As of the year 2024, E-E-A-T has been considered in high priority, yet Domain authority is still considered as one of the most important metrics for your SEO journey, but the problem is it is still not well understood. The research by Backlinko shows that the stats of appearing pages in the top 5 positions increase by 70% for the sites with domain authority higher than 60 as compared to those with scores of less than 30. Such a significant difference clearly shows the great extent of SEO benefits that can be derived from increasing your domain and page authority. In this Blog Post, I will detail actionable tips to ethically increase your website’s DA and PA for higher SEO rankings.
What is Domain Authority and How to Increase It?
If you are thinking, having a high domain authority means increased organic search traffic, higher rankings for important keywords, more trust and credibility for your brand, and a greater ability to rank new pages and content. Surprisingly, it is not correct in all cases! As Google’s John Mueller clearly says, google doesn’t have any such metric.
In 2024 March update, I have seen websites like Mashable or Forbes that have a domain authority over 90 is going to significantly outrank a new blog that has a domain authority of just 15 or 20, even though they have provided good E-E-A-T signal.
This authority and trust that is conveyed through backlinks and site longevity gives some websites huge advantages when it comes to organic search performance and traffic.
How SEO Tools Like Moz, Ahrefs, Semrush, and Others Calculate Your Domain Authority
There are a few different tools that can calculate a website’s domain authority:
- Moz – The original domain authority metric that scores on a 1-100 scale.
- Ahrefs – Uses a 0-100 scale for domain rating.
- Semanticrush – Scores domain authority on a 1-99 scale.
To check your website’s domain authority, simply enter your URL into one of these tools. Moz’s domain authority is generally seen as the standard, with scores above 60 considered high.
Most common websites have a domain authority score under 50. If your website’s domain authority is below 30, most SEOs says it is struggle to rank against more authoritative competitors. But these days where Google’s priority most on E-E-A-T, this type of matric doesn’t stand well.
In 2024, a low DA 10 website can outrank a DA 90, if the website has good E-E-A-T and Topical authority.
In Google SERP, you can find highly competitive keywords, most website DA is above 60 So, still, DA matters. For context, some sample domain authority scores include:
In the above screenshot, you can see that a low DA site is ranking higher than a high DA website in the SERP for the keyword “Best E Bike under £1000”, just because the low DA site has followed E-A-A-T guidelines & topical authority.
- Wikipedia – 99
- YouTube – 96
- Amazon – 96
- New York Times – 94
- Forbes – 92
- WebMD – 89
As you can see, top sites that dominate search results tend to have very high domain authority scores. The stronger your domain authority, the greater your ability to rank for valuable keywords and drive more organic search traffic to your website.
What does Google’s John Mueller think about domain authority?
John Mueller has consistently maintained the statement that Google does not use domain authority in its search algorithms.
In 2019, Tim Soulo who is a Chief Marketing Officer and Product advisor at Ahrefs asked on Twitter about a site-wide metric like domain authority, Mueller stated “We don’t use domain authority. We generally try to have our metrics as granular as possible.”
Here is the screenshot below of the reply on Twitter by John Mueller
Again in 2019, when a user asked if a drop in search traffic was due to lower domain authority.
Mueller reiterated “We don’t use domain authority, that’s a metric from an SEO company.”
In 2020, in response to a question from a user on Twitter about whether backlinks from high domain authority sites matter, Mueller again emphasized “We don’t use domain authority at all in our algorithms.”
A few months later in 2020, when a user asked on Twitter about domain authority and crawl speed, Mueller tweeted “Google doesn’t use Domain Authority at all when it comes to Search crawling, indexing, or ranking.”
However, in a late 2020 interview, when asked if Google has a metric like domain authority, Mueller finally hinted that they do have some site-level metrics that may map to similar concepts. However, he did not confirm the use of domain authority itself.
Most recently in 2022 on Reddit, when asked how to increase a site’s domain authority, Mueller advised focusing on other metrics and quality content rather than domain authority, saying “Google doesn’t use it at all.” He suggested picking a low-competition topic, creating high-quality content, and earning genuine user signals rather than trying to directly increase domain authority.
So, while Mueller has consistently denied the use of domain authority specifically, he has hinted at the existence of internal site-level metrics that may serve a similar purpose.
However, he strongly suggested focusing on content quality and user experience rather than numeric metrics like domain authority. After years of denying its use, Mueller remains consistent that Google does not directly factor domain authority into its ranking algorithms.
Enhancing Page Authority for Better SEO Performance
As you have learned above domain authority looks at a website as a whole.
Let me tell you, the page authority term is introduced by MOZ, not by Google, page authority is a metric that scores the ranking ability of each page on a site.
Page authority helps determine where a specific page will rank in search engines against other pages targeting the same keyword.
Whereas domain authority considers the entire domain’s linking profile, page authority is influenced more by on-page optimization factors and the specific inbound links pointing just to that page.
The SEO community believes that higher page authority scores allow pages to rank higher and faster than pages with lower authority. Again, this statement does not fit well in all cases, as I said earlier in 2024 E-E-A-T and topical authority matters.
In Google SERP it has been observed that a score of 40 is considered strong, most highly competitive keywords webpages have PA on average 40. Still matter!
So, improving page authority should be a goal for any new or important website content you produce for people, not for search engine. The higher you can get your page authority for key targets, the better they may rank (if you follow E-E-A-T).
Utilizing Backlinks and Internal Links for Authority Building
The Role of Backlinks in Boosting Domain Authority
When reputable, niche-relevant high-authority sites link back to your website, they convey trust, and credibility and vote for your content, according to Backlinko.
This elevates your site’s domain authority.
How does Google see backlinks? It determines how important and authoritative a site is compared to competitors based on the quantity and quality of sites linking back to it. But John Mueller suggests not to focus on building a large amount of links, instead of producing awesome content for people not for search engines.
Removing the influence of backlinks would dramatically change search rankings.
Strategically Using Internal Links to Improve Page Authority
While backlinks are critical for domain authority, internal links are important for passing authority between pages within your site.
What does Google John Mueller think about the internal links?
Internal linking is also important for SEO according to Google’s John Mueller. He believes it’s one of the biggest things a website can do to guide search engines and visitors to important pages.
Internal links communicate more than structured data like breadcrumbs. Just having breadcrumb-structured data is not enough to replace internal links for SEO.
Mueller explained that internal links allow webmasters to highlight the content they feel is most important, whether that’s based on revenue, competitiveness, or other factors.
He said internal links can direct a site towards certain topics and pages. Structured data like breadcrumbs don’t accomplish this in the same way as internal HTML links between pages.
Internal links should be used strategically to highlight a site’s most important topics and content.
Mueller sees internal linking as an opportunity to go beyond basic site navigation. He recommends webmasters carefully consider what they care about most and use internal links to bring attention to those pages.
Simply having structured data is not a replacement for thoughtful internal linking as part of an SEO strategy.
How to Attract High-Quality Backlinks for Better Domain Authority
Here are some proven tactics and strategies to attract high-quality backlinks according to backlink.com:
- Create link-worthy content – Produce content that provides immense value and that others in your space will find relevant and want to link to. You can include statistics, facts, infographics, sources of information.
- Leverage skyscraper content – Improve upon existing content by making it bigger, better, and more comprehensive. Expand old posts into pillars targeting core topics.
- Publish on industry forums – Leverage profile links and signatures when posting on relevant forums and communities.
- Do personalized outreach – Identify relevant sites, that will definitely help their content be more authentic if they link to your content and directly contact webmasters to politely request a link, you content might be helpful for them.
- Get listed in roundups/directories – Build recurring links through inclusion in expert roundups like “Top 10 blogs” or relevant directories.
- Build relationships – Become a known expert through guest posts, commenting on X. Com, forums, etc. Interact honestly and help others when opportunities arise.
Google’s John Mueller advises on increasing the DA of a website
Google’s John Mueller offered advice on Reddit for improving a site’s Domain Authority (DA) score, despite being “torn” since DA is not used by Google and has no impact on search rankings. Mueller said he doesn’t look at DA when evaluating sites. However, if DA is needed for selling a site or advertising, focus on more useful metrics like pageviews. Or refer to Moz’s documentation since they created the DA metric.
how can I increase DA of my website? it is at 31 right now.
byu/Shri002 inSEO
Assuming a low DA score of 31, Mueller advised first building a strong audience around a niche, low-competition topic you’re knowledgeable about, not something broad like SEO. Create a reasonable amount of fantastic, unique content that compels your target audience to return and recommend your site. Promote your content directly to your audience – don’t rely on search at first.
Over time, search engines will notice signals that your content is great as your audience grows. DA and other metrics will slowly improve as well through links. Quick DA hacks may work short-term but won’t last. Building an engaged audience that searches won’t organically find takes work over the long term. This advice aligns with Mueller’s general guidance on doing well in Google Search.
Conclusion
Improving domain and page authority takes time and effort but in return yields high organic traffic and increased brand recognition over SEPR. The following is the advice by Google’s John Mueller for SEO success: With the above tips, your website authority metrics may improve, enabling it to perform better in the search engines.
Concentrate on the generation of relevant, up-to-date data, and visual elements, optimization of internal site elements, and development of the authoritative external link profile. But wait don’t forget to link internally with relevant authority between pages. It will in the long run enhance your authority in the Google search engine.
So, by following holistic and ethical approaches, you can effectively implement these advice, content, and optimization strategies to increase the domain and page authority of your website.
