well with higher Google rankings.
        4. We've done a better or worse job crawling sites/pages that have links to you (or don't).

        It's a bit difficult to isolate the exact cause of what happened without your own SEO consultant or developer being able to take a dive into this, but you can definitely read more specific information here if you'd like to understand more about the process:).

        Something else to note is that on March 5th, we rolled out an entirely new DA calculation method, which affected the DA of many sites. You can read more about this update here https://moz.com/domain-authority-2.0.

        Do let us know if we can help with anything else!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • BobAnderson
          BobAnderson Subscriber last edited by

          But does Moz take this into account and Google say here there is no need?

          https://www.searchenginejournal.com/gary-illyes-google-penguin-negative-seo-disavows/296609/

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Xiano
            Xiano Subscriber last edited by

            Moz won't take it into account as, when you use the disavow tool, you send the file directly to Google, so Moz will have no visibility.

            Your DA has no direct impact on your ranking, so if you've disavowed the links, I would simply make a note of it and carry on about your business.

            In all fairness, Google is pretty good at ignoring that kind of thing now, so unless you've had a manual action (or it was very recent and you're anticipating one) it may not be worth the effort of creating and uploading a disavow file.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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              Hey Moz Community, Link Explorer is now open to the public! Everyone can access it via a subscription or a free Moz ‘Community’ account. As you may know by now, the brand-new Link Explorer tool is primed to replace Open Site Explorer as Moz’s link building and analysis tool. The Link Explorer project is the result of an incredible amount of perseverance and hard work by the team, and we’re proud to be able to finally share it with you — we know it’s going to revolutionize how you approach link building and make your job easier. You can read more about the tool here in Sarah Bird’s announcement post. Because Link Explorer improves on almost every aspect of Open Site Explorer, the metrics have improved, too. That means you’re likely going to see some Domain Authority and Page Authority discrepancies between OSE’s index and Link Explorer’s index. We definitely suggest you use the new DA/PA from Link Explorer, as they’re more accurate and refresh daily rather than monthly, as was the case with OSE’s index. However, we also realize that many of you use these metrics to report to your clients and colleagues, and a sudden change or fluctuation could potentially make your job harder. Which DA is the real DA? The new DA is based on a much larger index that has many improvements, several of which are designed to make the index more like Google’s than ever before. You should consider moving towards the new DA (and the old DA won’t be updated after April 26th 2018, so the sooner the better). While there will be fluctuations as we improve the model and add features to the index, we expect it to remain largely stable and to be a far more accurate picture of a site’s authority according to how it’s seen by Google. Why is Link Explorer’s DA/PA considered better than OSE’s, and which should I trust? The larger link index with improved crawl selection allows us to produce a stronger model that includes a much larger proportion of the web. That being said, DA and PA should always be considered in the context of your competitors. A drop in PA or DA relative to the old OSE is of little concern if your competitors saw similar movement. Is Domain Authority/Page Authority an absolute score or a relative one? Both DA and PA are relative to the Internet as a whole. If Facebook acquired a billion new links, everyone’s PA and DA would drop relative to Facebook. Because of this, it’s always best to look at PA and DA in comparison to your competitors. What does a drop/raise in DA mean in Link Explorer vs OSE? How can I explain this to my clients when I’m reporting it? DA and PA should always be considered in the context of your competitors. A drop or raise in PA or DA relative to the old OSE is of little concern if your competitors saw similar movement. Reporting that your site has moved from a DA of 45 to a DA of 42 doesn’t tell the whole story, but reporting that your site has a DA of 42 while your main competitor moved from a 43 to a 37 shows that, relative to the sites you’re competing against in the SERPs, your site has significantly more authority and ranking power. What’s happening to MozTrust and MozRank and why, and what should I replace those with? The improvements to our DA/PA and Spam Score metrics now now account for more important nuances in helping you determine one site’s ability to rank higher than another. Because they no longer correlate with Google’s ranking model as well as they used to, MozRank and MozTrust are being deprecated for better metrics. Users should rely on Page Authority, Domain Authority, and Spam Score to determine the importance and quality of pages, domains, and links. I have historical data I use to help my clients benchmark their progress. What do I do now that DA is calculated differently? You should annotate any KPI changes referencing the change in DA and PA. However, most importantly, you should compare those changes to your competitors, as this will best show how strong your site’s authority is relative to the sites you’re competing against in the SERPs. We take updating our metrics very seriously, and our last major update to the model was 7 years ago. Users of Domain Authority and Page Authority can expect us to continue to produce steady, reliable metrics for the long haul, and only make changes to these metrics when we believe the benefits dramatically outweigh the stability of the metric. Do you have any questions about the new metrics? Anticipating a tough time reporting changes to clients or bosses? Metrics, features or functionality missing that you would want to see? Let us know in the thread, and we’ll work to find a good answer for you. Hope you enjoy the new Link Explorer product and the amazing new link index powering it. We are very excited to provide this valuable data to our community and customers.

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