Domain Authority (DA) is also known as website authority in online marketing. This article explains what this value is all about. It also contains valuable measures that can contribute to a better DA.
What is Domain Authority?
The Domain Authority provides information about the importance of a website within its subject area. It has a value between one and 100, where 100 expresses the optimal value.
It is true that the stronger the authority of a website, the better its ranking on the search results page. For this reason, DA is a significant key figure for search engine optimization in online marketing.
The US company MOZ is considered the developer of the evaluation criterion. It has always been based on its own algorithm, which calculates the Domain Authority in its own web analytics software.
Meanwhile, almost every tool in the field of SEO is able to express the relevance of a website as a number. Only the designation of the value differs depending on the software.
Known Factors Influencing Website Authority
The providers of the analysis tools are silent about the details of the DA calculation. Similar to Google’s ranking procedure, only a small part of the relevant criteria is known.
These include the following aspects:
- Number of links pointing to the website.
- Number of domains pointing to the website
- Quality of the links pointing to the website
According to this, the link profile of a website is crucial for its authority. For the classification, each tool uses its own criteria with different weighting.
Does Google include the website authority in the ranking?
According to Google, DA does not directly determine the ranking of a domain. Nevertheless, professional SEO agencies attach great importance to the value. What is behind it?
The explanation lies in the search engines’ efforts to always provide their users with even more precise, relevant search results. Websites with a good reputation get a front place.
Among other things, it is the quality of the backlinks and the seriousness of the linking pages that are included in the calculation of the DA. This means that the value enables a conclusion to be drawn about the trustworthiness of a page and increases the chance of a good ranking.
Domain authority is thus one of many important pieces of the puzzle in a holistic search engine optimization strategy.
Determine the authority of the domain and interpret it correctly
With the Authority Checker, MOZ offers a free tool to evaluate the authority of a website. Other providers, such as ahrefs, also offer free tools for checking domain authority. If the DA is low, the next step is to find the reasons for the poor result. This step is easier with a professional SEO agency like ONELINE at your side.
Important: A weak Website Authority is not necessarily a negative sign. For young domains, a low score is normal. For older websites, a score of at least 40 is considered beneficial.
It is also important to take a look at the competition. Even a Domain Authority of 35 can be good if the DA of competing websites is below that.
Three tips for a better Domain Authority
In MOZMetrics software alone, the DA calculation is based on about 40 factors. Other tools use a similar number of data points. Influencing them all positively is nearly impossible. A good starting point for strengthening website authority is to optimize the link profile and improve the quality of the content. The following three steps serve as a guide.
1. Generate high quality backlinks
Birds of a feather flock together – this motto is also followed by search engines. If trustworthy websites refer to a domain, its reputation also increases. Qualitative backlinks have a positive effect on the DA.
Checklist for incoming links:
- The linking domain is reputable.
- The linking domain ideally already has a strong DA.
- The backlinks come from several different domains.
- The links go back to a guest post or other allowed link building methods.
- The backlinks point to a page that should rank.
Before starting to build new backlinks, it is useful to have a look at the current referrals. The first step in DA optimization is to clean up the website’s link profile.
2. Technical and content search engine optimization
Technical search engine optimization is a key component of any mature online marketing strategy. In addition to page load time and responsiveness, high-quality content is crucial for strong domain authority.
Checklist for naturally increasing traffic:
- Text is readable and free of content-empty phrases.
- Content is written for human users, not search engines.
- The content complies with the basic rules of SEO, for example, regarding the use of keywords.
- The content gives visitors the information they are looking for.
- Longer texts are enriched with quotable content, such as infographics or statistics.
Target group relevant content with added value encourages other website owners to place a link to the content on their page. This increases the number of incoming links as well as the number of visitors in an organic way.
3. Check website for spam
The evaluating algorithms are able to detect unnatural links. A domain with an inferior link profile will score a low DA value. In addition to the previous two measures, it is important to avoid spam tactics. Buying links or exchanging them in high volume is taboo in terms of strong website authority.
Improving DA requires patience and conscientiousness.
If a website has a high Domain Authority, this is an indication of its importance within its subject area. The probability that the search engines will classify it as trustworthy and display it high up in the search results is correspondingly high.
Determining the authority of one’s own website is easy. But: Successfully improving the DA requires specific know-how and ongoing success monitoring. Professional support in DA optimization and other measures from the field of SEO is offered by the online marketing agency ONELINE.
