Domain Authority — ever wondered what it is exactly? SEO (search engine optimization) is a term that is thrown around more often than not when discussing the online presence of different businesses, brands, and even people. If you have no prior knowledge of SEO and what it entails, you have happened upon the right article.
Learning about SEO can be a headache, which is why knowing the basics of Domain Authority can act as a saving grace. Although SEO and Domain Authority are not the same thing, they influence one another and work to fulfill a sort of mutualistic effect. Both can be critical when it comes to finding out exactly where you rank online when it comes to searching up the name of your business or brand.
If you are confused about search engine optimization and ranking, first learning about the ins and outs of Domain Authority can be the best option. Although it is not a difficult subject to grasp, it is important to understand the value it brings when discussing top-ranked websites and how they got there. Read on to learn more about Domain Authority and its importance in our digital world.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority is defined as a search engine ranking score that predicts just how likely your website is to rank on a search engine results page (SERPs). It scores on a range from one to 100, and the higher the score, the greater the likelihood of ranking. Ranking refers to sitting at the top of a search results page.
Domain Authority is determined by data that comes from a web index that uses multiple factors in its calculations. The Domain Authority calculation uses a machine learning model to find a best-fit algorithm that can closely correlate the data with rankings determined by thousands of actual search results.
The standard for finding how a website ranks can be fairly complicated, but by using Domain Authority, you can predict where you will fall in comparison to existing websites of the same caliber. The data collected is all machine-driven for the best results possible. Although you may not find the exact answer down to the decimal, the prediction is accurate and can be cited as predictive data for your business’s website.
Why is it Important?
Any information about your online presence in regard to a business or brand is crucial information. Domain Authority is important when looking through your website’s analytics due to the fact that it is representative of exactly how you rank on a search engine. This is important information for any website owner if you are serious about how often people visit your site.
You can better understand the credibility of your website in the eyes of search engines as well as get an idea of how you match up to your competition. Information like this should not be taken with a grain of salt. Keeping track of where your website ranks can make or break your business or brand.
Domain Authority is also important because after receiving the vital analytics you get from your score and predicted ranking, you can fine-tune your website and search for places that need improvement. No matter when you catch the problem, you are solving it, nonetheless. This awareness is crucial to the success of your business’s online presence.
Search Ranking Factors
There are many things that affect search ranking, and to know how to better use them, you must first understand how they work. There are direct and indirect search ranking factors, which makes it that much more difficult to determine a problem on your website if there is one.
A direct ranking factor is something that Google measures which directly influences how that website or page performs as a search result. An example of this would be creating a website about the motor industry that is relevant and uses many keywords. Google would take the information you have provided, jumble some numbers, and determine that you should be ranked under motor industry websites because you have provided enough information to indicate so.
An indirect ranking is just as important. Things like readability, image-to-text ratio, meta tags, and social signals are all categorized as indirect ranking. This is because they are all factors that must be taken into consideration when comparing websites that are on the same topic. It indicates how often a potential customer would visit the website, and if that customer would stay as well.
Relevance
Relevance is everything when it comes to ranking highly amidst thousands of other websites that are essentially preaching the same message. Relevance is determined by taking into consideration the content of the website as well as the number of keywords used.
Relevance is important because it tells the computers that are calculating Domain Authority and SEO what your website is about, the focus of each page, and how it compares to the other websites that are under the same subject matter. If your content is not as relevant as your biggest competitor, your score is going to reflect that.
When building a website, including the right keywords is everything. There are many ways to determine which words are best to use. To find this out, though, you have to be willing to dive into your top competitors’ websites and analyze their content. Of course, you can do this by paging through, but you can also use websites that will help you come to the results faster and in more methodical detail.
Links
Links play a bigger role than some may think. Almost like additives to an article, links give website visitors more information than they bargained for. Recently, Google has made links the second most important ranking factor when it comes to getting to the top of that SERP. Links let the reader know if your website has authority or not.
Including links on your website proves that the web page is most likely credible and important. In a way, links equate to credibility when it comes to calculating the best websites. It is similar to if there were a lot of different websites out there that linked to your website. This would build credibility and trust.
Content matters, but link building can propel your website to the next level. This is a factor that is oftentimes overlooked despite it being a proven way to rise in the rankings. Rather than doubting it, you can try including a few relevant links on your web pages and see what happens to your Domain Authority score.
Link Quality
Not only are links important, but the quality of the links you use can determine if a person returns to your website. You cannot just include a whole bunch of links and hope for the best. Quality is a sure indicator of whether your website is going to be one at the top of the search engine result page or not.
If you link a site that has links itself, your website would be worth so much more. Links from authoritative, popularly used websites are valuable in the race to the top compared to throwing in just any link from anywhere. Domain Authority takes this into consideration as well. A trusted website holds all this and more.
If you find that your website or a certain page is not ranking, this is most likely because it is either not relevant enough or it is not trusted by the search engine due to the lack of authority from other websites in the same industry.
How Domain Authority is Calculated
Because Domain Authority is such an important indicator of the success of a website, how it is calculated is meticulous and dependable. A machine calculates multiple factors such as linking root domains as well as a total number of links to compile them into a single score. Then, this calculated score is used when comparing websites or keeping track of the ranking strength of a site over time.
The machine learning that is used in this process predicts how often Google uses that domain in its search results. A higher Domain Authority is determined when comparing at least two websites. If domain A is less likely to appear in a Google SERP in comparison to domain B, domain B would be predicted as having a higher Domain Authority.
As more information and data becomes available to the machine learning algorithm, your score may fluctuate. The activity of top-ranking websites also affects the Domain Authority of all other websites. A website like Facebook may decide to acquire a million new links, which would take up more of the high Domain Authority slots that could have been available for other websites.
Check Domain Authority
Finding out the Domain Authority of your website is the first step to figuring out the solutions to any problems you may be having. You can check this fairly easily as long as you have access to a computer and the internet.
You can determine your website’s Domain Authority by using websites like Moz or even in the SERP Analysis section of Keyword Explorer on Moz. You can check this for free, which is valuable information to have under your belt for future campaigns.
When checking your Domain Authority, it is important to pay attention to the score as well as the number of ranking keywords. This information can lead you to know how to fix problems on your website before they even present themselves to the public.
Once you check Domain Authority, you have to keep yourself updated on your progress. By doing this, you will be able to spot patterns. From these patterns, you can compare your website to the top-ranking ones.
What is a Good Domain Authority Score?
There are many Domain Authority checkers out there that allow you to get insight into how your website is holding up in comparison to others like it. A general rule, though, is that the higher the ranking, the better off your site is. Websites that have large numbers of high-quality external links are typically at the top of the scale while small businesses and websites that hold only a few inbound links have lower scores.
Every website begins with a Domain Authority score of one, and it increases as the website earns more backlinks as time progresses. It is unlikely that your website is going to be competing with sites like Wikipedia and Google, but you can compete with smaller, similar websites.
It is recommended that you look at the Domain Authority scores of websites that you are in direct competition with on the SERPs and then shift your goals to gain a higher score than them. Since it is a comparative metric, it is important to utilize the information given to propel your website higher than others.
How to Increase Domain Authority
After checking Domain Authority, you may find that you need to increase it in order to achieve your marketing goals. The best way to do this is by considering your website as a whole. Are there places that need a little more work when you compare your website to other, more successful websites? Or do you just need to add in a few things to compete? These are both questions that can exponentially improve your website.
Whatever your reasons are for wanting to increase your site’s score, it is important to focus on improving the overall SEO health of your website. This means your attention should mainly be on the quality and quantity of external links.
It is difficult to pinpoint the exact problem of your website in order to fix it because Domain Authority accounts for multiple factors to determine a score. There is immense complexity behind each score, so if you were hoping to be told exactly what needs to be fixed, you should reconsider. The best way to increase your score is to work on factors that improve a website’s SEO.
Why Domain Authority Can Change
Despite maybe feeling hopeless after checking your website’s Domain Authority, it is important to remember that it can change. Your website’s score can change due to the multiple, everchanging calculations and metrics involved in predicting a score. As mentioned before, it is almost impossible to pinpoint an exact problem to solve if your website’s score is on the lower end of the scale.
There are many reasons why your Domain Authority may be increasing or decreasing. For example, your score may decrease because your link profile growth has not been captured by the web index. It could also be because a higher-authority website made substantial link growth, which can skew the scaling process.
Other possible reasons for a change of score are receiving links from places that do not exactly contribute to the Google rankings, your score being on the lower end and therefore easily impacted by fluctuations of the scale, and more. It is important not to panic if you find your website’s score decreasing because there is most likely a reason for this that can be fixed through trial and error.
Domain Authority vs Page Authority
Page Authority is a term that comes up with the mention of Domain Authority and for good reason. While Domain Authority refers to the prediction of where your website lies when compared to others on a search engine results page, Page Authority refers to the success or failure of a specific page on your website. Instead of the entire website being taken into consideration, only a page is predicted in the ranking on search engine result pages.
Just as Domain Authority is comparative, Page Authority is calculated by taking a bunch of different factors to determine a comprehensive score. They are more alike than they are different because of how they are measured, but some may prefer basing the success of their website off of Page Authority scores due to the specificity.
By looking at Page Authority, you are more likely to receive more data and input about what needs to be changed due to the smaller scale. Rather than having to reevaluate an entire website, you would only have to consider a single page of the site and the modifications it needed.
To Conclude
If you are unaware of the intricacies behind SEO and what is necessary when improving your website, Domain Authority can act as the next best thing. A prediction of where you rank on a SERP allows you time to switch your strategy, better your marketing campaign, or even just improve your website due to a desire to be great. Whatever the reason, it helps more than hurts to analyze exactly how your website is doing amidst competitors.
Domain Authority is an important concept when it comes to determining where your website ranks amongst the millions of others. Without information like this, your progress in the digital world may not be where you want it to be. By utilizing these strategies along with the background knowledge of Domain Authority, you can get a step ahead of the competition.