What Is Domain Authority?

Once I began to take blogging seriously I kept coming across the mysterious term 'DA'. It didn't stand for District Attorney, or Deviant Art, or even Domineering Aardvarks. What it actually stood for was 'Domain Authority'.

So what is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority predicts how well websites rank on search engines, and comes in the form of a score between 1 and 100. The higher the score, the better the website will rank. Examples of websites with a DA of 100 include Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Page Authority or PA, on the other hand, scores a specific page on the website.

Does my blog have Domain Authority?

The basic answer is: yes. The full answer is slightly more complicated. For your blog to have its own Domain Authority, it has to have its own domain. My domain is babiafi.co.uk, for instance. If your blog address is a subdomain, like babiafi.blogspot.uk, its DA will be 'shared' with the host domain.

When I had that blogspot address my DA would come up as 95 - but that was actually Blogger's DA. I had no Domain Authority of my own. You can find out your DA HERE; you can also download the MOZ toolbar which lets you be nosy and check out the DA of every website you visit. DA is not static either, it is updated roughly every month, when the Mozscape link index is updated.

Why is Domain Authority important?

DA is only a prediction of how well a website ranks and, as the cynical may well point out, is the rather recent brainchild of Moz, a digital marketing company. But - your DA is used in lots of other settings too. It impacts on your Tots100 score, for example, and many brands won't work with a blog which has a DA of less than 25 or so.

How is Domain Authority calculated?

There are over 40 different factors used to calculate a website's DA, but some of the big ones include:

• Age of the domain.
• Domain popularity. I.e. the ratio of links from and to your website.
• Size of the website. The more content there is to be indexed, the better chance a site has of being ranked highly.
• Number and quality of backlinks.
• Moz metrics like MozRank and MozTrust.

What can I do to improve my Domain Authority?

What tips do you have for increasing Domain Authority?

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How to set up a custom domain email address - for free!

I'd always intended to get a custom domain email address sorted out at some point, then last week I hit upon the idea of setting up a LinkedIn company page for the blog, something you can't do without one. It was time to put good intentions into practice...


What is a custom domain email address?

Basically, this is an email address which uses your custom domain. So, instead of jess@gmail.com we're talking about jess@babiafi.co.uk.

Why would I want one?

This is one instance where it really is all about appearances. Gmail - and the like - addresses are fine, but custom domain email addresses just look a bit more professional.

How do I get one?

First off, you need a custom domain. I bought mine - www.babiafi.co.uk - from 123-reg.com for £3.49 per annum. If you have gone fully self-hosted with that domain, chances are your email will be bundled in with your hosting package. If, like me, you're just using a 'vanity url' (i.e. your own domain name and a redirect), you have three options.

1. Paid Hosting. I don't like spending money, so this one was straight out!

2. Yandex. Sign up is in Russian, but you can always use Google Translate - there's a step by step guide to it all. I have no faith in Google Translate though, so went with...

3. Zoho Mail. Zoho offers you 25 unique email addresses, with 5GB mailbox storage per user. For free. Click HERE to sign up. After clicking on the free option you'll be taken to a new page and asked to input your domain name.

With that done you need to verify your ownership of the domain. To do this, log in to your custom domain account, i.e. where you bought your domain name from. Once you're into your advanced DNS settings there are three methods you can use to verify: CNAME, TXT or HTML. Whichever one you go with, Zoho's instructions are nice and clear so you shouldn't have any problems. I used TXT and it was all done and dusted in two minutes.

The next task is to set up your administrator email address. From there you can either create more users, or skip on to add MX records. This will require you going back into your domain name's DNS settings and adding a new MX type record. Again, the on screen instructions from Zoho are pretty fail safe.

You've Got Mail

No, really, you'll have the Zoho welcome emails waiting for you in your new inbox. You're now free to faff about with the settings, add new users, and promote your fancy new email address.

With that in mind, if you want to get in touch please feel free to email me at jess@babiafi.co.uk. ;)