Domain authority plays an important role in gauging your website's overall quality and influence within your industry. Authoritative sites are seen as dependable sources of information in their niche — both by search engines and site visitors.
That said, achieving high domain authority paves the way towards thought leadership and dominating the search results.
In this post, I'll walk you through everything you need to about this metric — from what it is and what it isn't, to the factors that influence it, and of course, how to increase site authority yourself.
What you will learn
- What website domain authority is and how it's calculated.
- The factors that contribute to your site's authority score.
- How to increase domain authority in five steps.
- A few tools that help analyze domain authority.
What is domain authority?
Domain authority (DA) is an SEO metric that quantifies a website's reputation and credibility. Search engines consider authoritative websites to be well-established, trustworthy sources of information within their niche.
Sites with high domain authority naturally rank higher in search results than others that might follow similar SEO best practices but have lower domain authority scores.
Note: Domain authority is not a direct ranking factor — it's more of a measurement that indicates how a particular website would rank in relation to its competitors in search engine results.
Domain authority vs. website authority
Both terms have the exact same meaning. "Domain Authority" is a trademarked label popularized by Moz after releasing its Domain Authority Checker.
You can see that the below website's domain authority score is 40.
Other SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush released their own DA checkers soon after. Since "Domain Authority" was trademarked, these companies had to use other terms.
However, the term Page Authority (PA), actually differs from DA.
Although it follows the same principle, DA scores your entire website's ranking authority, whereas page authority measures specific web pages — or groups of web pages.
How is domain authority calculated?
Domain authority is calculated on a scale from 1 to 100 based on numerous factors that signal your website's quality and trustworthiness compared to your competitors — the higher the score, the more likely it is to outrank your competitors.
Improving your domain authority score gets gradually harder as you move up the scale.
For example, a 10-point growth on the 20-30 scale is much quicker than the same score increase on the 70-80 scale — there's less and less room for improvement as your DA score increases.
For example, Dior's website has a DA of 84.
As a small fashion store owner, it's pretty obvious you can't compete with Dior, for instance. But you'd stand a much better chance against smaller fashion chains like Vestique.
Getting as close as possible to a 100 DA score shouldn't be your top priority — you should instead aim to exceed your main competitors and industry averages.
Although DA scores aren't direct ranking factors, the elements that influence them are. So, let's examine the key factors that directly contribute to domain authority scores.
The number of referring domains
Referring domains (or linking domains) are external websites that hyperlink to your pages from their content using backlinks.
Without these, you may be left questioning your
More referring domains tell search engines that your content is high quality and that you deserve recognition within your niche.
However, it's important to prioritize the quality of referring domains over the number of backlinks.
For example, backlinks from a few relevant websites are better than 100 backlinks from random websites.
Important note: Dofollow backlinks contribute to your website's domain authority score. Dofollow links help pass link equity (link juice) — authority that can transfer from one website to another via the backlink.
Search engines give less weight to backlinks with special rel HTML attributes, like rel="nofollow," rel="UGC," and rel="sponsored."
These attributes mark user-generated content, paid posts or advertisements, and other links that shouldn't be associated directly with your website.
The authority of linking domains
The domain authority scores of the websites linking back to you are also a major factor.
Backlinks from high-DA websites will pass more domain authority back to you than those from sites with lower DA scores.
Backlinks are a direct ranking factor, so the more reputable sites you associate with, the more valuable you'll appear in Google's eyes.
Your domain authority score will be higher if you have a backlink from a trusted site like CNN, whereas backlinks from spammy or low-quality websites will be ignored and not contribute to your website's domain authority.
It's also worth noting that your backlink's value increases as long as the linking website improves its DA score.
Anchor text relevance
Anchor texts refer to hyperlinked text fragments that lead back to your website. They must be contextual and make sense with the rest of the content surrounding them.
Anchor text relevance may not be a factor when calculating domain authority, but is a good practice to improve your site's relevance to search engines.
Backlinks with anchor text irrelevant to a page's contents or disrupting a sentence's natural flow may be considered spam.
Well-implemented anchor texts also help search engines understand the linked page's content, allowing them to index and rank the page accordingly.
For example, generic anchor texts like "Read the article" or "Click here" don't tell search engines anything about the pages they link to.
Instead, optimize your anchor text with keywords relevant to the pages they link to.
5 ways to increase your website’s domain authority fast
A good domain authority score will mostly come by itself if you create genuinely helpful content. Still, there are a few ways to speed up the process.
So, let's go through five tips that will help you increase domain authority fast.
1. Create linkable content
As I just showed, most factors that influence your website authority deal with backlinks.
That said, one of the fastest ways to increase domain authority is through high-quality content that attracts natural backlinks on its own — content that's highly sharable or nudges other creators to reference it in their posts.
This Search Engine Journal blog post is an excellent example:
This research report discusses how Google ranks content based on the algorithm changes following the last few core updates.
It's packed with thorough data, original insights, graphs, and genuinely helpful advice — it's a backlink magnet.
Case in point, the blog post has 95 shares, 60 backlinks, and 47 referring domains.
In other words, prioritize in-depth content that includes original conclusions based on your research.
The more thorough and original your content is, the more likely other creators will reference it in their work.
Other content formats also tend to attract high-quality backlinks naturally.
More specifically,
Statistic compilations
Compiling a list of multiple statistics relevant to your industry under a single web page makes it super convenient for other content creators to pick a specific stat and link back to you.
Case studies
They gather original data and statistics through surveys or analytics — unique data that can be shared by readers.
Case studies are also ideal for demonstrating how you solved a particular pain point — great for establishing trust and thought leadership.
Infographics
Their visual format makes infographics highly sharable — readers can easily distribute them across social media or embed them onto their own web pages.
Free tools
Particularly handy if you're a SaaS company. A simple, but free tool (e.g., Moz DA Checker or Surfer AI Humanizer) is guaranteed to spread around the Internet.
2. Partner with high-quality websites
High-quality backlinks on major websites can help appeal to new audiences and establish yourself as a thought leader within your industry.
You will have significantly more influence on potential customers if they see you featured in respected publications.
For example, ACI Worldwide — a payment system provider — has an article published on Forbes:
That's huge, especially considering that Forbes' domain authority score is 94.
You can find potential partnerships via the classic search bar method — simply type in [your niche] + blog and see what pops up.
Link-building practices like guest blogging involve pitching ideas to potential partners.
It's best to customize your pitch to each specific website. For example, bring up one of their blog posts in the discussion and mention how your expertise can provide value to their particular audience.
Besides guest posting, here are a few other quick link-building strategies that help boost website domain authority:
Broken link building
Identify broken links leading back to old pages on your site and ask website owners to re-link to working pages.
This process also works for broken links leading to your competitors and replacing them with your own.
Content syndication
This process re-publishes your existing content on other third-party websites or platforms, which is great for maximizing your content reach.
Help a Reporter Out
Although HARO is gone, new HARO alternative platforms can help you reach reporters and journalists seeking information on specific topics.
You can share industry-related insights and potentially attract reputable websites, to improve your backlink profile.
3. Optimize on-page elements
On-page SEO tactics help search crawlers understand your content's purpose and match it to your audience's queries in search results — it's a critical aspect of search engine optimization.
Type in your seed keyword and leverage Google's People Also Search For, People Also Ask, and Related Searches features to identify topics of interest to your audience.
For example, here's what pops up if I type in Matcha tea in the search bar.
Most related searches focus on benefits and side effects — blog posts covering these specific topics would be a good idea.
Also, make sure to implement your target keywords in your meta-titles and descriptions, URL structure, and headings and sub-headings.
But don't go overboard with it.
Here's a how-not-to example:
This particular URL targets way too many keywords at once. This can confuse search engines because they won't know what search terms to rank the content for.
Simply sticking to /blogs/how-to-gain-muscle-at-home would've been more than enough.
This particular phrase is specific yet highly sought-after by users.
4. Link internally
Internal links connect your website's pages to each other via hyperlinks.
A solid internal linking strategy helps visitors and search engines discover other relevant pages on your website. That means better indexing and more time spent on the site.
They also pass page authority through your website which can help improve your overall domain rating.
For example, your homepage likely has the highest page authority score on your website, so linking to important pages from here helps transfer authority from your homepage to other website pages.
Establishing an internal link structure can be as simple as including hyperlinks in your content that lead to other closely related pages — just like what Pinch of Yum does here:
This blog post presents a vegan jackfruit sandwich recipe. At the bottom, Pich of Yum links to other vegan sandwich recipes.
You can also go more in-depth using topic clusters. These are groups of pages that discuss the details of a specific subject.
Topic clusters include the following pages:
- Pillar page: A web page that presents a high-level overview of a specific subject and its subtopics.
- Cluster pages: A series of web pages — each covering a subtopic in detail.
- Internal links: Links that connect the pillar page to the cluster pages, and vice-versa.
Topic clusters provide comprehensive coverage on specific subjects, improving domain authority and establishing topical authority within your niche.
Surfer's Topical Map can help you generate article ideas for different topic clusters on your website.
The Pinch of Yum example I just showed is actually part of a topic cluster. This particular pillar page is dedicated to vegan food.
It links to all sorts of vegan-based recipes.
Pinch of Yum includes a pillar page for each recipe category — from gluten-free to sugar-free, and so on.
5. Improve the user experience
The browsing experience also plays an important role in your site's domain authority score.
Mobile optimization is one key factor to consider. Mobile devices account for over 50% of all web traffic, and Google uses mobile-first indexing to rank websites.
They prioritize your site's mobile content when ranking pages in search results.
That said, you must ensure your website provides seamless mobile browsing experiences to attract more visitors and keep them on your site.
A responsive layout and quick page loading speeds can help improve domain authority.
Your loading speed can significantly impact bounce rates and dwell times. Ideally, your web pages should load in under four seconds.
Oberlo, for example, loads in just under half a second:
You can use Google's PageSpeed Insights to test your loading speeds and see whether it's in the norm.
Here are a few page speed optimization best practices:
Compress images
Visuals are among the heaviest hitters in terms of loading speed. Always compress images with tools like Compressor. io before uploading them to your website.
JPEG files are also highly recommended, as they lose the most weight during compression.
Enable lazy loading
Lazy loading delays rendering any below-the-fold visuals until they're needed — it reduces initial load times.
Minify CSS/HTML code
HTML/CSS minifiers remove any unnecessary codes that might impact loading speeds.
How to check your website’s domain authority?
Here are a few free SEO tools that let you check your website's authority score:
Moz
Moz offers a free domain analysis tool that lets you check up to three domains (or pages) per day.
This limitation is lifted in the platform's paid tool, Moz Pro, which also includes many other tools, such as keyword and competitive analysis.
Moz Bar is also a free browser extension that offers domain analysis, on-page SEO suggestions, and more.
Semrush
Semrush's Domain Overview tool offers detailed reports about your domain's performance. Authority scores, the number of backlinks and linking root domains, paid and organic traffic analytics, and website engagement metrics are a few insights you can extract.
Paid plans include additional features, like the option to compare multiple domains side by side and domain growth reports.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs lets you run domain authority and backlink (broken links included) checks for free. The free website authority checker reveals high-level metrics like your DA score, total backlinks and their root domains.
In the platform's paid packages, you can access extra metrics, including your most valuable backlinks, along with dedicated keyword research, competitor analysis, and rank-tracking tools.
Key takeaways
- Domain authority is not a direct ranking factor but it gives you a general idea of how your website would rank compared to your competitors.
- Having a well-thought-through link-building strategy is key to increasing domain authority. Prioritize high-quality links from relevant websites via in-depth content and other tactics, like guest posting.
- Internal linking helps pass down page authority throughout your website. Consider topic clusters to demonstrate your subject-matter expertise and establish topical authority.
- On-page and user experience optimization best practices help maximize and consolidate your domain's authority.
