When a web user enters the search term, there are probably thousands of relevant pages targeting that keyword, and Google needs to decide which page they want to display first. Because the search engine wants to increase the likelihood that the user will have a good experience, it will look for the relevance of content as well as sites that have a history of producing valuable and reliable content in that direction.
This is where domain authority comes in. Your brand new beauty store business will be hard-pressed to compete with a huge chain like Nykaa or Purplle, all other things being equal. Domain authority isn't a metric Google uses when compiling its rank order for SERPs, but it's a gauge of how you can expect it to perform against your competition. Increasing your domain authority score will often correlate with more potential to do well in the SERPs, although this will have no impact on what your competition is doing.
Domain authority scores range from 1-100. When you have a higher Domain Authority score, you are more likely to see increased web traffic and SERP rankings.
Other things you should know about DA:
- DA does not take into account Google penalties. A domain that is under Google penalty naturally loses its ranking, but if this is not necessarily known to Moz. Thus, DA will always be high as long as the domain is under penalty.
- Google's ranking algorithm takes into account hundreds of factors approx. 200, while the domain authority only considers 40 factors.
- Changing your DA score is not easy. It is not something that you can do on your website today and immediately sees the increase in domain authority.
- DA is based on a logarithmic scale. This means it's easier to improve your DA score from 20 to 30, but it's much harder to go from 70 to 80. As you move up the scale, it gets harder.
- DA changes frequently. So this is not a statistic to use to check your SEO performance over time, but rather a website statistic to use for domain comparison purposes.
How to check the current state of your authority
There are a number of tools that allow you to check your domain authority for free, but the best are Moz's Explorer tool. Just install Mozbar, activate it, and search for a phrase. You will see the authority data right there under each search result. SEO Review Tools has a basic domain authority checker. It examines authority (based on the quantity and quality of backlinks) and content.
Raising your AD is a long term process, but there are several ways to do it. If your site is newer or hasn't worked aggressively to link to sites, there's a good chance you're hovering around a 30 or lesser DA. That’s fine!! While it takes time to build your authority, which isn't fun, there are strategies that can help you, and it's much easier to go from a 30 - 40 than a 70 - 80; It gets harder as you go up.
1. Choose a good domain name
If you are just starting out, choose a relevant domain name for your website. It should be relatively easy to remember so that visitors have no problem returning to your site because they forgot your domain name. You might even want to buy an old domain so you don't have to age a domain.
2 Optimize your On-page
SEO is important for both Google search engine rankings and your domain authority, so be sure to optimize on-page including your title tags, image alt tags, keywords, and the content. Plus, include variations of your main keywords, keep all of your permalinks short and relevant, and create a sidebar section for new posts/products/categories. Another SEO best practice is also to improve your content and the relevance of your keywords. This can be done by creating long and detailed content that covers a wide range of content. Check out this study provided by ahrefs shows the how search engine ranking factors stack up against each other:
3. Improve Your Internal Linking Structure
Many websites are so concerned with building external links that they overlook the importance of internal linking. Internal links help direct visitors to what they are trying to find, improving their user experience. This means that if they've dug deep into your web pages, they can still easily find their way to your homepage through one of your internal links. internal links make it easier for search engines to index your entire site.
4. Remove bad and toxic links
Every now and then you should go through your link profile and look for any backlinks that are bad or toxic. This will allow you to remove links from bad sources that could end up harming your domain authority instead of helping it. If, however, you no longer have access to the sites your links are placed on, which may be the case with something like a private blogging network, you should consider disavowing a link through the search console. You should also remove any links posted on your website that lead to bad or broken sites as they will have a negative impact as well.
5 Get more high-authority links & fewer spammy links
When it comes to domain authority, high-quality backlinks are king. The more you have, the higher your score will be. Top-notch content and a cohesive promotional strategy will get the ball rolling. But you'll also want to take a more proactive approach to link building. To do this, contact the authoritative sites and ask them to link to you. Some activities can lead directly to links. Here are just a few: Articles and guest blogs, Submit articles to the media, Submission to directories.
6. Look for Crawlability Issues
If Google can't crawl your site, chances are it is missing out on the great content you have to offer, and that will hurt you in the SERPs. There's also a good chance Moz has the same issues and your domain authority score will suffer. Crawlability issues are something you want to avoid because it means that you aren't getting all the SEO points you should be getting even though you have all the right elements in place. Use a site audit tool to regularly monitor your site for any issues that may be causing issues, such as confusing redirects, broken links, and even duplicate content.
Why did your Domain Authority drop?
If your domain authority has been dropped or recently declined, don't panic. The relative authority of your website may not have changed at all. It is very difficult for Moz to get an accurate snapshot of all the links on the Internet. It’s a huge technical challenge. Sometimes they update the domain authority data every few weeks. Sometimes it takes several months. How often is the domain authority updated? The timetable is not consistent. The metric itself is not consistent either. Sometimes everyone goes up. Sometimes everyone falls.
Why do pages with lower authority outrank pages with higher authority?
Don't be surprised if less authoritative pages rank higher than more authority pages. Authority is important, but it's not the only search ranking factor. Google is not that simple. There are dozens of ranking factors, each factor can have dozens of variations. When a page with a lower authority ranks well, it's probably because it performs well in other aspects:
- The page is more relevant to the target phrase. The phrase has been used more often in larger places.
- The page is contentful & elaborated with in-depth details.
- The links to the page include the target keyword phrase in the link. (exact match anchor text always counts)
- The page is more appealing to visitors and makes visitors stay longer. (user interaction signals count)
Final thoughts
Domain authority is important for a number of reasons. It allows you to judge the overall performance of your website. It also lets you compare your score to that of competing websites to see where you stand. By being able to identify the domain authority of other sites, you can also identify other sites worth linking to in your content as well as sites that are industry authorities that are worth establishing a relationship with. Not to mention that it can help bring in stronger traffic.
