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Domain authority

DA · Moz DA

Definition

Domain authority is Moz’s 1–100 score for how likely a hostname is to rank, built from that company’s link index. It is not a Google metric. Google has said it does not use domain authority. Digital PR teams still sort media lists by DA because it is a shared, if blunt, proxy for “this site has a history of being linked.”

A 90 is not ten times a 9. The scale is logarithmic-ish and relative to Moz’s current index. Scores move when Moz recrawls, not only when you earn a link. Two vendors will disagree.

How it works

Use DA as a filter, not a KPI. A DA 22 trade that every buyer reads can beat a DA 88 general news dump that never links and never ranks for your terms. Pair DA with topical fit, indexing, and whether the desk actually covers the beat.

When you report a campaign, show referring domains and the pages that linked. If you must show DA, show the linking page’s metrics and the domain’s, and the date you pulled them.

Worked example

A campaign adds four domains: DA 12 niche blog (follow link, on-topic), DA 71 trade (follow), DA 84 newspaper (nofollow policy), DA 91 contributor network (paid). Rank them by use: the trade and the niche blog did SEO work. The newspaper did reputation work. The contributor network is paid media with a high DA sticker.

How it differs

Domain rating is Ahrefs’ cousin, 0–100 on a different index. They are not interchangeable. Referring domain count is a raw inventory. DA is a model of that inventory. Citation in ChatGPT does not require a high DA page; plenty of cited sources are .gov or docs sites that Moz scores modestly.

Common errors

Treating DA 50 as a pass/fail for pitches. Comparing this month’s DA to last year’s without noting a Moz index update. Buying DA 80 guest posts. Telling a client Google uses DA.

Sources