Domain Authority Checker: What is DA and How to Improve It

Domain Authority (DA) is a metric developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank in search engine results. Understanding and improving your DA is crucial for long-term SEO success. This guide explains everything you need to know about domain authority and how to check and improve your score.

What is Domain Authority (DA)?

Domain Authority is a score from 0 to 100 that predicts a website's ability to rank in search results. It was created by Moz and is based on multiple factors including:

Important: DA is not a Google metric. It's a third-party score created by Moz, but it correlates strongly with actual search rankings.

How Domain Authority is Calculated

DA is calculated using a machine learning algorithm that considers:

1. Linking root domains: Unique websites linking to your domain 2. Total backlinks: All links pointing to your site 3. MozRank: Link popularity score 4. MozTrust: Trust score based on link quality 5. Quality metrics: Spam score, link quality

The score is logarithmic — it's much easier to go from DA 10 to DA 20 than from DA 70 to DA 80.

How to Check Your Domain Authority for Free

Using Our Free DA Checker

1. Enter your domain (e.g., yoursite.com) 2. Click "Check Domain Authority" 3. Get instant results showing: - DA Score (0-100) - Page Authority (PA) - Total Backlinks - Linking Root Domains - OpenPageRank Score

Understanding Your DA Score

| DA Score | What It Means | |----------|---------------| | 1-20 | New or low-authority site | | 21-40 | Below average — room for improvement | | 41-60 | Average — competitive in most niches | | 61-80 | High authority — strong SEO presence | | 81-100 | Very high — major brands and news sites |

How to Improve Your Domain Authority

1. Build High-Quality Backlinks

The most effective way to improve DA is to get backlinks from high-DA websites. Focus on:

Guest posting: Write articles for authoritative blogs in your niche. A single link from a DA 70+ site can significantly boost your DA.

Digital PR: Create newsworthy content that journalists and bloggers want to link to. Original research, surveys, and infographics work well.

Broken link building: Find broken links on high-DA sites and suggest your content as a replacement.

HARO: Respond to journalist queries to get links from news sites (DA 80-90+).

2. Create Link-Worthy Content

Content that naturally attracts backlinks:

3. Fix Technical SEO Issues

Technical issues can prevent Google from properly crawling and indexing your site:

4. Remove Toxic Backlinks

Low-quality or spammy backlinks can hurt your DA. Use our Backlink Checker to identify toxic links and disavow them using Google's Disavow Tool.

5. Improve Internal Linking

Strong internal linking helps distribute link equity throughout your site and helps search engines understand your content structure.

Domain Authority vs. Page Authority

| Metric | What It Measures | Scope | |--------|-----------------|-------| | Domain Authority (DA) | Entire website's ranking power | Domain-level | | Page Authority (PA) | Individual page's ranking power | Page-level |

Both metrics range from 0-100. Use DA to evaluate overall site strength and PA to evaluate specific pages.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is a good domain authority score? A: It depends on your niche. For new sites, DA 20-30 is good. For established sites, DA 40-60 is solid. DA 60+ is excellent and puts you ahead of most competitors.

Q: How long does it take to improve domain authority? A: DA improvements take time — typically 3-6 months to see signifi