If you have ever dipped your toes into the world of search engine optimization (SEO), you have likely come across the terms “Domain Authority” and “Page Authority.” These metrics are often discussed in marketing meetings and SEO reports, but what do they actually mean? Understanding the distinction between them is crucial for anyone looking to improve their website’s visibility on search engines like Google.
Think of your website as a large, reputable university. The university’s overall reputation—built over years of academic excellence, famous alumni, and groundbreaking research—is like your Domain Authority (DA). It represents the strength and credibility of your entire website. Now, think of a specific, highly-cited research paper published by one of the university’s professors. The credibility and influence of that single paper are similar to your Page Authority (PA). It measures the strength of an individual page.
While both metrics are important, they serve different functions in your SEO strategy. A strong Domain Authority can give your entire site a lift, but high Page Authority on key pages can help you dominate search results for specific topics. In this guide, we will break down the differences between Domain Authority and Page Authority, explain how they work, and provide actionable steps to improve both for better search engine rankings.
What is Domain Authority (DA)?
Domain Authority is a search engine ranking score developed by the SEO software company Moz. It predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). DA scores range from one to 100, with higher scores indicating a greater ability to rank.
It’s important to understand that Domain Authority is not a metric used by Google to determine search rankings. Instead, it is a comparative tool. Its primary purpose is to help you gauge your website’s ranking strength over time and in comparison to your competitors. If your website has a DA of 45 and your main competitor has a DA of 60, they have a stronger ranking potential in the eyes of this particular metric.
Think of DA as a measure of your website’s overall “clout” on the internet. A site like The New York Times or Wikipedia has an extremely high DA because they have earned millions of backlinks from a vast number of other reputable sites over many years. A brand-new blog, on the other hand, will start with a DA of one because it has not yet had the time to build a history of trust and authority.
How is Domain Authority Calculated?
Moz’s Domain Authority calculation is complex and uses a machine learning algorithm. While the exact formula is proprietary, we know it is primarily based on link data. It evaluates over 40 different factors, but the most significant ones include:
- Linking Root Domains: This is the number of unique domains linking to your website. One hundred links from a single website are not as valuable as one link each from 100 different, reputable websites. Diversity in your link sources is key.
- Total Number of Backlinks: The sheer volume of links pointing to your site is a factor. More high-quality links generally contribute to a higher DA.
- Quality and Relevance of Linking Domains: The authority of the sites linking to you matters immensely. A backlink from a high-authority site like a major news outlet or an industry-leading publication carries far more weight than a link from an unknown, low-quality blog.
- MozRank and MozTrust: These are other Moz-specific metrics that assess the quality of external links (MozRank) and the trustworthiness of the sites linking to you (MozTrust).
Because the DA scale is logarithmic, it is much easier to grow your score from 10 to 20 than it is to go from 70 to 80. Each level up requires exponentially more effort and higher-quality links.
What Is a Good Domain Authority Score?
This is a common question, but the answer is always “it’s relative.” There is no universal “good” DA score. A good score for your website is one that is higher than your direct competitors.
For a local plumber in a small town, a DA of 25 might be excellent if their competitors are all below 20. However, for a national e-commerce brand, a DA of 25 would be very low, as they are competing with giants like Amazon and Walmart, which have DAs in the high 90s.
The best way to use DA is for benchmarking. Track your own DA over time to see if your SEO efforts are paying off. More importantly, regularly check the DA of the websites that rank for your target keywords. Your goal should be to close the gap and eventually surpass them.
What is Page Authority (PA)?
While Domain Authority provides a big-picture view of your entire website, Page Authority (PA) zooms in to measure the predictive ranking strength of a single page. Like DA, it is a score developed by Moz on a 100-point logarithmic scale.
PA predicts how well a specific page, such as a blog post, product page, or your homepage, will rank on SERPs. Each page on your website has its own unique PA score. This means your homepage might have a PA of 50, a popular blog post could have a PA of 40, and a brand-new page could have a PA of 1.
The primary value of PA is in its specificity. It helps you understand which pages on your site are the strongest and have the best chance of ranking. It also allows you to compare your page directly against a competitor’s page that is ranking for the same keyword. If your page has a higher PA, you theoretically have a better chance of outranking them, assuming other factors are equal.
How is Page Authority Calculated?
The calculation for Page Authority is similar to Domain Authority, as it also relies on a machine learning model and evaluates over 40 factors. However, it focuses exclusively on the metrics for that one specific page. The key factors influencing PA are:
- Backlinks to the Specific Page: The number and quality of external links pointing directly to that page are the most critical factor. A page with many high-quality backlinks will have a higher PA.
- Internal Links: The number and quality of internal links pointing to the page from other pages on your own website also play a role. A strong internal linking structure helps distribute authority throughout your site.
- Domain Authority: While PA is a page-level metric, it is still influenced by the overall authority of the domain it sits on. A page on a high-DA site has a better starting point than a page on a low-DA site.
- On-Page SEO Factors: Although PA is heavily link-based, factors like content quality, keyword optimization, and user engagement signals are indirectly considered because they influence whether other sites will link to the page.
Just like DA, the PA scale is logarithmic. Improving a page’s score from 60 to 70 is a much greater challenge than improving it from 20 to 30.
Key Differences: Domain Authority vs. Page Authority
Let’s summarize the core differences in a straightforward way:
|
Feature |
Domain Authority (DA) |
Page Authority (PA) |
|---|---|---|
|
Scope |
Measures the predictive ranking strength of an entire website or subdomain. |
Measures the predictive ranking strength of a single, individual page. |
|
Focus |
Provides a holistic, site-wide measure of authority. |
Provides a granular, page-level measure of authority. |
|
Primary Influencers |
The cumulative quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to the entire domain from many unique root domains. |
The quantity and quality of backlinks pointing specifically to that one page, plus its internal links. |
|
Application |
Used for broad competitive analysis and tracking overall site health. |
Used for page-level competitive analysis and prioritizing which pages to optimize. |
Essentially, DA tells you about the overall reputation of your “house,” while PA tells you about the popularity of a specific “room” inside it. You can have a very reputable house (high DA) with some rooms that are more popular than others (varying PAs).
Why Do These Metrics Matter for SEO?
Although Google does not use DA or PA as direct ranking factors, these metrics are incredibly valuable for shaping your SEO strategy. They provide a data-driven way to understand your site’s competitive landscape and measure progress.
- Competitive Analysis: DA and PA are excellent for sizing up the competition. Before you try to rank for a competitive keyword, you can analyze the DA of the top-ranking sites and the PA of the top-ranking pages. This helps you determine if you have a realistic chance of competing and what it might take to get there. If the top results are all from sites with DAs over 80, you know it will be an uphill battle.
- Gauging Link Building Efforts: Building high-quality backlinks is a cornerstone of SEO. Tracking your DA and the PA of your key pages over time is a tangible way to measure the impact of your link building campaigns. As you acquire more authoritative links, you should see your scores increase.
- Prioritizing Content and SEO Work: Not all pages on your site are created equal. By identifying pages with high PA, you can recognize your most valuable content assets. You can then work to further optimize these pages or build internal links from them to newer, less authoritative pages to pass some of that “link juice.” Conversely, identifying important pages with low PA can help you prioritize them for link-building and content improvement efforts.
- Informing Guest Posting and Outreach: When looking for guest posting opportunities, checking the DA of a target website is a quick way to vet its quality. Securing a backlink from a site with a high DA is generally more valuable than getting one from a site with a low DA.
Actionable Tips to Improve Your Domain and Page Authority
Improving your DA and PA is a long-term game that centers on one main principle: earning high-quality backlinks. Here are practical strategies you can implement to boost your scores and, by extension, your SEO performance.
1. Create Link-Worthy Content
This is the foundation of any successful link-building effort. You cannot expect other websites to link to you if your content is not valuable, original, and informative. “Link-worthy” content often takes the form of:
- Original Research and Data: Conduct surveys, analyze data, and publish your findings. People love to cite statistics and data to support their own arguments.
- In-Depth Guides and Tutorials: Create the most comprehensive resource available on a particular topic. If your guide is the best, others will naturally reference it.
- Free Tools and Templates: Develop a simple calculator, a set of templates, or a useful checklist. Tools are incredibly effective at attracting links.
- Visually Appealing Infographics: Turn complex information into a beautiful and easy-to-digest infographic. These are highly shareable and often get embedded in other blog posts.
2. Conduct Strategic Guest Posting
Guest posting involves writing an article for another website in your industry. In return, you typically get an author bio with a link back to your website. This is a powerful way to build both DA and PA.
Focus on quality, not quantity. Identify reputable websites in your niche with a solid DA. Pitch them unique, high-value article ideas that will benefit their audience. When you write the post, include a contextual link back to a relevant page on your site. This not only builds your authority but also drives referral traffic.
3. Improve Your Internal Linking Structure
Internal linking is one of the most underrated SEO tactics. By linking from one page on your site to another, you help search engines understand your site’s structure, and you also pass authority between your pages.
Find your pages with the highest PA using a tool like Moz’s Link Explorer. Then, from those high-authority pages, add internal links to other important but lower-authority pages that you want to boost. This helps spread the “link juice” around your site and can give your other pages a lift.
4. Perform a Backlink Audit and Remove Toxic Links
Not all links are good for you. Links from spammy, low-quality, or irrelevant websites can actually harm your site’s credibility and potentially lower your authority scores.
Use an SEO tool to regularly audit your backlink profile. Look for links from sites that seem like link farms, have inappropriate content, or are completely unrelated to your industry. If you find harmful links, you can reach out to the site owner and request removal. If that fails, you can use Google’s Disavow Tool to tell Google to ignore those links when assessing your site.
5. Promote Your Content Actively
Simply publishing great content is not enough. You need to actively promote it to get it in front of people who can link to it.
Share your best content on social media platforms where your audience is active. Reach out to influencers and experts mentioned in your article and let them know you featured them. You can also engage in relevant online communities and forums, sharing your content where it adds value to the conversation. The more visibility your content gets, the higher the chance it has of earning natural backlinks.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: How long does it take to increase my Domain Authority?
A: Improving DA is a slow and steady process. It can take several months to a year or more to see significant improvement, especially if you are starting from a low score. It requires consistent effort in creating great content and earning quality backlinks. There are no shortcuts.
Q: Can I have a high Page Authority on a low Domain Authority site?
A: Yes, it is possible. If you create an exceptional piece of content that goes viral and earns a lot of high-quality backlinks directly to that page, its PA could become quite high, even if the rest of your site is new or has a low DA. However, in the long run, building your overall DA will provide a stronger foundation for all your pages.
Q: Is Domain Authority the same as Semrush’s Authority Score?
A: No, they are similar but different. Domain Authority (DA) is a metric from Moz. Authority Score (AS) is a competing metric from Semrush. Both aim to measure a website’s overall authority based on backlinks and other factors, but they use different algorithms and data. It is best to stick to one metric for consistency in your tracking.
Q: Should I focus more on DA or PA?
A: You should focus on both, as they are interconnected. Your strategy should be to increase your overall Domain Authority by consistently acquiring quality backlinks across your site. At the same time, you should identify your most important pages (like key service or product pages) and focus specific link-building efforts on them to increase their Page Authority.
Conclusion
Understanding the relationship between Domain Authority and Page Authority demystifies a core part of SEO. DA gives you a 10,000-foot view of your site’s overall strength, while PA provides a microscopic look at the power of your individual pages. Neither is a direct ranking factor for Google, but both are invaluable diagnostic tools that help you measure your SEO health and benchmark your performance against the competition.
By focusing on the fundamental principles of good SEO—creating outstanding content, building a strong internal link structure, and earning high-quality backlinks from reputable sources—you will naturally improve both your Domain Authority and Page Authority over time. This long-term investment in your website’s credibility is what ultimately leads to higher rankings, more organic traffic, and sustainable growth for your business.