This week, Moz announced an update to its Domain Authority (DA) score, which unsurprisingly led to some confusion in the SEO industry. Some SEOs, particularly those new to the field, mistakenly equate the DA metric with an internal metric used by Google. This misconception is perpetuated by agencies and vendors offering services to “improve your Domain Authority.”
It’s important to clarify that DA is not a Google metric. Instead, it’s a metric developed by Moz, an SEO toolset provider, based on its own datasets and algorithms. Moz has never claimed that Google uses DA. In fact, they have explicitly stated that DA is not a Google metric.
Many companies, like Majestic and Ahrefs, have their own internal link scores. Since DA is not utilized by Google, it doesn’t affect your Google rankings. Whether your DA score rises or falls, you shouldn’t expect your Google rankings to be impacted.
Russ Jones from Moz has even suggested including a disclaimer on the DA score, as people often question Google on how to improve their DA scores:
“The tool tip should lead to the ‘What is Domain Authority’ page, and that page should explicitly state ‘Google does not use DA as a ranking factor’. I have submitted the request,” stated Jones.
There has been notable confusion among SEOs who are concerned about changes in their DA scores and how these might affect their Google rankings. Google representatives have been responding to complaints regarding DA score changes.
The confusion partly arises from emails and posts that incorrectly claim “sites got penalized” by the updated DA algorithm, promoting link-building services “to improve your Domain Authority.” Such misinformation campaigns are not uncommon tactics.
Historically, this hype ties back to Google PageRank. The allure of PageRank or PR, especially when Google made this score visible via the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer in 2000, fueled an obsession. The SEO industry became preoccupied with PR scores, leading to rampant buying, selling, and trading of links based on PageRank. This spawned a proliferation of link-building schemes aimed at exploiting the system.
When Google stopped displaying PageRank in 2016, the industry sought a new metric for link-building efforts. This is where Moz’s Domain Authority entered the scene. It became, perhaps unintentionally, the new metric to obsess over.
It’s crucial to understand the significance here. Focusing solely on PageRank was never a wise SEO strategy, just as fixating solely on DA isn’t advisable now. “Domain Authority is a comparative metric, and I cannot stress this enough. On its own, in a vacuum, DA means very little,” expressed Moz’s Russ Jones in an interview.
Overall, DA has no bearing on your Google rankings. Your DA score can drastically drop without affecting your rankings in Google. Look at the broader picture and be wary of pitches claiming to enhance your Domain Authority.
