If you’ve built a website and are trying to get noticed, you’ve likely heard about Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) metric. In simple terms, it’s a score that estimates how strong your website’s domain is in the eyes of search engines.
In this article you’ll learn how DA works, what drives it, key benchmarks, and effective ways to increase your DA—so you can boost your organic visibility and ranking potential.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority is a proprietary metric developed by Moz to predict how likely a website is to rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). It uses a 0-100 scale, where higher scores indicate greater ranking potential.
While DA doesn’t directly influence Google’s algorithm, it reflects many of the same signals that do. It gives you a comparative gauge of your site’s strength versus competitors.
How Domain Authority is Calculated
Although the exact algorithm is secret, Moz discloses some key inputs: linking root domains (the number of unique domains linking to you), total inbound links, and factors like site age, trustworthiness, and content quality.
Because the scale is logarithmic, moving from a DA of 20 to 30 is far easier than jumping from 70 to 80. Also, DA can fluctuate even without changes to your site, due to Moz algorithm updates or shifts in competitor link profiles.
Why Domain Authority Matters
Seeing your DA rise gives you a clearer sense of your site’s SEO health. Sites with higher DA tend to rank more often and receive more organic traffic. That said, DA is best used as a trend metric rather than an absolute goal—it works best when you compare your domain to direct competitors in your niche.
What Counts as a “Good” Domain Authority?
A “good” DA depends on your niche and competition. Generally speaking:
- DA below 20: low; you’ll face more struggle to outrank competitors.
- DA around 30-50: average for many smaller or mid-sized sites.
- DA above 60: strong domain authority in most niches.
However, your aim should be higher than your immediate competitors, not just hitting a generic number.
Core Factors That Influence Domain Authority
Here are key areas that affect your DA and thus should be addressed.
- Backlink Profile Quality & Quantity
High-quality links from authoritative, relevant domains weigh heavily. Low-quality or spammy links drag you down. Diversity of linking domains and contextual relevance matter more than sheer quantity. - Content Quality & Relevance
Valuable, original, engaging content attracts links, shares, and repeat visitors—those are positive signals. If your site offers content people care about and link to, your DA stands to benefit. - Technical SEO & User Experience
Site structure, mobile responsiveness, page speed, secure HTTPS, crawlability—all contribute. Search engines reward domains that are easy to navigate, fast, and well built. - Internal Linking & Site Architecture
Strategic internal linking helps distribute “link-juice” across pages, keeps visitors engaged, and improves crawlability. A clear architecture supports both users and bots. - Regular Maintenance & Link Hygiene
Spammy links, broken links, duplicate content, or outdated pages can hurt your profile. Auditing your site and removing or disavowing harmful links is part of maintaining domain health.
Steps to Understand Your Current DA Situation
Before you ramp up improvement efforts, you’ll want to do a brief audit:
- Check your current DA via Moz’s Link Explorer or other tools.
- Check the number of linking root domains and other backlink metrics.
- Compare your DA and backlink profile to 2-3 competing domains in your niche.
- Assess your site’s technical health: mobile-friendly, loading time under ~4 seconds, SSL enabled.
- Review your content: when was the last major update? Are there linkable assets (guides, infographics, research)?
How to Increase Your Domain Authority
Here’s a practical roadmap that reflects decades of observing what works.
Step 1 – Build High-Quality Backlinks
- Guest post on credible sites in your niche.
- Create link-worthy assets: in-depth guides, original data, infographics.
- Use broken-link building: find broken links on other sites, pitch your content as a replacement.
- Avoid buying large volumes of links or engaging in link-exchange schemes—they risk harm more than help.
Step 2 – Create Consistently Valuable, Engaging Content
- Publish posts that your audience finds genuinely helpful.
- Keep content fresh and up to date—refresh older posts rather than just leaving them to gather dust.
- Use a mix of formats (long-form articles, videos, visuals) to appeal to different users and encourage sharing/links.
Step 3 – Optimize Technical & On-Page SEO
- Ensure fast load times: compress images, enable caching, streamline scripts.
- Use responsive design—over 60% of traffic in many niches comes via mobile.
- Use meaningful URLs, title tags, meta descriptions, structured headings, alt text for images.
- Make your site crawl-friendly: use XML sitemap, robots.txt properly, canonical tags, fix broken links.
Step 4 – Strengthen Internal Linking & Site Structure
- Use relevant anchor text to link between related pages, guiding users (and search bots) deeper into your site.
- Make sure your navigation is clean and logical—users shouldn’t struggle to find key content.
- Regularly highlight high-value pages (link to them from your homepage or key category pages) so they receive internal link equity.
Step 5 – Maintain Link Hygiene and Monitor Progress
- Use tools (Moz, Ahrefs, SEMrush) to audit your backlink profile periodically.
- Identify spammy or low-quality linking domains: if necessary ask for removal or use disavow tools.
- Track DA (or similar metrics) over time—but remember it lags actual changes.
- Focus on site-health metrics like bounce rate, dwell time, returning visitors—because as those improve, so do indirect signals.
Step 6 – Patience and Realistic Expectations
Increasing your DA takes time. You’ll rarely see big jumps overnight. Especially once you’re beyond 50-60 DA, gains slow down because the scale is logarithmic. Focus on consistent progress rather than chasing quick fixes.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Treating DA like a magic number rather than a comparative metric.
- Buying tons of links or using low-quality networks: these can cause penalties or drop your score.
- Focusing entirely on DA without improving content, technical SEO, user experience.
- Ignoring competitor benchmarking: what counts is relative strength in your niche.
- Thinking you’ll improve DA in days. You won’t. It takes months of sustained work.
How to Set Up a DA-Focused Strategy
Here’s a small checklist to guide your monthly workflow:
- Audit backlink profile and disavow any clearly harmful links.
- Identify 1-2 link-worthy content ideas and publish them.
- Reach out to 5-10 high-authority domains for guest posts or collaborations.
- Review site speed and mobile performance: aim for load under ~4s.
- Update and repurpose at least one older post this month.
- Build internal links to your new assets and from the homepage/category pages.
- Re-check your DA and linking root domains for changes; compare vs competitor domains.
When Your DA Increases—What Then?
When you start seeing upward movement (for example from DA 35 to DA 42 over a few months), you’ll likely see positive side-effects: better rankings, more organic traffic, more referral links. That’s when you can start scaling up efforts—publishing more heavily, expanding into adjacent topic areas, building more authority around your brand.
Final Thoughts
Improving your Moz Domain Authority isn’t about chasing a number—it’s about strengthening the foundation of your website. High-quality content, strong backlink profiles, technical excellence, and a great user experience all contribute.
You’ll find that as your DA improves, so does your visibility and credibility online. Keep your focus on consistent, high-value work and let the metric track the progress.