The Truth About Domain Authority: Does It Matter?

If you spend time working on your website’s SEO, you have probably come across the term “Domain Authority,” often shortened to DA. Many marketers and business owners use this number to gauge how well a website might rank on Google. But is it really the key to improving your visibility online?

Domain Authority is not actually a Google metric. Moz created it as a way to predict how likely a website is to rank in search results compared to other sites. It is scored on a scale from 1 to 100. The higher the number, the more “authority” your website is considered to have in relation to the competition. Moz explains, “Domain Authority is not a metric used by Google in determining search rankings and has no effect on the SERPs.”

This means that while DA can be a useful benchmark, it does not directly impact how Google decides which pages to show. It is best to think of Domain Authority as a rough comparison tool. It can give you an idea of how your site stacks up against others in your industry or which websites might be good targets for backlinks. However, obsessing over raising your DA score can distract you from what actually matters for ranking, like producing high-quality content and building a great user experience.

Google’s own John Mueller has even stated that Google does not use any domain authority metric to rank sites. Instead, Google focuses on hundreds of different signals, including the relevance of your content, the quality of links pointing to your pages, and how well your site answers a user’s search.

Does Domain Authority matter? In short, it is a helpful tool for competitive research, but it should not be your main SEO goal. Focusing on improving your content, earning genuine backlinks, and making your website easy to use will do far more for your rankings than chasing a DA score ever will.

Sources

Moz, https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority
Google Search Central (statements by John Mueller), https://developers.google.com/search/blog